ht
of all men to be free and equal, to be a self-evident truth!

It is due to the national convention to say, that this Section was not
adopted "without considerable opposition." Alluding to it, Mr. MARTIN
observes--

"It was said that we had just assumed a place among independent
nations in consequence of our opposition to the attempts of Great
Britain to _enslave us_: that this opposition was grounded upon the
preservation of those rights to which God and nature has entitled us,
not in _particular_, but in _common with all the rest of mankind_;
that we had appealed to the Supreme Being for his assistance, as the
God of freedom, who could not but approve our efforts to preserve the
rights which he had thus imparted to his creatures; that now, when we
scarcely had risen from our knees, from supplicating his aid and
protection in forming our government over a free people, a government
formed pretendedly on the principles of liberty, and for its
preservation,--in that government to have a provision, not only
putting it out of its power to restrain and prevent the slave trade,
even encouraging that most infamous traffic, by giving the States
power and influence in the Union in proportion as they cruelly and
wantonly sport with the rights of their fellow-creatures, ought to be
considered as a solemn mockery of, and insult to, that God whose
protection we had then implored, and could not fail to hold us up in
detestation, and render us contemptible to every true friend of
liberty in the world. It was said it ought to be considered that
national crimes can only be and frequently are, punished in this world
by _national punishments_, and that the continuance of the slave
trade, and thus giving it a national sanction, and encouragement,
ought to be considered as justly exposing us to the displeasure and
vengeance of Him who is equally Lord of all, and who views with equal
eye the poor _African slave_ and his _American master_![10]

[Footnote 10: How terribly and justly has this guilty nation been
scourged, since these words were spoken, on account of slavery and the
slave trade!]

"It was urged that, by this system, we were giving the general
government full and absolute power to regulate commerce, under which
general power it would have a right to restrain, or totally prohibit,
the slave trade: it must, therefore, appear to the world absurd and
disgraceful to the last degree that we should except from the exercise
of