who brought him to Maryland in '93, was pronounced free by
the Maryland Court of Appeals--are illustrations of the acknowledged
truth here asserted, that by the consent of the civilized world, and on
the principles of universal law, slaves are not "_property_," and that
whenever held as property under _law_, it is only by _positive
legislative acts_, forcibly setting aside the law of nature, the common
law, and the principles of universal justice and right between man and
man,--principles paramount to all law, and from which alone law, derives
its intrinsic authoritative sanction.]

9. CONGRESS HAS UNQUESTIONABLE POWER TO ADOPT THE COMMON LAW, AS THE
LEGAL SYSTEM, WITHIN ITS EXCLUSIVE JURISDICTION.--This has been done,
with certain restrictions, in most of the States, either by legislative
acts or by constitutional implication. THE COMMON LAW KNOWS NO SLAVES.
Its principles annihilate slavery wherever they touch it. It is a
universal, unconditional, abolition act. Wherever slavery is a legal
system, it is so only by _statute_ law, and in violation of the common
law. The declaration of Lord Chief Justice Holt, that, "by the common
law, no man can have property in another," is an acknowledged axiom, and
based upon the well known common law definition of property. "The
subjects of dominion or property are _things_, as contra-distinguished
from _persons_." Let Congress adopt the common law in the District of
Columbia, and slavery there is at once abolished. Congress may well be
at home in common law legislation, for the common law is the grand
element of the United States Constitution. All its _fundamental_
provisions are instinct with its spirit; and its existence, principles,
and paramount authority, are presupposed and assumed throughout the
whole. The preamble of the Constitution plants the standard of the
Common Law immovably in its foreground. "We, the people of the United
States, in order to ESTABLISH JUSTICE, &c., do ordain and establish this
Constitution;" thus proclaiming _devotion to_ JUSTICE, as the
controlling motive in the organization of the Government, and its secure
establishment the chief object of its aims. By this most solemn
recognition, the common law, that grand legal embodyment of "_justice_"
and fundamental right--was made the Groundwork of the Constitution, and
intrenched behind its strongest munitions. The second clause of Sec. 9,
Art. 1; Sec. 4, Art. 2, and the last clause of Sec. 2, Art. 3, with