t of the Constitution as originally framed, or
subsequently amended, and abide by it, irrespective altogether of
present interests or relations. The reason is, in no other way can the
common welfare of the country be promoted. If the necessities of the
people demand a change in the Constitution, they can, in a legal way,
exercise the right, always remembering that no republic, no free
institutions, no democratic state of society can exist that denies the
great principle of the rule of the majority. It becomes us, then, in
order that we may come to a right decision respecting the duties that
grow out of our Federal Union, to consider what language the
Constitution makes use of, in relation to slavery, and how was this
instrument interpreted by the framers. The great question is, was
slavery regarded as a political and moral evil, to be restricted and
circumscribed within the States existing under the Constitution, or was
it looked upon as a blessing, a social relation of society, proper to be
diffused over the territories? It can be clearly shown that there was no
such state of feeling, respecting slavery, as to lead the originators of
our Constitution to look upon it as a thing in itself of natural right,
useful in its operation, and worthy of enlargement and perpetuation.
Rather, the universal sentiment respecting slavery, North and South,
was, that as a great moral, social, and political evil, it should be
condemned, and the widely prevalent impression was, that through the
peaceful operation of causes that evinced the immeasurable superiority
of free institutions, slavery would itself die out, and the whole
country be consecrated to free labor. Never did it enter the minds of
the framers of the Constitution, that slavery was a thing in itself
right and desirable, or that it should be encouraged in the territories.
It was looked upon as exclusively local in its character, the creature
of State law, a relation of society that was to be regulated like any
other municipal institution. It is not to be presumed that the authors
of our government would, in the Declaration of Independence, assert the
natural rights of all men to life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness, and then contradict this cardinal principle of the revolution
in the Constitution. They found slavery existing in the Southern States;
they simply left it as it was before the Revolution, with the idea that
in time the local action of the State legislature w