at this moment, under the constitution of the
United States, as is traffic with their masters; and this fact is
entirely inconsistent with the idea that their bondage is
constitutional.

_Third._ "The congress shall have power to establish post offices and
post roads."

Who, but congress, have any right to say who may send, or receive
letters by the United States posts? Certainly no one. They have
undoubted authority to permit any one to send and receive letters by
their posts--"any thing in the constitutions or laws of the states to
the contrary notwithstanding." Yet the right to send and receive letters
by post, is a right inconsistent with the idea of a man's being a slave.

_Fourth._ "The congress shall have power to promote the progress of
science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and
inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and
discoveries."

Suppose a man, whom a state may pretend to call a slave, should make an
invention or discovery--congress have undoubted power to secure to such
individual himself, by patent, the "_exclusive_"--(mark the word)--the
"exclusive right" to his invention or discovery. But does not this
"_exclusive right_" in the inventor himself, exclude the right of any
man, who, under a state law, may claim to be the owner of the inventor?
Certainly it does. Yet the slave code says that whatever is a slave's is
his owner's. This power, then, on the part of congress, to secure to an
individual the exclusive right to his inventions and discoveries, is a
power inconsistent with the idea that that individual himself, and all
he may possess, are the property of another.

_Fifth._ "The congress shall have power to declare war, grant letters
of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land
and water;" also "to raise and support armies;" and "to provide and
maintain a navy."

Have not congress authority, under these powers, to enlist soldiers and
sailors, _by contract with themselves_, and to pay them their wages,
grant them pensions, and secure their wages and pensions to their own
use, without asking the permission either of the state governments, or
of any individuals whom the state governments may see fit to recognize
as the owners of such soldiers and sailors? Certainly they have, in
defiance of all state laws and constitutions whatsoever; and they have
already asserted that principle by enacting that