were
members of the different political communities in the several States;
and its great object is declared to be to secure the blessings of
liberty to themselves and their posterity. It speaks in general terms of
the _people_ of the United States, and of _citizens_ of the several
States, when it is providing for the exercise of the powers granted or
the privileges secured to the citizen. It does not define what
description of persons are intended to be included under these terms, or
who shall be regarded as a citizen and one of the people. It uses them
as terms so well understood, that no further description or definition
was necessary.

But there are two clauses in the Constitution which point directly and
specifically to the negro race as a separate class of persons, and show
clearly that they were not regarded as a portion of the people or
citizens of the Government then formed.

One of these clauses reserves to each of the thirteen States the right
to import slaves until the year 1808, if it thinks proper. And the
importation which it thus sanctions was unquestionably of persons of the
race of which we are speaking, as the traffic in slaves in the United
States had always been confined to them. And by the other provision the
States pledge themselves to each other to maintain the right of property
of the master, by delivering up to him any slave who may have escaped
from his service, and be found within their respective territories. By
the first above-mentioned clause, therefore, the right to purchase and
hold this property is directly sanctioned and authorized for twenty
years by the people who framed the Constitution. And by the second, they
pledge themselves to maintain and uphold the right of the master in the
manner specified, as long as the Government they then formed should
endure. And these two provisions show, conclusively, that neither the
description of persons therein referred to, nor their descendants, were
embraced in any of the other provisions of the Constitution; for
certainly these two clauses were not intended to confer on them or their
posterity the blessings of liberty, or any of the personal rights so
carefully provided for the citizen.

No one of that race had ever migrated to the United States voluntarily;
all of them had been brought here as articles of merchandise. The number
that had been emancipated at that time were but few in comparison with
those held in slavery; and they were iden