last sixty-nine years, in almost every possible way, and in the
most solemn possible manner. On the 4th of July, '76, they collectively
asserted it, as their justification and authority for an act the most
momentous and responsible of any in the history of the country. And this
assertion has never been retracted by us, as a people. We have virtually
re-asserted the same truth in nearly every state constitution since
adopted. We have virtually re-asserted it in the national constitution.
It is a truth that lives on the tongues and in the hearts of all. It is
true we have, in our practice, been so unjust as to withhold the
benefits of this truth from a certain class of our fellow men.--But,
even in this respect, this truth has but shared the common fate of other
truths. They are generally allowed but a partial application. Still,
this truth itself, _as a truth_, has never been denied by us, _as a
people_, in any authentic form, or otherwise than impliedly by our
practice in particular cases. If it have, say when and where. If it have
not, it is still law; and courts are bound to administer it, as law,
impartially to all.

Our courts would want no other authority than this truth, thus
acknowledged, for setting at liberty any individual, other than one
having negro blood, whom our governments, state or national, should
assume to authorize another individual to enslave. Why, then, do they
not apply the same law in behalf of the African? Certainly not because
it is not as much the law of his case, as of others. _But it is simply
because they will not._ It is because the courts are parties to an
understanding, prevailing among the white race, but expressed in no
authentic constitutional form, that the negro may be deprived of his
rights at the pleasure of avarice and power. And they carry out this
unexpressed understanding in defiance of, and suffer it to prevail over,
all our constitutional principles of government--all our authentic,
avowed, open and fundamental law.

CHAPTER VI.

THE STATE CONSTITUTIONS OF 1789.

Of all the state constitutions, that were in force at the adoption of
the constitution of the United States, in 1789, _not one of them
established, or recognized slavery_.

All those parts of the state constitutions, (i.e. of the old thirteen
states,) that recognize and attempt to sanction slavery, _have been
inserted, by amendments, since the adoption of the constitution of the
United States_.

All