gentleman from the North, I think, and many members of the
Convention from the South opposed it as being too long. Mr. Madison
especially was somewhat warm against it. He said it would bring too much
of this mischief into the country to allow the importation of slaves for
such a period. Because we must take along with us, in the whole of this
discussion, when we are considering the sentiments and opinions in which
the constitutional provision originated, that the conviction of all men
was, that, if the importation of slaves ceased, the white race would
multiply faster than the black race, and that slavery would therefore
gradually wear out and expire. It may not be improper here to allude to
that, I had almost said, celebrated opinion of Mr. Madison. You observe,
Sir, that the term _slave_, or _slavery_, is not used in the
Constitution. The Constitution does not require that "fugitive slaves"
shall be delivered up. It requires that persons held to service in one
State, and escaping into another, shall be delivered up. Mr. Madison
opposed the introduction of the term _slave_, or _slavery_, into the
Constitution; for he said that he did not wish to see it recognized by
the Constitution of the United States of America that there could be
property in men.

Now, Sir, all this took place in the Convention in 1787; but connected
with this, concurrent and contemporaneous, is another important
transaction, not sufficiently attended to. The Convention for framing
this Constitution assembled in Philadelphia in May, and sat until
September, 1787. During all that time the Congress of the United States
was in session at New York. It was a matter of design, as we know, that
the Convention should not assemble in the same city where Congress was
holding its sessions. Almost all the public men of the country,
therefore, of distinction and eminence, were in one or the other of
these two assemblies; and I think it happened, in some instances, that
the same gentlemen were members of both bodies. If I mistake not, such
was the case with Mr. Rufus King, then a member of Congress from
Massachusetts. Now, at the very time when the Convention in Philadelphia
was framing this Constitution, the Congress in New York was framing the
Ordinance of 1787, for the organization and government of the territory
northwest of the Ohio. They passed that Ordinance on the 13th of July,
1787, at New York, the very month, perhaps the very day, on which these
ques