urder.

At natural law, and on principles of natural right, a person, who should
_sell_ to another a weapon or a poison, knowing that it would, or
intending that it should be used for the purpose of murder, would be
legally an accessary to the murder that should be committed with it. And
if the grant to congress of a "power to regulate commerce," can be
stretched beyond the _innocent_ meaning of the words--beyond the power
of regulating and authorizing a commerce that is consistent with natural
justice--and be made to cover every thing, intrinsically criminal, that
can be perpetrated under the name of commerce--then congress have the
authority of the constitution for granting to individuals the liberty of
bringing weapons and poisons from "foreign nations" into this, and from
one state into another, and selling them openly for the express purposes
of murder, without any liability to legal restraint or punishment.

Can any stronger cases than these be required to prove the necessity,
the soundness, and the inflexibility of that rule of law, which requires
the judiciary to ascribe an innocent meaning to all language that will
possibly bear an innocent meaning? and to ascribe _only_ an innocent
meaning to language whose mere verbal import might be susceptible of
both an innocent _and_ criminal meaning? If this rule of interpretation
could be departed from, there is hardly a power granted to congress,
that might not _lawfully_ be perverted into an authority for legalizing
crimes of the highest grade.

In the light of these principles, then, let us examine those clauses of
the constitution, that are relied on as recognizing and sanctioning
slavery. They are but three in number.

The one most frequently quoted is the third clause of Art. 4, Sec. 2, in
these words:

"No person, held to service or labor in one state, under the laws
thereof, escaping into another, shall in consequence of any law or
regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor; but
shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or
labor may be due."

There are several reasons why this clause renders no sanction to
slavery.

1. It must be construed, if possible, as sanctioning nothing contrary to
natural right.

If there be any "service or labor" whatever, to which any "persons"
whatever may be "held," _consistently with natural right_, and which any
person may, consistently with natural right, "_claim_" a