n
another State, shall, on demand of the executive authority
of the State from which he fled, be delivered up, to be
removed to the State having jurisdiction of the crime."

That is the text of the Constitution. What is the interpretation in
the free States? In the State of Kentucky an African is property,
under their laws and usages, and has been so for two hundred years;
for it was so when it was a part of Virginia; and did it ever enter
into the mind of man to conceive that this plain text of the
Constitution would be resisted, upon the ground that property in man
was not acknowledged? And yet it is done. If I am not mistaken, the
honorable Senator from New York [Mr. SEWARD], not now in his seat,
when Governor of New York, made that very question with the Governor
of Virginia; and seeing this, are we to be willingly blind to this as
the actual, judicial, and executive interpretation in every thing that
affects the question of slavery as it stands in that section, and
that, too, while we are seeking equality? Sir, it never entered into
the mind of man, at the time this Constitution was formed, to credit
that the time could ever come in the relations of these States when a
man who fled from the State of Kentucky because he had stolen a negro
into the State of Ohio, was screened from the operation of the
Constitution, because in Ohio they do not deem a negro to be the
subject of property; and yet that is the fact, the very issue now
depending between those States; and we are asked to be blind,
willingly blind, to all that experience at the very time we are
attempting to secure a guarantee for violated rights!

Now, I said, Mr. President, that, if I were to tax my ingenuity, I
might find a mode, even if the honorable Senator is right in ascribing
to this clause of the section the necessary interpretation that it
refers to remedies only. The Senator says the previous part of the
section establishes the relation, as he construes it, not directly
like the resolution of the honorable Senator which we offer here as an
amendment, which establishes directly that there is property in
slaves. This does not; but designedly avoids it; not from any improper
motive--I do not ascribe that--but it is not only silent, but it
avoids the very question. I suppose the honorable Senator is right in
saying this language, judicial cognizance, according to the course of
the common law, refers only to the remedy. Now, I tax my i