Then, Sir, when this Constitution was framed, this was the light in which the Federal Convention viewed it.  That body reflected the judgment and sentiments of the great men of the South.  A member of the other house, whom I have not the honor to know, has, in a recent speech, collected extracts from these public documents.  They prove the truth of what I am saying, and the question then was, how to deal with it, and how to deal with it as an evil.  They came to this general result.  They thought that slavery could not be continued in the country if the importation of slaves were made to cease, and therefore they provided that, after a certain period, the importation might be prevented by the act of the new government.  The period of twenty years was proposed by some gentleman from the North, I think, and many members of the Convention from the South opposed it as being too long.  Mr. Madison especially was somewhat warm against it.  He said it would bring too much of this mischief into the country to allow the importation of slaves for such a period.  Because we must take along with us, in the whole of this discussion, when we are considering the sentiments and opinions in which the constitutional provision originated, that the conviction of all men was, that, if the importation of slaves ceased, the white race would multiply faster than the black race, and that slavery would therefore gradually wear out and expire.  It may not be improper here to allude to that, I had almost said, celebrated opinion of Mr. Madison.  You observe, Sir, that the term slave, or slavery, is not used in the Constitution.  The Constitution does not require that “fugitive slaves” shall be delivered up.  It requires that persons held to service in one State, and escaping into another, shall be delivered up.  Mr. Madison opposed the introduction of the term slave, or slavery, into the Constitution; for he said that he did not wish to see it recognized by the Constitution of the United States of America that there could be property in men.

Now, Sir, all this took place in the Convention in 1787; but connected with this, concurrent and contemporaneous, is another important transaction, not sufficiently attended to.  The Convention for framing this Constitution assembled in Philadelphia in May, and sat until September, 1787.  During all that time the Congress of the United States was in session at New York.  It was a matter of design, as we know, that the Convention should not assemble in the same city where Congress was holding its sessions.  Almost all the public men of the country, therefore, of distinction and eminence, were in one or the other of these two assemblies; and I think it happened, in some instances, that the same gentlemen were members of both bodies.  If I mistake not, such was the case with Mr. Rufus King, then a member of Congress from Massachusetts.  Now, at the very time when the Convention in Philadelphia was framing this Constitution,