he Constitution. You go on and attempt to enlighten your
constituents as to the history of this constitutional obligation. As the
obligation affords you no apology for the iniquitous features of your
law, its history is, of course, mere surplusage, and serves no other
purpose than to divert the attention of your readers from yourself.
About two thirds of your apology is occupied with an historical
disquisition, which has as much to do with your vindication as the
question respecting the existence of a lunar atmosphere. I will not,
however, withhold from you whatever benefit you may derive from either
your logic or your history, but will give each a fair and honest
examination. You inform the public that, at the time the Constitution
was formed,

"Slavery had been abolished in some of the States, and still
existed in others. Here seemed an insurmountable incompatibility of
interests, and nothing perplexed the wise men of that day--and they
were _very_ wise men--so much as this topic. At last they agreed
that the new Constitution should have nothing to do with it; that
the word _slavery_ should not be mentioned in it, and that it
should be left to the States themselves to establish, retain, or
abolish it, just as much after the adoption of the Constitution as
before. But in order to secure the existence of the institution to
those States who preferred it, it was agreed that the persons
escaping from labor to which they were bound, in one commonwealth,
and found in another, should be returned to the State from which
they had fled. The provision was necessary for the preservation of
this interest _in statu quo_. It did not extend slavery. It kept it
where it already was, and where it could not have continued if
every slave who escaped North was at once free and irreclaimable.
The members of the confederacy from the South saw this distinctly,
and _deliberately declared_ that they could not and would not enter
a union with States who would tempt away their slaves with the
prospect of immediate and permanent freedom.... The Constitution
was adopted with this provision, and it could not have been adopted
without it."

Thus we learn from you, Sir, that when the Constitution was formed,
"slavery had been abolished in some of the States." It is a pity you did
not vouchsafe to tell us which of the States had thus early and