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Show 398 THE DRED SCO'r'r CASE. among·st those citizens Ly CI'eatin 0' privileges jn one c1nss o.f those cit .ens, and l>y t~1c di.-franchi ement of other portiOns or cla. scs by degrading them from the position they previously occn pied. 1,1lero can exist no rational or natnral connection or affi. nity between a pretension Jiko this and the power vested h the Consiitnfion in Congress with regard to the territories~ on the contrary, there is an aLsolntc incongruity l>etweCJ~ them. Bnt whatever the power Yrste<l l>y Congress, and whatever the prcci. e , nhject to which that power extended, it is clea.r that the power related to a subject appertaining to the Un~lr>d 81nlr>s, and one to l>e di.·po cd of and regulated for tho benefit and under the authority of the United 1 1 C 1 a e . ongress was mn,de simply the rtgcnt or tr'uslee for the United States, upon equal gronnd., legal ot· equitaule. Congress co~ld not appropriate that subject to any one class or portion of tho people to the exclusion of others politic~lly and constitutionally equals; l>ut every citizen would, If any one could claim it, have the like rights of purchase, settlement, occupation, or any other right in their national territory. .No~lting can be more conclusive to show the equality of tlns With every other right in all the citizens of the United SLates, and tho iniquity and absurdity of the pretensions to exclude or to disfmnchisc a portion of them because they are the owners of laves, than the fact that the same instrument, whi~h imparts to Congress its very exL tence, and its very fnnct10ns, guarantees to the slaveholder the title to his property, and give him the right to reclaim bis property throughout .the country; and, further, that the only prh'nte property. wh1ch th.e Constitution has specifically recogm'zed, and has Imposed 1t as a direct obligation both on the States and the federal government to protect and enforce, is·the property of the master in his slave : no other right of 'J.1IIE DRED SCO'r'r CASE. 399 roperty is placed hy the Constitution on the same high gpr on nd , nor s' hir1L1ecl by a simihu· guarantee. . Can there be imputed to the ~ngc. ancl patnots by whom the Constitution \v:ts fn11nc<1, or cn.n there be detected in the text of that Constitution, or in any rational construct ion or implication clcdn ·iblc therefrom, a contrnc1ietion so palpable as would exist between a pl •clge 1o tho slaveholder of an equality with his ~cllow-ciLizen~, an<l of t.he formal an.d solemn assurance for the sccnnly and CllJoymont of lus properLy, and a warrant given as it were uno flatu to another, to rob him of that property, or to subject him to proscription and disfra.nchiscmrnt for possessing, or for endeavoring to retain it? rrhc injustice and oxlravngance necessarily implied in a supposition like th i ~, cannot be rationally impulccl to the patriotic or tho honest, or to those who were merely sane. .A. conclnsion in favor of the prohibitory power in Con g1·ess, as a~serted in the eighth sertion of tho act of I 820, has been attempted, as deducible from the prccctlent of the ordinance of the Convention of 1787, concerning the cession by Virginia of the territory northwest of tho Ohio: the provision in which ordinance rela.Livc to slavery, it has ~con attempted to impose upon other and subsequently acqmrcd territory. The first circumstance which, in the consideration of thit provision, impresses itself upon my mind, is its utter futi li ty and want of authority. rrhis court has, in repealed in. t ances, ruled; that whatever may have been the force accorded .to this ordinance of 1787 at the period of its enactment, Its authority and effect ceased, and yielded to tho paramount authority of the Constitution, from the period of the ndoption of the latter. Such is the pri nci pic rnlcd in lhe cases of Pollard's Lcs,·ee v. llf'Lgan, (3 llow, 212); Parm0li v. The First M nnicipality of N cw Orleans, (3 llow, 589 ;) Strader v. Graham, (16 How, 82). Bnt apart from the |