_them_ to slavery. If one
such citizen can be enslaved, then can any other; and the very
foundations of the Federal Government can be overturned by a State. For
a government that cannot protect _its own citizens_ from loss of
citizenship by being chattellized is no government at all.

Citizenship is a reciprocal relation. The citizen owes allegiance; the
government owes protection. When a person is naturalized, he takes the
oath of allegiance. Does he got nothing in return? Can a State annul all
the rights which the Federal Government has conferred? Then, indeed,
would it be better for those who come to our shores to remain citizens
of the old nations; for _they_ could protect them, but _we_ cannot.
Then, to be a citizen of the United States--a privilege we had thought
greater than that of Roman citizenship when that empire was in its
glory--is a privilege which any State may annul at its pleasure!

The power and position of a nation depend upon the number, wealth,
intelligence, and power of its citizens. And the nation, in order to
employ and develop its resources, must have free scope for the use of
its powers. No State has a right to block the path of the United States,
or in any way to "retard, impede, or burden it, in the execution of its
powers." For this reason, if a citizen is wealthy enough to lend money
to the Federal Government, a State cannot _tax his scrip_ to the amount
of one cent. But, if the doctrine contended for by some is sound, then
it may take _the citizen himself_, confiscate the whole of his property,
blot out his citizenship, and make a chattel of him, and the Federal
Government can afford him no protection! Among all the doctrines that
Slavery has originated in this country, there is none more monstrous
than this.

But this is not a question of any practical importance at this time.
There is no danger that Slavery will ever be tolerated where it has been
once abolished. It may go into new fields; it seldom returns to those
from which it has been driven. The institutions of learning and religion
that follow in the path of freedom, if they find a congenial soil, are
not likely to be supplanted by the dark and noxious exotics of ignorance
and barbarism.

And besides, as we have already seen, it is our right, as one of the
conditions of restoration, to provide for the _perpetual prohibition_ of
Slavery within the Rebel States. This, like the Ordinance of 1787, will
stand as an insurmountable b