fieldston american reader volume i – fall 2007 - Ethical Culture ...

and by virtue of which alone it continues to exist and act asa Government and sovereignty. It has no power of any kindbeyond it; and it cannot, when it enters into a Territory ofthe United States... [assume) despotic powers which theConstitution has denied to it.... The Territory being a part ofthe United States, the Government and the citizen both enterit under the authority of the Constitution, with their respectiverights defined and marked out; and the Federal Governmentcan exercise no power over his person or property, beyond whatthat instrument confers, nor lawfully deny any right which ithas reserved....The rights of private property have been guarded with equal care.Thus the rights of property are united with the rights of person,and placed on the same ground by the fifth amendment to theConstitution.... An Act of Congress which deprives a personof the United States of his liberty or property merely becausehe came himself or brought his property into a particularTerritory of the United States, and who had committed nooffense against the laws, could hardly be dignified with thename of due process of law....Upon these considerations, it is the opinion of the courtthat the Act of Congress [the Missouri Compromise] whichprohibited a citizen from holding and owning property ofthis kind in the territory of the United States north of theline therein mentioned, is not warranted by the Constitution,and is therefore void; and that neither Dred Scott himself, norany of his family were made free by being carried into thisterritory....Upon the whole, therefore, it is judgment of this court, that itappears by the record before us that the plaintiff in error is nota citizen of Missouri, in the sense in which that word is used inthe Constitution; and that the [lower federal court]... for thatreason, had no jurisdiction in the case....[The Constitution] places the citizens of a territory, so faras these rights are concerned, on the same footing with thecitizens of the States, and guards them as firmly and plainlyagainst any inroads which the general government mightattempt. And if Congress itself cannot do this — if it is beyondthe powers conferred on the Federal Government .... it couldnot authorize a territorial government to exercise them. [TheFederal Government] could confer no power on any localgovernment... to violate the provisions of the Constitution.It seems, however, to be supposed, that there is a differencebetween property in a slave and other property, and thatdifferent rules may be applied to it.... [But] if the Constitutionrecognizes the right of property of the master in a slave, andmakes no distinction between that description of property andother property owned by a citizen, no tribunal, acting underthe authority of the United States, whether it be legislative ,executive, or judicial, has a right to draw such a distinction, ordeny to it the benefit of the provisions and guarantees whichhave been provided for the protection of private propertyagainst the encroachments of the Government....[Now] the right of property in a slave is distinctly andexpressly affirmed in the Constitution. The right to traffic init, like an ordinary article of merchandise.. was guaranteed tothe citizens of the United States.... No word can be found inthe Constitution which gives Congress a greater power overslave property, or which entitles property of that kind to lessprotection than property of any other description. The onlypower conferred is the power... of protecting the owner in hisrights.292 fieldston american reader volume i – fall 2007