ould do away with the
system. But so far as the extension of slavery was concerned, the
predominant feeling, North and South, was hostile to it. The security
of the country demanded the union of the States under one common
Constitution. The dangers of foreign war, the exhausted finances of the
different States, the evils of a great public debt, contracted during
the Revolution, made it advisable, as soon as the consent of the States
could be got, to have a Constitution that should command security at
home and credit and respect abroad. It was regarded as indispensable for
union, that slavery should be left as it was found in the States. The
thirteen States that first formed our Union under the Constitution, with
the great evils that grew out of war and debt, agreed, for their own
mutual protection, that slavery should be permitted to exist in those
States where it was sanctioned by the local government, as an evil to be
tolerated, not as a thing good in itself, to be fostered, perpetuated,
and enlarged. Seeing that union could not be had without slavery, it was
recognized as an institution not to be interfered with by the free
States; but not acknowledged, in the sense that it was right, a blessing
that, like free labor, should be the normal condition of the whole
people. There was no such indifference to slavery as a civil
institution, as has been asserted. The reason is two-fold: first, the
States could not be indifferent to slavery, if they wished; and
secondly, they could not repudiate, in the Constitution, the Declaration
of Independence. Thus the word 'slave' is not found in the Constitution.
In the rendition of slaves, they simply spoke of persons held to
service, and as union was impossible, if the free States were open to
their escape, without the right being recognized of being returned, this
provision was accordingly made; and yet by the provision that no person
should be deprived of liberty or life, without due process of law, and
that the free citizens of one State, irrespective of color, should have
the same rights, while resident in any other State, as the citizens of
that State, the framers of our Constitution declared, in language most
explicit, the natural rights of all men. The question is not as to the
consistency of their profession and practice, or how they could fight
for their own independence, and yet deny freedom, for the sake of the
Union, to the slaves; but the question is simply whether, in pr