one has the right unnecessarily to impede our spiritual or mental culture, even in the slightest degree, much less unnecessarily to expose us, almost certainly, to hopeless degradation. No more have we the right, by holding our fellows in slavery, to render almost inevitable the death of their souls.

Slaveholding, then, is always wrong, because it either deliberately murders the souls of its victims, or else renders such spiritual death almost inevitable. Nor is slaveholding ever made right by the fact that the slaves will not consent to be emancipated; for no man can rightfully consent to his own degradation. What man would consent to become even the favored slave of Dr. Fuller?

CHAPTER XI.

THE CONSTITUTION AND ITS INTERPRETATION.

The Constitution is not what it ought to be, not what we wish it to be; not what is consistent with sound morals, but simply what its words meant in 1789,- nothing more, nothing less.

THE Constitution of the United States was drawn up by a Convention, of which Washington was president. The people, assembled in their State Conventions, adopted the draft, because it aptly expressed the kind of union they wished to have, because it fully and exactly expressed their meaning. In order, therefore, to ascertain the character of our political union with the Slave States, we have only to ascertain the true meaning of the words of the Constitution, or their plain, obvious, and common meaning, at the time the Constitution was adopted. Every writer who wishes to be understood uses his words in their usual signification. Every one supposes that we mean just what our words commonly mean now. When we read Chaucer, or Shakspeare, or Dr. Johnson, we understand him to mean just what his words commonly meant at the time he wrote, unless such meaning is repelled or qualified by the context, in which case we adopt this new or qualified meaning. In like manner, the people of the United States are to be understood to mean, by the words of the Constitution, just what those words commonly meant when the Constitution was adopted, unless such meaning is repelled or qualified by the context; in which case, a regard for truth obliges us to adopt this new or qualified meaning.

This simple, true, and universally practised rule is thus laid down by Judge Story (Comm. on Const. Abr. § 210):

66

"Every word employed in the Constitution is to be expounded in its plain, obvious, and common sense, unless the context furnishes some ground to control, qualify, or enlarge it. Constitutions are not designed for metaphysical or logical subtleties, for niceties of expression, for critical propriety, for elaborate shades of meaning, or for the exercise of philosophical acuteness or juridical research. They are instruments of a practical nature, founded on the common business of human life, adapted to common wants, designed for common use, and fitted for common understandings. The people make them; the people adopt them; the people must be supposed to read them, with the help of common sense; and cannot be presumed to admit in them any recondite meaning, or any extraordinary gloss." Sec. 212: "Where technical words are used, the technical meaning is to be applied to them, unless it is repelled by the context. But the same word often possesses a technical and a common sense. In such a case, the latter is to be preferred, unless some attendant circumstance points clearly to the former."

The Constitution was also framed and adopted with reference to the actual political, social, and local condition of the people. It grew out of their wants and wishes. The steps which finally led to its adoption grew out of one of the many defects in the articles of confederation. Consequently, to arrive at the true meaning of the Constitution, we must bear in mind the political, social, and local condition of the people at the time of its adoption, and, among many other similar facts, the very general existence of domestic slavery.*

Keeping in view these, the very simplest rules of interpretation, we will show what the Constitution is according to the common meaning of its terms; what its framers intended to make it; what, in point of fact, it has been considered to

* This point, and the legality of Colonial and State Slavery, are more elaborated in an article called "The Constitutionality of Slavery," printed in the "Massachusetts Quarterly Review;" a purely legal, uninteresting examination, which needs not to be repeated here.

For a more extended proof of the constitutionality of slavery, we refer to Wendell Phillips's very able Review of Lysander Spooner's Essay.

be in the practice of the government; and, finally, what it has been adjudged to mean by that body which it has itself pointed out as the final arbiter of its meaning. And, if all these unite in giving the Constitution but one character, we, as reasonable men, seeking the truth, cannot deny that such is its true character.

1

CHAPTER XII.

THE CONSTITUTION ACCORDING TO THE COMMON MEANING OF ITS TERMS.

The people made it, the people adopted it, the people must be supposed to read it with the help of common sense, and cannot be presumed to admit in it any hidden or extraordinary meaning.

AT the time of the adoption of the Constitution, slavery existed in all the States except Massachusetts. How far, if at all, does this instrument support or countenance the institution?

66

Art. 1, sec. 2 : 'Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this union, according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three-fifths of all other persons."

By this section, persons are divided into those who are free and those who are slaves; for to the whole number of free persons are to be added three-fifths of all other persons, that is, persons not free, or slaves. If we adopt the plain, obvious, and common meaning of the words as their true meaning, this conclusion is incontrovertible.

It is sometimes urged, that by "free person" is meant "citizen." But the expression cannot be taken in any such technical sense. Under the expression "free persons" are included those bound to service for a term of years, and therefore from it are excluded those bound to service for life, or slaves.