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One of the most signal errors with which the argument on the other side has abounded, is this of considering the proposed restriction as if levelled at the introduction or establishment of slavery.  And hence the vehement declamation, which, among other things, has informed us that slavery originated in fraud or violence.

The truth is, that the restriction has no relation, real or pretended, to the right of making slaves of those who are free, or of introducing slavery where it does not already exist.  It applies to those who are admitted to be already slaves, and who (with their posterity) would continue to be slaves if they should remain where they are at present; and to a place where slavery already exists by the local law.  Their civil condition will not be altered by their removal from Virginia, or Carolina, to Missouri.  They will not be more slaves than they now are.  Their abode, indeed, will be different, but their bondage the same.  Their numbers may possibly be augmented by the diffusion, and I think they will.  But this can only happen because their hardships will be mitigated, and their comforts increased.  The checks to population, which exist in the older States, will be diminished.  The restriction, therefore does not prevent the establishment of slavery, either with reference to persons or place; but simply inhibits the removal from place to place (the law in each being the same) of a slave, or make his emancipation the consequence of that removal.  It acts professedly merely on slavery as it exists, and thus acting restrains its present lawful effects.  That slavery, like many other human institutions, originated in fraud or violence, may be conceded:  but, however it originated, it is established among us, and no man seeks a further establishment of it by new importations of freemen to be converted into slaves.  On the contrary, all are anxious to mitigate its evils, by all the means within the reach of the appropriate authority, the domestic legislatures of the different States.

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Of the declaration of our independence, which has also been quoted in support of the perilous doctrines now urged upon us, I need not now speak at large.  I have shown on a former occasion how idle it is to rely upon that instrument for such a purpose, and I will not fatigue you by mere repetition.  The self-evident truths announced in the Declaration of Independence are not truths at all, if taken literally; and the practical conclusions contained in the same passage of that declaration prove that they were never designed to be so received.

The articles of confederation contain nothing on the subject; whilst the actual Constitution recognizes the legal existence of slavery by various provisions.  The power of prohibiting the slave trade is involved in that of regulating commerce, but this is coupled with an express inhibition to the exercise of it for twenty years.  How then can that Constitution which expressly permits the importation of slaves authorize the National Government to set on foot a crusade against slavery?