thing secured by it was, the right of Congress (not any obligation) to prohibit it at that period.  If, therefore, Congress had not chosen to exercise that right, the traffic might have been prolonged indefinitely, under the Constitution.  The right to destroy any particular branch of commerce, implies the right to re-establish it.  True, there is no probability that the African slave trade will ever again be legalized by the national government; but no credit is due the framers of the Constitution on this ground; for, while they threw around it all the sanction and protection of the national character and power for twenty years, they set no bounds to its continuance by any positive constitutional prohibition.

Again, the adoption of such a clause, and the faithful execution of it, prove what was meant by the words of the preamble—­“to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity”—­namely, that the parties to the Constitution regarded only their own rights and interests, and never intended that its language should be so interpreted as to interfere with slavery, or to make it unlawful for one portion of the people to enslave another, without an express alteration in that instrument, in the manner therein set forth.  While, therefore, the Constitution remains as it was originally adopted, they who swear to support it are bound to comply with all its provisions, as a matter of allegiance.  For it avails nothing to say, that some of those provisions are at war with the law of God and the rights of man, and therefore are not obligatory.  Whatever may be their character, they are constitutionally obligatory; and whoever feels that he cannot execute them, or swear to execute them, without committing sin, has no other choice left than to withdraw from the government, or to violate his conscience by taking on his lips an impious promise.  The object of the Constitution is not to define what is the law of God, but WHAT IS THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE—­which will is not to be frustrated by an ingenious moral interpretation, by those whom they have elected to serve them.

ARTICLE 1, Sect. 2, provides—­“Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several States, which may be included within this Union, according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three-fifths of all other persons.”