ion to such repeal
upon the ground that these laws are themselves one of the compromises of
the Constitution of the United States. Now, it would be very interesting
to see Judge Douglas or any of his friends turn, to the Constitution of
the United States and point out that compromise, to show where there is
any compromise in the Constitution, or provision in the Constitution;
express or implied, by which the administrators of that Constitution are
under any obligation to repeal the African slave trade. I know, or at
least I think I know, that the framers of that Constitution did expect
the African slave trade would be abolished at the end of twenty years, to
which time their prohibition against its being abolished extended there
is abundant contemporaneous history to show that the framers of the
Constitution expected it to be abolished. But while they so expected,
they gave nothing for that expectation, and they put no provision in
the Constitution requiring it should be so abolished. The migration or
importation of such persons as the States shall see fit to admit shall not
be prohibited, but a certain tax might be levied upon such importation.
But what was to be done after that time? The Constitution is as silent
about that as it is silent, personally, about myself. There is absolutely
nothing in it about that subject; there is only the expectation of the
framers of the Constitution that the slave trade would be abolished at the
end of that time; and they expected it would be abolished, owing to public
sentiment, before that time; and the put that provision in, in order that
it should not be abolished before that time, for reasons which I suppose
they thought to be sound ones, but which I will not now try to enumerate
before you.

But while, they expected the slave trade would be abolished at that time,
they expected that the spread of slavery into the new Territories should
also be restricted. It is as easy to prove that the framers of the
Constitution of the United States expected that slavery should be
prohibited from extending into the new Territories, as it is to prove
that it was expected that the slave trade should be abolished. Both these
things were expected. One was no more expected than the other, and one was
no more a compromise of the Constitution than the other. There was nothing
said in the Constitution in regard to the spread of slavery into the
Territory. I grant that; but there was something very impo