That is the argument.  Nothing but my respect for the logical intellect of the Senator from Maine could make me treat this argument as serious, and nothing but having heard it myself would make me believe that he ever uttered it.  What, sir!  The Constitution of our country says to the South, “you shall count as the basis of your representation five slaves as being three white men; you may be protected in the natural increase of your slaves; nay, more, as a matter of compromise you may increase their number if you choose, for twenty years, by importation; when these twenty years are out, you shall stop.”  The Supreme Court of the United States says, “well; is not this a recognition of slavery, of property in slaves?” “Oh, no,” says the gentleman, “the rule must work both ways; there is a converse to the proposition.”  Now, sir, to an ordinary, uninstructed intellect, it would seem that the converse of the proposition was simply that at the end of twenty years you should not any longer increase your numbers by importation; but the gentleman says the converse of the proposition is that at the end of the twenty years, after you have, under the guarantee of the Constitution, been adding by importation to the previous number of your slaves, then all those that you had before, and all those that, under that Constitution, you have imported, cease to be recognized as property by the Constitution, and on this proposition he assails the Supreme Court of the United States—­a proposition which he says will occur to anybody.

Mr. Fessenden.  Will the Senator allow me?

Mr. Benjamin.  I should be very glad to enter into this debate now, but I fear it is so late that I shall not be able to get through to-day.

Mr. Fessenden.  I suppose it is of no consequence.

Mr. Benjamin.  What says the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Collamer), who also went into this examination somewhat extensively.  I read from his printed speech: 

“I do not say that slaves are never property.  I do not say that they are, or are not.  Within the limits of a State which declares them to be property, they are property, because they are within the jurisdiction of that government which makes the declaration; but I should wish to speak of it in the light of a member of the United States Senate, and in the language of the United States Constitution.  If this be property in the States, what is the nature and extent of it?  I insist that the Supreme Court has often decided, and everybody has understood, that slavery is a local institution, existing by force of State law; and of course that law can give it no possible character beyond the limits of that State.”  I shall no doubt find the idea better expressed in the opinion of Judge Nelson, in this same Dred Scott decision.  I prefer to read his language.

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