a correct definition of the condition of a slave at the time the Constitution was adopted, is evident. The sixth article of the Northwestern ordinance reads thus: "There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted; provided always, that any person escaping into the same, from whom labor or service is lawfully claimed in any one of the original states, such fugitive may be lawfully reclaimed, and conveyed to the person claiming his or her labor or service as aforesaid." In other words, the expression "a person from whom labor or service is lawfully claimed" so correctly described the condition of a slave, that Congress deemed it necessary to except such persons from the operation of an article relating only to slaves. In less than three months after the passage of this ordinance, this clause in the Constitution was drafted. It needs no argument to show that the expression in the Constitution means the same as that in the ordinance. "A person from whom labor or service is lawfully claimed in any one of the original states" means the same as a person held to service or labor in one state under the laws thereof." If the former correctly described the condition of a slave, the latter did also. We can, however, see that the expression does properly describe the legal condition of a slave. A slave, though an article of property, has always and in every state been recognized as a person by being held criminally responsible for his acts. Thus the preamble to the act of South Carolina, (May 10th, 1740, 1 Grimke's Laws, 165,) which provides for the trial of slaves, recites that "natural justice forbids that any person of what condition soever should be condemned unheard;" and the act of Georgia of 1770, before quoted, provides for the trial of "slaves and other persons." The act of Virginia (1748, Sect. 15,) and North Carolina, (1741, Sect. 29,) before quoted, call runaway slaves persons in so many words. Similar laws might be cited if deemed necessary. A slave is also held to labor and service for life by law. Labor and service are the lot of every slave. "To slave" means "to toil." It is sometimes denied, but nevertheless it is true, that the law recognizes that labor and service are legally due from the slave to his master. Thus the act of North Carolina, (1741, Sect. 27,) before quoted, makes it a criminal offence to tempt or persuade a slave to leave his master's "service." "Service" is recognized as being legally due from a slave in Virginia. (Act 1691, 3 Hen. Stat., 86, 87.)

The provincial assembly of South Carolina (Act 1740, Sect. 22,) provides "that if any person in this province shall on the Lord's day, commonly called Sunday, employ any slave in any work or labor, (works of absolute necessity and the necessary occasions of the family only excepted,) every person in such case offending shall forfeit the sum of five pounds current money for every slave they shall so work or labor." A similar law was passed in Georgia. (Act May 10th, 1770, Sect. 41.) These and similar laws, by providing that work and labor shall not be demanded of a slave on Sunday, recognize that on other days a master may legally demand them. That which may be legally demanded is legally due. Therefore work and labor, or service, are legally due from the slave to his master. To this labor and service the slave is held by the law. If he refuses to work, his master may coerce him. If he runs away, his master may pursue and retake him legally. He is held for life or until emancipated according to law. Consequently, the expression in the Constitution correctly describes the condition of a slave. Indeed, it more correctly describes this condition than "chattel personal" would, because it is the almost universal practice to treat a slave in many important particulars, such as dower, &c., like real property, and in some states slaves are declared by statute to be real estate.

By this section, therefore, it is provided that no person held as a slave in one state under the laws thereof escaping into another shall in consequence of any law or regulation therein be discharged from his slavery, but shall be delivered up on claim of his owner. The laws of one state, whether they support slavery or any other institution, have no power in another state. Consequently, if a slave escapes into a free state he becomes free. This is the general rule of law. In virtue of it thousands of slaves are now free on the soil of Canada. In virtue of it a fugitive slave from South Carolina would be free in this state were it not for this section in the Constitution. But this section declares that he shall not thereby become free, but shall be delivered up. Again, the Constitution makes an exception from a general rule of law in favor of slavery. It gives to slave-holders and slave laws a power which the general rule of law does not give. It enables a South Carolina slave-holder to drag from the soil of Massachusetts a person whom the general rule of law pronounces free, solely because South Carolina laws declare the contrary. It makes the whole Union a vast hunting-ground for slaves! There is not a single

spot from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from the St. John's to the Rio Del Norte, or "wheresoever may be the fleeting boundary of this Republic," on which a fugitive slave may rest, and his owner may not in virtue of this clause claim and retake him as his slave!

The same writer suggests (p. 285,) that upon the "question whether there is any lawful slavery in any of the states, . . this clause expresses no opinion." But the mere adoption of any clause evidently amounts to the assertion of the existence of every thing necessary to render the clause operative; otherwise we must admit that the people adopted a clause with the knowledge that it was to be wholly inoperative; consequently, the mere adoption of this clause amounts to the assertion that slavery legally existed in one or more of the states, because unless slavery did legally exist this clause would be inoperative. That negro slavery did thus legally exist in the Southern states we have already seen. On this legal slavery (if no other existed,) this clause operated, and what before the Constitution was adopted was merely state slavery, under the influence of this clause, to the extent just stated, became national slavery.

Act 1, Sect. 8: "Congress shall have power . . to provide for calling forth the militia. . . to suppress insurrec tions."

Act 4, Sect. 4: "The United States shall guarantee to every state in this Union a republican form of government; and shall protect each of them against invasion; and on application of the legislature or of the executive, (when the legislature cannot be convened,) against domestic violence."

All insurrections and all cases of domestic violence are here provided for. To constitute an insurrection within the meaning of the Constitution, there must be a rising against those laws which are recognized as such by the Constitution; and to make out a case of domestic violence the violence must be exerted against that right or power which is recognized by the Constitution as lawful. But we have seen that the Constitution admits that some persons are legally slaves; consequently, if these persons rise in rebellion or commit acts of violence contrary to the laws which hold them in slavery, their rising constitutes an insurrection. Such acts are acts of violence within the meaning of the Constitution, and consequently must be

suppressed by the national power. And what insurrections were more likely to happen and more to be dreaded than slave insurrections, and therefore more likely to have been provided for?

Slave owners are not the only slave holders. All persons who voluntarily assist or pledge themselves to assist in holding persons in slavery are slave holders. IN SOBER TRUTH, THEN, WE ARE A NATION OF SLAVE-HOLDERS! for we have bound our whole national strength to the slave-owners, to aid them, if necessary, in holding their slaves in subjection!

It is, however, urged that the Constitution requires all the states "to be republican," and that the existence of slavery is inconsistent with republicanism. By providing that "the United States shall guarantee to every state in this Union a republican form of government," the Constitution admits that every state in the Union then had a republican form of government, for to guarantee a certain form of government supposes an existing government of the form which is guaranteed. But four of these states (if no more) were slave states, consequently slavery may exist in a republic within the meaning given to that word by the Constitution.

It is also argued that the Constitution made citizens of all the people, and thereby annihilated slavery, for no citizen can be a slave. But the Constitution treats the Indian tribes as distinct independent political communities, and not as citizens. Congress entered into treaties with some of them before the adoption of the Constitution. By declaring (Act 6,) that "all treaties made or which shall be made under the authority of the United States shall be the supreme law of the land,' the Constitution adopts these treaties, and thereby declares the Indian tribes not to be citizens, for no government enters into a treaty with its citizens. (See, also, Art. 1, Sect. 8.) In like manner, by recognizing the existence of legal slavery the Constitution excludes those who are legally slaves from the class of citizens.

We here bring our examination to a close. We think we have proved from the Constitution itself, that the Constitution supports slavery. We might prove that its framers intended to make it just what we have described it to be, that it was discussed and adopted as such in the conventions of the people, so far as the records of the doings of the conventions. exist, that our interpretation has been that uniformly ad

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hered to by all officers of the government, both executive and legislative, from the time the government came into being until now, and finally, that such it has been adjudged to mean by that body which it has itself pointed out as the final arbiter of its meaning. But we prefer to pass these over wholly in silence, because it is constantly urged that we are obliged to go out of the Constitution to prove its support of slavery.

The result of "the compromises of the Constitution" has been such as might be expected. There is now less real love of freedom, not only in the nation at large but even in the free states, than there was before the Constitution was adopted.

The committee who reported to Congress "a plan for a temporary government of the Western Territory" was composed of three persons, of whom the majority, consisting of Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Chase, were from Virginia and Maryland. This plan extended to all "the territory ceded or to be ceded by individual states to the United States." The following proviso was reported by the committee as applicable to all the territory: "that after the year 1800 of the Christian æra, there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servi tude in any of the said states, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes whereof the party shall have been convicted to have been personally guilty." Though involving a compromise in point of time, still this was a truly noble position. The entire extinction of slavery in all the Western Territory after 1800 was the object aimed at. Not even the recapture of runaway slaves was contemplated. New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania (April 19th, 1784,) voted in favor of retaining the clause, Maryland, Virginia, and South Carolina voted against it, and North Carolina was divided. Of the twenty-three delegates present, sixteen, including Mr. Jefferson, voted in favor, seven only against it. Thus two thirds of the states and delegates present, or two thirds of the entire nation, were desirous wholly to extinguish slavery in all the Western Territory after 1800. Such was the state of public opinion in 1784.*

*In 1785 it was the same. On the 16th of March it was moved and seconded that the following proposition be committed:-"That there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in any of the states described in the resolve of Congress of the 23d of April, 1784, otherwise than in punishment of crimes whereof the party shall have been personally guilty; and that this reg ulation shall be an article of compact, and remain a fundamental principle of