can be clearly shown that there was no such state
of feeling, respecting slavery, as to lead the originators
of our Constitution to look upon it as a thing in
itself of natural right, useful in its operation,
and worthy of enlargement and perpetuation. Rather,
the universal sentiment respecting slavery, North and
South, was, that as a great moral, social, and political
evil, it should be condemned, and the widely prevalent
impression was, that through the peaceful operation
of causes that evinced the immeasurable superiority
of free institutions, slavery would itself die out,
and the whole country be consecrated to free labor.
Never did it enter the minds of the framers of the
Constitution, that slavery was a thing in itself right
and desirable, or that it should be encouraged in the
territories. It was looked upon as exclusively
local in its character, the creature of State law,
a relation of society that was to be regulated like
any other municipal institution. It is not to
be presumed that the authors of our government would,
in the Declaration of Independence, assert the natural
rights of all men to life, liberty, and the pursuit
of happiness, and then contradict this cardinal principle
of the revolution in the Constitution. They found
slavery existing in the Southern States; they simply
left it as it was before the Revolution, with the idea
that in time the local action of the State legislature
would do away with the system. But so far as
the extension of slavery was concerned, the predominant
feeling, North and South, was hostile to it. The
security of the country demanded the union of the
States under one common Constitution. The dangers
of foreign war, the exhausted finances of the different
States, the evils of a great public debt, contracted
during the Revolution, made it advisable, as soon
as the consent of the States could be got, to have
a Constitution that should command security at home
and credit and respect abroad. It was regarded
as indispensable for union, that slavery should be
left as it was found in the States. The thirteen
States that first formed our Union under the Constitution,
with the great evils that grew out of war and debt,
agreed, for their own mutual protection, that slavery
should be permitted to exist in those States where
it was sanctioned by the local government, as an evil
to be tolerated, not as a thing good in itself, to
be fostered, perpetuated, and enlarged. Seeing
that union could not be had without slavery, it was
recognized as an institution not to be interfered with
by the free States; but not acknowledged, in the sense
that it was right, a blessing that, like free labor,
should be the normal condition of the whole people.
There was no such indifference to slavery as a civil
institution, as has been asserted. The reason
is two-fold: first, the States could not be indifferent
to slavery, if they wished; and secondly, they could
not repudiate, in the Constitution, the Declaration
of Independence. Thus the word ‘slave’