tified in the public mind with
the race to which they belonged, and regarded as a part of the slave
population rather than the free. It is obvious that they were not even
in the minds of the framers of the Constitution when they were
conferring special rights and privileges upon the citizens of a State in
every other part of the Union.

Indeed, when we look to the condition of this race in the several States
at the time, it is impossible to believe that these rights and
privileges were intended to be extended to them.

It is very true, that in that portion of the Union where the labor of
the negro race was found to be unsuited to the climate and unprofitable
to the master, but few slaves were held at the time of the Declaration
of Independence; and when the Constitution was adopted, it had entirely
worn out in one of them, and measures had been taken for its gradual
abolition in several others. But this change had not been produced by
any change of opinion in relation to this race; but because it was
discovered, from experience, that slave labor was unsuited to the
climate and productions of these States: for some of the States, where
it had ceased or nearly ceased to exist, were actively engaged in the
slave trade, procuring cargoes on the coast of Africa, and transporting
them for sale to those parts of the Union where their labor was found to
be profitable, and suited to the climate and productions. And this
traffic was openly carried on, and fortunes accumulated by it, without
reproach from the people of the States where they resided. And it can
hardly be supposed that, in the States where it was then countenanced in
its worst form--that is, in the seizure and transportation--the people
could have regarded those who were emancipated as entitled to equal
rights with themselves.

And we may here again refer, in support of this proposition, to the
plain and unequivocal language of the laws of the several States, some
passed after the Declaration of Independence and before the Constitution
was adopted, and some since the Government went into operation.

We need not refer, on this point, particularly to the laws of the
present slaveholding States. Their statute books are full of provisions
in relation to this class, in the same spirit with the Maryland law
which we have before quoted. They have continued to treat them as an
inferior class, and to subject them to strict police regulations,
drawing a broad line of dist