o slavery at all, the
constitution of the United States took effect upon, and made citizens of
_all_ "the people of the United States," without discrimination. And if
_all_ "the people of the United States" were made citizens of the United
States, by the United States constitution, at its adoption, it was then
forever too late for the _state_ governments to reduce any of them to
slavery. They were thenceforth citizens of a higher government, under a
constitution that was "the supreme law of the land," "any thing in the
constitution or laws of the states to the contrary notwithstanding." If
the state governments could enslave citizens of the United States, the
state constitutions, and not the constitution of the United States,
would be the "supreme law of the land"--for no higher act of supremacy
could be exercised by one government over another, than that of taking
the citizens of the latter out of the protection of their government,
and reducing them to slavery.

SECONDLY.

Although we might stop--we yet do not choose to stop--at the point last
suggested. We will now go further, and attempt to show, specifically
from its provisions, that the constitution of the United States, not
only does not recognize or sanction slavery, as a legal institution, but
that, on the contrary, it presumes all men to be free; that it
positively denies the right of property in man; and that it, _of
itself_, makes it impossible for slavery to have a legal existence in
any of the United States.

In the first place--although the assertion is constantly made, and
rarely denied, yet it is palpably a mere begging of the whole question
in favor of slavery, to say that the constitution _intended_ to sanction
it; for if it _intended_ to sanction it, it _did_ thereby necessarily
sanction it, (that is, if slavery then had any constitutional existence
to be sanctioned.) The _intentions_ of the constitution are the only
means whereby it sanctions any thing. And its intentions necessarily
sanction everything to which they apply, and which, in the nature of
things, they are competent to sanction. To say, therefore, that the
constitution _intended_ to sanction slavery, is the same as to say that
it _did_ sanction it; which is begging the whole question, and
substituting mere assertion for proof.

Why, then, do not men say distinctly, that the constitution _did_
sanction slavery, instead of saying that it _intended_ to sanction it?
We are not accusto