CONGRESS, U. S. 



3.35 



of his slaves. This is what the rebel leaders 

 will delight to say, and delight to have so 

 much reason to say." 



The amendments were rejected, and the 

 original bill then considered. 



Mr. Davis, of Kentucky, in opposition to the 

 bill said : " I shall now assume the position 

 that the Congress of the United States have no 

 power to emancipate a slave anywhere in a 

 State or in the District of Columbia. The 

 great rights which are secured by the Consti- 

 tution to the citizen and to the States, and the 

 great restrictions npon the powers of Congress 

 by the Constitution also limit and restrict the 

 grant of legislative power to Congress in the 

 District of Columbia. That is my proposition. 

 It is one founded in the Constitution itself. It 

 is immovably moored in that instrument, and 

 no lawyer can tear it from its firm anchorage. 

 It is upon that position that I now propose to 

 draw my deduction, and it is this : I say that 

 all the great rights secured by the Constitution 

 to the citizen exist in the District of Columbia 

 as they exist in all the States of the Union, 

 notwithstanding the clause in the Constitution 

 which gives Congress the exclusive power of 

 legislation in the District. That exclusive 

 power means necessarily in subordination to 

 and within all the prohibitions and the rights 

 made and secured by the Constitution itself. 

 What is one of those rights secured universally 

 in this District as well as in the States ? It is 

 the right of property. Is not the right to the 

 writ of habeas corpw, the right to trial by jury, 

 the right to freedom of conscience, the freedom 

 of speech, and the liberty of the press guaran- 

 teed to the people of the District of Columbia 

 as inalienably, as inviolably, as inextricably, as 

 they are guaranteed to the citizens of any of 

 the States ? I say they are ; and I say among 

 other rights that are guaranteed to the people 

 of the District of Columbia, and to every citi- 

 zen of the United States, is the right of prop- 

 erty. He cannot be deprived of his property 

 except in the mode prescribed and authorized 

 by the Constitution of the United States. I 

 will now read that clause in the amendments 

 to the Constitution : 



No person shall be held to answer for a capital or 

 otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or 

 indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in 

 the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in 

 actual service in time of war or public danger; nor 

 shall any person be subject for the same offence to be 

 twice put in jeopardy of life or limb ; nor shall be com- 

 pelled in any criminal case to be a witness against 

 himself, nor" be deprived of life, liberty, or property 

 without due process of law ; nor shall private property 

 be taken for public use without just compenstion. 



" I concede that whenever it is necessary, in 

 the administration of the Government" in 

 carrying forward the great business of the Gov- 

 ernment of the United States, that the Govern- 

 ment should have private property for public 

 use, it has the right to take that private prop- 

 erty on the condition of making compensation 

 for it, and npon no other condition. The point 



in that provision of the Constitution is this, and 

 I ask the attention of my honorable friend 

 from Maine to it : the Government of the Unit- 

 ed States cannot take the citizen's property 

 capriciously ; it cannot take it without a pur- 

 pose, even by making just compensation for it; 

 it cannot take it to burn it, if it may be con- 

 sumed, or to destroy it ; it may take it for 

 public use. This is the simple and sole condi- 

 tion upon which the inviolability of private 

 property can be broken by the Government it- 

 self; it must be necessary for public use. 

 "What is use ? It is employment. To use is to 

 employ. To employ is to apply as an instru- 

 ment or an agent the thing that is taken for 

 public use ; and unless in good faith and in strict 

 truth the thing or the property is taken for 

 public use in the sense in which I have stated 

 it, there is no constitutional right on the part 

 of the Government to take the property at all. 

 "Even if Congress had the power to eman- 

 cipate slaves, I ask if that is not taking from 

 the owners of those slaves their private prop- 

 erty? How is that private property to be 

 taken from them ? The Constitution provides 

 that no citizen shall be compelled in any crim- 

 inal case to be a witness against himself. 



Nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without 

 due process of law ; nor shall private property be 

 taken for public use without just compensation. 



" This is my position : that the Congress of 

 the United States has not the right to declare 

 arbitrarily a mode, and arbitrarily a limit of 

 price, even*if it has the power to emanci- 

 pate slaves in this District, by which these 

 slaves will be taken from their owners and 

 manumitted. If the slaves are taken for the 

 purpose of being emancipated, of being libera- 

 ted, they must be taken by due process of law. 

 "What is that due process of law ? It is this : 

 just as a citizen's property of any other class 

 or description is taken from him for any pur- 

 pose of the Government, so is the negro to be 

 taken from his owner, even conceding that 

 Congress has the power to liberate him. You 

 must take that slave and ypn must have him 

 appraised judicially, and by a mode that is 

 quasi judicial ; you must have a court to act in 

 the matter ; you must have a court to summon 

 a J urv ! Tou must have a court to appoint com- 

 missioners, and under the supervision and 

 sanction of this court, this matter of valuing 

 the property in slaves is to proceed, as it does 

 in relation to any other property of a citizen 

 that may be taken by the exercise of the pow- 

 er of Congress or of the General Government 

 over him." 



Mr. Davis then alluded to the statements of 

 the Administration relative to the objects of the 

 war, and read the following extract from the 

 resolution passed at the preceding session in 

 July, 1861 : 



That this war is not prosecuted upon our part in any 

 spirit of oppression, nor for any purpose of conques't 

 or subjugation, nor for the purpose of overthrowing or 

 interfering with the rights or established institutions 



