free" to express the political
relation of the individual to the state, and not any property relation
of one individual to another. If we look into the law of nature for the
meaning of the word "free," we find that by that law all mankind are
free. Whether, therefore, we look to the constitution itself, to the
contemporary state constitutions, or to the law of nature, for the
meaning of this word "free," the only meaning we shall find is one
consistent with the personal liberty of all. On the other hand, if we
are resolved to give the word a meaning correlative with slavery, we
must go to the lawless code of the kidnapper to find such a meaning.
Does it need any argument to prove to which of these different codes our
judicial tribunals are bound to go, to find the meaning of the words
used in a constitution, that is established professedly to secure
liberty and justice?

Once more. It is altogether a false, absurd, violent, unnatural and
preposterous proceeding, in construing a political paper, which purports
to establish men's relations to the state, and especially in construing
the clause in it which fixes the basis of representation and taxation,
to give to the words, which describe the persons to be represented and
taxed, and which appropriately indicate those relations of men to the
state which make them proper subjects of taxation and representation--to
give to such words a meaning, which, instead of describing men's
relations to the state, would describe merely a personal or property
relation of one individual to another, which the state has nowhere else
recognized, and which, if admitted to exist, would absolve the persons
described from all allegiance to the state, would deny them all right to
be represented, and discharge them from all liability to be taxed.

But it is unnecessary to follow out this slave argument into all its
ramifications. It sets out with nothing but assumptions, that are
gratuitous, absurd, improbable, irrelevant, contrary to all previous
usage, contrary to natural right, and therefore inadmissible. It
conducts to nothing but contradictions, absurdities, impossibilities,
indiscriminate slavery, anarchy, and the destruction of the very
government which the constitution was designed to establish.

The other clause relied on as a recognition and sanction, both of
slavery and the slave trade, is the following:

"The migration or importation of such persons as any of the states
now ex