"Our Constitution, like that of England, contains all that is required to adapt itself to the present and future changes and wants of a free and advancing people;" - and furthermore that,

"Leaving behind us the body of laws regulating the rights, liabilities, and duties of citizens, in time of public tranquillity, we must now turn our attention to the RESERVED and HITHERTO UNUSED powers contained in the Constitution, which enable Congress to pass a body of laws to regulate the rights, liabilities, and duties of citizens in time of war."

These are some of the fundamental positions on which the war powers of Congress and the President are based. A momentary consideration must assure any one, that if the Constitution has this elastic India-rubber character, the provisions for its amendment are entirely useless, because the party in power can, by construction, either before or after amendment, make it adapt itself so that it will answer any purpose which in their opinion will subserve the "present and future changes and wants of a free and advancing people"; and "reserved and hitherto unused powers" may be discovered, from time to time, to authorize any measure which the President, for the time being, may think it expedient to adopt. It will thus go at least one step beyond the British constitution, which, while it admits Parliament to be omnipotent, and asserts that the King can do no wrong, maintains that ministers may sometimes usurp power, and holds them accountable for the usurpation.

It should not be surprising on the other hand, that those who deem the Constitution (honestly interpreted according to the intention of those who framed and adopted that instrument as the supreme law) to be the ark of our political salvation, should dissent from doctrines which render the guaranty of personal rights by the Constitution a mockery, and under the cover of constitutional security confer despotic power over property, liberty, and even life itself, not because, as is falsely alleged, they have any sympathy with traitors, or any favor for slavery, or any desire to oppose the Government in its efforts to subdue the rebellion, but because they see in this perversion of the Constitution to suit the purposes of a party, first, a more firm union among the rebels, and a more determined resistance to the restora

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tion of the rightful authority of the Union; second, division of opinion necessarily among those who are determined to sustain the Government and to give a hearty support to all its measures, if they may be permitted so to do; third, as a consequence of this unity where they hoped for division, and of this division where they desired union, the possible, not to say probable, success of the rebellion, and the security, instead of the overthrow, of slavery; fourth, the disintegration of the States now united, by the accession, in the first instance, of some of the States on the upper Mississippi, to the power which in case of the success of the rebellion will control its mouth, followed by the larger States in the interior, and upon the seaboard, for the sake of retaining the trade of the "Great West."

It is for reasons like these, that I proceed to expose some of the fallacies in the body of the work, which are not less palpable than those of the introduction.

The first argument adduced for the purpose of showing the right on the part of the General Government to emancipate all the slaves is deduced from its right in time of peace

"to appropriate to public use private property of any subject or any number of subjects owing it allegiance."

You perceive that the advocate of despotism naturally begins by talking of subjects, instead of citizens. He proceeds to say,

"Every appropriation of property for the benefit of the United States, either for a national public improvement, or to carry into effect any valid law of Congress for the maintenance, protection, or security of national interests, is public use." "Public use is contradistinguished from private use. That which is for the use of the country, however applied or appropriated, is for public use."

"Public use does not require that the property taken shall be actually used. It may be disused, removed or destroyed. And destruction of private property may be the best public use it can be put to."

"Congress has power to pass laws providing for the common defence and general welfare under Art. I. Sect. 8, of the Constitution; and whenever, in their judgment, the common defence or general welfare requires them to authorize the appropriation of private property to public use, whether that use be the employment or de

struction of the property taken,—they have the right to pass such laws; to appropriate private property in that way; and whatever is done with it is public use,' and entitles the owner to just compensation therefor."

This argument is founded on what is known among lawyers as the right of eminent domain, in virtue of which land is taken for highways, canals, turnpikes, forts, &c. The argument based upon that principle would seem to read in this way,- The Government can take property for forts, docks, yards, lighthouses, &c., therefore, the Government may emancipate the slaves; which is not sound reasoning, because there is no similarity whatever in the character of the two acts.

By a similar process of reasoning, Congress may order any property of any person to be destroyed because that it is a public use of it. Perhaps they would be bound to make compensation; but by an extension of the same process of reasoning they may at the same time order the owner, and all who claim anything under him, to be hanged, on the ground that every man owes service to the country, and that to be hanged is the best service that such a claimant of compensation can render. This would effectually discharge the claim for indemnity.

An attempt to reason in this way, applying the principles of eminent domain to matters which have no relation to that subject, is to make an utter confusion of legal principles. If slavery is the root and cause of the rebellion; if by that "alone the country has been brought to the verge of ruin;" and if the republic can triumph only by overthrowing slavery; then slavery is an antagonistic force and power, to be subverted and destroyed in some way, by revolution, perhaps, if necessary, but it is not to be taken and appropriated to the public use. The principle applicable to it would be that applied to nuisances, rather than that which regulates the right of the Government in making provision for its wants.

The Government does not take an enemy for public use, under the power to supply its necessities. It does not deal with antagonistic forces, attempting its overthrow, by the appointment of commissioners to consider how much of those forces it is necessary to take, in order to. supply in

creased facilities for itself and its citizens, and to appraise the damage which will be done to the owner of the antagonism. It never takes a nuisance for public use. What the Government destroys, of that character, to relieve the public from injury, threatened or suffered, it acts upon by an antagonistic power to wit: that of police. The principle is stated by Mr. Justice McLean, 5 Howard's Supreme Court Rep. 589. "The acknowledged police power of a State extends often to the destruction of property. A nuisance may be abated. Everything prejudicial to the health or morals of a city may be removed." (See also 11 Metcalf's, Rep. 57; 1 Gray's Rep. 1, 27.)

But the argument in favor of the "War Powers," proceeds with more confidence on the clause of the Constitution authorizing Congress "to provide for the common defence and general welfare." It is said,

"It will be readily perceived that the right to abrogate and cancel the obligations of apprentices and slaves does not rest solely upon the power of Congress to appropriate private property to public use; but it may be founded upon their power and obligation to accomplish one of the chief objects for which the Union was formed, viz: to provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States."

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"The powers conveyed in this 18th Clause of Art. I. Sect. 8, are of vast importance and extent.

"It may be said that they are, in one sense, unlimited and discretionary. They are more than imperial. [!!!] But it was intended by the framers of the Constitution, or, what is of more importance, by the people who made and adopted it, that the powers of Government in dealing with civil rights in time of peace, should be defined and limited; but the powers to provide for the general welfare and common defence' should be unlimited."

"Whenever, in the judgment of Congress the common defence and public welfare require the removal of the condition of slavery, it is within the scope of their constitutional authority to pass laws for that purpose."

"It has been so long the habit of those who engage in public life to disclaim any intention to interfere with slavery in the States, that they have of late become accustomed to deny the right of Congress to do

So. But, the Constitution contains no clause or sentence prohibiting the exercise by Congress of the plenary power of abrogating involuntary servitude. The only prohibition contained in that instrument, relating to persons held to labor and service, is in Art. IV. which provides that, 'No person held to labor and service,' &c. ... This restriction is, in express terms, applicable only to State legislatures, and not to Congress."

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"That a power is withdrawn from the States, indicates, by fair implication, that it belongs to the United States, unless expressly prohibited, if it is embraced within the scope of powers necessary to the safety and preservation of the Government, in peace or in civil war."

"It would be a singular species of reasoning to conclude that, because the Constitution prescribed certain rules of conduct towards persons escaping from one State into another, therefore, there is no power to make rules relating to other persons who do not escape from one State into another."

"If Congress should discharge the obligation of slaves to render labor and service, by passing a law to that effect, such law would supersede and render void all rules, regulations, customs, or laws of either State to the contrary, for the Constitution, treaties, and laws of the United States are the supreme law of the land."

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"If the framers of the Constitution intended to take from Congress the power of passing laws relating to slaves in the States or elsewhere, they would have drafted a clause to that effect." [!!]

These extracts show the kind of argument from which the author draws his conclusions, assuming that he has shown that the General Government may abolish slavery under the power to appropriate private property to public use, and the power to provide for the public welfare and common defence; and asserting "that this power is left to the discretion of Congress, who are the sole and exclusive judges as to the occasions when it shall be exercised, and from whose judgment there is no appeal."

This course of reasoning upon the right of Congress to provide for the public welfare and common defence, ignores the history of the formation of the States and the Union; forgets that the United States is a Government of limited