f it can say, what _shall_ be
considered property, it can say what shall _not_ be considered property.
Suppose a legislature should enact that marriage contracts shall be mere
bills of sale, making a husband the proprietor of his wife, as his _bona
fide_ property; and suppose husbands should herd their wives in droves
for the market as beasts of burden, or for the brothel as victims of
lust, and then prate about their inviolable legal property, and deny the
power of the legislature, which stamped them "property," to undo its own
wrong, and secure to wives by law the rights of human beings. Would such
cant about "legal rights" be heeded where reason and justice held sway,
and where law, based upon fundamental morality, received homage? If a
frantic legislature pronounces woman a chattel, has it no power, with
returning reason, to take back the blasphemy? Is the impious edict
irrepealable? Be it, that with legal forms it has stamped wives "wares."
Can no legislation blot out the brand? Must the handwriting of Deity on
human nature be expunged for ever? Has law no power to stay the erasing
pen, and tear off the scrawled label that covers up the IMAGE OF GOD?

II. THE POWER OF CONGRESS TO ABOLISH SLAVERY IN THE DISTRICT HAS BEEN,
TILL RECENTLY, UNIVERSALLY CONCEDED.

1. IT HAS BEEN ASSUMED BY CONGRESS ITSELF. The following record stands
on the journals of the House of Representatives for 1804, p. 225: "On
motion made and seconded that the House do come to the following
resolution: 'Resolved, That from and after the 4th day of July, 1805,
all blacks and people of color that shall be born within the District of
Columbia, or whose mothers shall be the property of any person residing
within said District, shall be free, the males at the age of ----, and
the females at the age of ----. The main question being taken that the
house do agree to said motion as originally proposed, it was negatived
by a majority of 46.'" Though the motion was lost, it was on the ground
of its alleged _inexpediency_ alone. In the debate which preceded the
vote, the _power_ of Congress was conceded. In March, 1816, the House of
Representatives passed the following resolution:--"Resolved, That a
committee be appointed to inquire into the existence of an inhuman and
illegal traffic in slaves, carried on in and through the District of
Columbia, and to report whether any and what measures are necessary for
_putting a stop to the same_."

On the 9th o