Is Congress so impotent in its own "exclusive jurisdiction" that it cannot "otherwise by law provide?" If 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 should 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 the 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 motions 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_."