appeared
that the United States constitution had itself provided or suggested no
correlative of the word "free;" for it would obviously be absurd and
inadmissible to go out of an instrument to find the intended correlative
of one of its own words, when it had itself suggested one. This the
constitution of the United States has done, in the persons of aliens.
The power of naturalization is, by the constitution, taken from the
states, and given exclusively to the United States. The constitution of
the United States, therefore, necessarily supposes the existence of
aliens--and thus furnishes the correlative sought for. It furnishes a
class both for the word "free," and the words "all other persons" to
apply to. And yet the slave argument contends that we must overlook
these distinctions, necessarily growing out of the laws of the United
States, and go out of the constitution of the United States to _find_
persons whom it describes as the "free," and "all other persons." And
what makes the argument the more absurd is, that by going out of the
instrument to the _then existing state constitutions_--the only
instruments to which we can go--we can find there _no other_ persons for
the words to apply to--no other classes answering to the description of
the "free persons" and "all other persons,"--than the very classes
suggested by the United States constitution itself, to wit, citizens and
aliens; (for it has previously been shown that the then existing state
constitutions recognized no such persons as slaves.)

If we are obliged, (as the slave argument claims we are,) to go out of
the constitution of the United States to find the class whom it
describes as "all other persons" than "the free," we shall, for aught I
see, be equally obliged to go out of it to find those whom it describes
as the "free"--for "the free," and "all other persons" than "the free,"
must be presumed to be found described somewhere in the same instrument.
If, then, we are obliged to go out of the constitution to find the
persons described in it as "the free" and "all other persons," we are
obliged to go out of it to ascertain who are the persons on whom it
declares that the representation of the government shall be based, and
on whom, of course, the government is founded. And thus we should have
the absurdity of a constitution that purports to authorize a government,
yet leaves us to go in search of the people who are to be represented in
it. Besides, if