both of
liberty and humanity.

The celebrated Roger Sherman, one of the committee of five appointed to
draft the Declaration of Independence, and also a member of the
convention that formed the United States' constitution, said, in the
first Congress after its adoption: "The constitution _does not consider
these persons,_ (slaves,) _as a species of property._"--[Lloyd's Cong.
Reg. v. 1, p. 313.] That the United States' Constitution does not make
slaves "property," is shown in the fact that no person, either as a
citizen of the United States, or by having his domicile within the
United States' government, can hold slaves. He can hold them only by
deriving his power from _state_ laws, or from the laws of Congress, if
he hold slaves within the District. But no person resident within the
United States' jurisdiction, and not within the District, nor within a
state whose laws support slavery, nor "held to service" under the laws
of such state or district, having escaped therefrom, _can be held as a
slave_.

Men can hold _property_ under the United States' government though
residing beyond the bounds of any state, district, or territory. An
inhabitant of the Wisconsin Territory can hold property there under the
laws of the United States, but he cannot hold _slaves_ there under the
United States' laws, nor by virtue of the United States' Constitution,
nor upon the ground of his United States citizenship, nor by having his
domicile within the United States' jurisdiction. The constitution no
where recognizes the right to "slave property," _but merely the fact
that the states have jurisdiction each in its own limits, and that there
are certain "persons" within their jurisdictions "held to service" by
their own laws._

Finally, in the clause under consideration, "private property" is not to
be taken "without _just_ compensation." "JUST!" If justice is to be
appealed to in determining the amount of compensation, let her determine
the _grounds_ also. If it be her province to say _how much_ compensation
is "just," it is hers to say whether _any_ is "just,"--whether the slave
is "just" property _at all_, rather than a "_person_." Then, if justice
adjudges the slave to be "private property," it adjudges him to be _his
own_ property, since the right to one's _self_ is the first right--the
source of all others--the original stock by which they are
accumulated--the principal, of which they are the interest. And since
the slave's "priva