y at the same time, are absolutely inconsistent with each other?
And does not such affirmation become impudently absurd when coupled with
the other affirmation from the same mouth, that those who did the two
things alleged to be inconsistent understood whether they really were
inconsistent better than we--better than he who affirms that they are
inconsistent?

It is surely safe to assume that the thirty-nine framers of the original
Constitution, and the seventy-six members of the Congress which framed the
amendments thereto, taken together, do certainly include those who may be
fairly called "our fathers who framed the Government under which we live."
And, so assuming, I defy any man to show that any one of them ever, in his
whole life, declared that, in his understanding, any proper division of
local from Federal authority, or any part of the Constitution, forbade the
Federal Government to control as to slavery in the Federal Territories. I
go a step further. I defy any one to show that any living man in the
world ever did, prior to the beginning of the present century (and I
might almost say prior to the beginning of the last half of the present
century), declare that, in his understanding, any proper division of
local from Federal authority, or any part of the Constitution, forbade the
Federal Government to control as to slavery in the Federal Territories.
To those who now so declare, I give not only "our fathers who framed the
Government under which we live," but with them all other living men within
the century in which it was framed, among whom to search, and they shall
not be able to find the evidence of a single man agreeing with them.

Now and here let me guard a little against being misunderstood. I do not
mean to say we are bound to follow implicitly in whatever our fathers
did. To do so would be to discard all the lights of current experience to
reject all progress, all improvement. What I do say is that, if we would
supplant the opinions and policy of our fathers in any case, we should
do so upon evidence so conclusive, and argument so clear, that even their
great authority, fairly considered and weighed, cannot stand; and most
surely not in a case whereof we ourselves declare they understood the
question better than we.

If any man at this day sincerely believes that proper division of local
from Federal authority, or any part of the Constitution, forbids the
Federal Government to control as to slavery in