The constitutional provision for the rendition of slaves was simply a compromise between union and slavery.  Of the two evils of no union, or no slavery, it was thought the former was the worse, and consequently the free States fell in with the measure.  But could the patriots of the Revolution have foreseen the gigantic growth of slavery, and the use that would have been made of the provision recognizing it, no consideration would have induced them to adopt a course that has been prolific of so much misrepresentation and mischief to the country.  They left the suppression of slavery to the States where it existed, but there was no intention to ingraft the idea of property in man in the Constitution, or to favor its extension beyond the original slave States in any way.  John Jay, the first Chief-Justice, was preeminently qualified to judge respecting this.  We have his testimony most explicitly denying the natural right of property in slaves, and declaring that the Constitution did not recognize the equity of its extension in the new States or Territories.  Who was there more conversant with the genius of our country than Washington; and yet how full is his testimony to the evil of slavery; its want of natural right to support it, and the necessity of its speedy suppression and abolition?  Is it possible that he, himself a slaveholder and an emancipationist, could utter such sentiments and enforce them by his example, if he regarded the Constitution as establishing the light of property in man, and the benefit of the indefinite expansion of slavery over the country?  No, indeed!  If we may consider the Constitution in relation to slaves an inconsistent instrument, we can not prove it an hypocritical and dishonest one.  The hard necessities of the times wrung out of reluctant patriots the admission of the rendition of slaves, but they would not by any reasonable construction of language, assert the natural right of property in slaves, and the propriety or benefit of its toleration in new States and Territories.  It was bad enough to tolerate this evil in the old slave States, but it would be infamous to hand down to posterity a Constitution denying the self-evident truths of the Declaration of Independence.  Toleration is not synonymous with approval, or existence with right.  There is a most subtle error in the assumption of the indifference of the Constitution to freedom and slavery—­that it advocated neither, but protected both.  Certainly the framers of the Constitution were not automatons, or this instrument the accident of the throw of the dice-box.  The great purpose of this instrument was to raise the revenue, and defend the country.  Its end was to protect the liberties and command the respect of civilized nations.  The old Confederation was to give way to the Federal Constitution.  The independence of the United States had been achieved at a heavy cost.  To say nothing of frontiers exposed, country ravaged, towns burnt, commerce nearly