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med to use the word "_intention_," when speaking of the other grants and sanctions of the constitution. We do not say, for example, that the constitution _intended_ to authorize congress "to coin money," but that it _did_ authorize them to coin it. Nor do we say that it intended to authorize them "to declare war;" but that it did authorize them to declare it. It would be silly and childish to say merely that it _intended_ to authorize them "to coin money," and "to declare war," when the language authorizing them to do so, is full, explicit and positive. Why, then, in the case of slavery, do men say merely that the constitution _intended_ to sanction it, instead of saying distinctly, as we do in the other cases, that it _did_ sanction it? The reason is obvious. If they were to say unequivocally that it _did_ sanction it, they would lay themselves under the necessity of pointing to the _words_ that sanction it; and they are aware that the _words alone_ of the constitution do not come up to that point. They, therefore, assert simply that the constitution _intended_ to sanction it; and they then attempt to support the assertion by quoting certain words and phrases, which they say are _capable_ of covering, or rather of concealing such an intention; and then by the aid of exterior, circumstantial and historical evidence, they attempt to enforce upon the mind the conclusion that, as matter of fact, such was the intention of those who _drafted_ the constitution; and thence they finally infer that such was the intention of the constitution itself. The error and fraud of this whole procedure--and it is one purely of error and fraud--consists in this--that it artfully substitutes the supposed intentions of those who drafted the constitution, for the intentions of the constitution itself; and, secondly, it personifies the constitution as a crafty individual; capable of both open and secret intentions; capable of legally participating in, and giving effect to all the subtleties and double dealing of knavish men; and as actually intending to secure slavery, while openly professing to "secure and establish liberty and justice." It personifies the constitution as an individual capable of having private and criminal intentions, which it dare not distinctly avow, but only darkly hint at, by the use of words of an indefinite, uncertain and double meaning, whose application is to be gathered from external circumstances. The falsehood o
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