discharged and destroyed, for public benefit, by Congress, with the proviso that just compensation shall be allowed to the parent or master.

Our government, by treaty, discharged the claims of its own citizens against France, and thus appropriated private property to public use. At a later date the United States discharged the claims of certain slave owners to labor and service, whose slaves had been carried away by the British contrary to their treaty stipulations. In both cases indemnity was promised by our government to the owners; and in case of the slave masters it was actually paid. By abolishing slavery in the District of Columbia, that which was considered for the purposes of the act as private property was appropriated to public use, with just compensation to the owners; Congress, in this instance, having the right to pass the act as a local, municipal law; but the compensation was from the treasury of the United States.

During the present rebellion, many minors, apprentices, and slaves have been relieved from obligation to their parents and masters, the claim for their services. having been appropriated to public use, by employing them in the military service of the country.

That Congress should have power to appropriate every description of private property for public benefit in time. of war, results from the duty imposed on it by the constitution to pass laws "providing for the common defence and general welfare."

Suppose that a large number of apprentices desired to join the army as volunteers in time of sorest need, but were restrained from so doing only by reason of their owing labor and service to their employers, who

were equally with them citizens and subjects of this government; would any one doubt or deny the right of government to accept these apprentices as soldiers, to discharge them from the obligation of their indentures, providing just compensation to their employers for loss of their services? Suppose that these volunteers owed labor and service for life, as slaves, instead of owing it for a term of years; what difference could it make as to the right of government to use their services, and discharge their obligations, or as to the liability to indemnify the masters? The right to use the services of the minor, the apprentice, and the slave, for public benefit, belongs to the United States. The claims of all American citizens upon their services, whether by local law, or by common law, or by indentures, can be annulled by the same power, for the same reasons, and under the same restrictions that govern the appropriation of any other private property to public use.

THE UNITED STATES MAY REQUIRE ALL SUBJECTS TO DO MILITARY DUTY.

Slaves, as well as apprentices and minors, are equally subjects of the United States, whether they are or are not citizens thereof. The government of the United States has the right to call upon all its subjects to do military duty. If those who owe labor and service to others, either by contract, by indenture, by common or statute law, or by local usage, could not be lawfully called upon to leave their employments to serve their country, no inconsiderable portion of the able-bodied men would thus be exempt, and the constitution and laws of the land

providing for calling out the army and navy would be set at nought. But the constitution makes no such exemptions from military duty. Private rights cannot be set up to overthrow the claims of the country to the services of every one of its subjects who owes it allegiance.

How far the United States is under obligation to compensate parents, masters of apprentices, or masters of slaves, for the loss of service and labor of those subjects who are enlisted in the army and navy, has not been yet decided.* The constitution recognizes slaves as "persons held to labor or service." So also are apprentices and minor children "persons held to labor and service." And, whatever other claims may be set up, by the laws of either of the slave states, to any class of "persons," the constitution recognizes only the claim of individuals to the labor and service of other individuals. It seems difficult, therefore, to state any sound principle which should require compensation in · one case and not in the other.

WILL SLAVEHOLDERS BE ENTITLED TO INDEMNITY IF THEIR SLAVES ARE USED FOR MILITARY PURPOSES?

It is by no means improbable, that, in the emergency which we are fast approaching, the right and duty of the country to call upon all its loyal subjects to aid in its military defence will be deemed paramount to the claims of any private person upon such subjects, and that the

* If an apprentice enlist in the army, the courts will not, upon a habeas corpus, issued at the relation of the master, remand the apprentice to his custody, if he be unwilling to return, but will leave the master to his suit against the officer, who, by Stat. 16 Mar. 1802, was forbidden to enlist him without the master's consent. Commonwealth v. Robinson, 1 S. & R. 353; Commonwealth v. Harris, 7 Pa. L. J. 283.

loss of labor and service of certain citizens, like the luss of life and property, which always attends a state of war, must be borne by those upon whom the misfortune happens to fall. It may become one of the great polit ical questions hereafter, whether, if slavery should as a civil act in time of peace, or by treaty in time of war, be wholly or partly abolished, for public benefit, or public defence, such abolishment is an appropriation of private property for public use, within the meaning of the constitution.

INDEMNITY TO MORMONS.

The question has not yet arisen in the courts of the United States, whether the act of Congress, which, under the form of a statute against polygamy abolishes Mormonism, a domestic institution, sustained like slavery only by local law, is such an appropriation of the claims of Mormons to the labor and service of their wives as requires just compensation under the constitution? A decision of this question may throw some light on the point now under consideration.

EFFECT OF NATURALIZATION AND MILITIA LAWS ON THE QUESTION OF INDEMNITY TO SLAVE-MASTERS.

A further question may arise as to the application of the "compensation" clause above referred to. Congress has the power to pass naturalization laws, by Art. I. Sect. 8. This power has never been doubted. The only question is, whether this power is not exclusive.* Congress may thus give the privileges of citizenship to

See Chirac v. Chirac, 2 Whea. 269; U. S. v. Villato, 2 Dall. 372; Thirlow v. Mass., 5 How. 585; Smith v. Turner, 7 ib. 556; Golden v. Prince, 3 W. C. C. Reports, 314.

any persons whatsoever, black or white. Colored men, having been citizens in some of the States ever since they were founded, having acted as citizens prior to 1788 in various civil and military capacities, are therefore citizens of the United States.*

Under the present laws of the United States, according to the opinion of the attorney-general of Massachusetts, colored men are equally with white men required to be enrolled in the militia of the United States, although such was not the case under the previous acts of 1792 and 1795. "The general government has authority to determine who shall and who may not compose the militia of the United States; and having so determined, the state government has no legal authority to prescribe a different enrolment. If, therefore, Congress exercise either of these undoubted powers to grant citizenship to all colored persons residing or coming within either of the States, or to pass an act requiring the enrolment of all able-bodied persons within a prescribed age, whether owing labor and service or not, § as part of the militia of the United States, and thereby giving to all, as they become soldiers or seamen, their freedom from obligations of labor and service, except military labor and service, then the question would arise, whether government, by calling its own subjects and citizens into the military service of the country, in case of overwhelming necessity, could be required by the constitution to recognize the private relations in which the soldier might stand, by local laws, to persons setting up

* See case of Dred Scott; which in no part denies that if colored men were citizens of either of the states which adopted the constitution, they were citizens of the United States.

+ See Stat. U. S. July 17, 1862.

See Act approved February 24, 1864.

8 Gray's R. 615.