is there universally defined as a right of property in man; whereas the Constitution of the United States, in all its prohibitions and provisions, designates and acts upon human beings only as persons. Whatever their characters or relations under the laws of the States, they are, under the Federal Constitution, men. Nowhere in that immortal paper is there an iota or tittle which gives countenance to the idea that human beings may he held as property. It speaks of “persons held to service or labor,” as apprentices, for instance, — and of persons other than free, i. e. not politically citizens, as Indians and some negroes; but it does not speak of Slaves or of Slavery; on the contrary, in every part, it legislates for men solely as men. The laws of each State, and the relations of the various inhabitants of each State, is of course recognizes as valid within each State; but it recognizes them as resting exclusively on the municipal authority of the State, and not on its own authority. Against nothing did the framers of the Constitution more strenuously contend than against the admission of any phrase sanctioning the tenure of man as property. They refused even to allow of the use of the word servitude, so much did they hate the thing; and Madison expressed their almost unanimous sentiment when he exclaimed, “We intend this Constitution to be the Great Charter of Human Liberty to the unborn millions who shall yet enjoy its protection, and who should not see that such an institution as Slavery was ever known in our midst.” In that spirit was the instrument framed, and in that spirit was it administered, while its framers lived.
Nevertheless, under the twofold pretence we have cited, — the one reconciling the conscience with the cowardice of the North, and the other conceding the arrogant pretensions of the South, — the negation of the power of the central government over Slavery was carried into effect. By a legislative hocus-pocus, known as the Compromise Measures of 1850, Congress, contrary to the uniform tendency of bodies entrusted with a discretion, vacated instead of enlarging its powers. Its sovereign function of territorial legislation was abdicated, in favor of that wretched and ragged pretender, Squatter Sovereignty; and silly or misguided people everywhere, who professed to regard as dangerous that political excitement and agitation which are the life of republics, hailed the accession of King Log as a glorious triumph of legitimacy. In the remanding of a delicate question from the central to a local jurisdiction, in the conversion of a general into a topical inflammation, they affected to see an end of the difficulty, a cure to the disease. But no expectation could have been less wise. It was a transfer, and a possible postponement, but not a settlement of the trouble. Had they looked deeper, they would have discerned that the dispute in regard to Slavery is involved in the very structure of our government, which links two incompatible civilizations under the same head, which compels a struggle for political power between the diverse elements by the terms and conditions of their union, and which, if the contest is suppressed at one time or place, forces it to break out at another, and will force it to break out incessantly, until either Freedom or Slavery has achieved a decisive triumph.
The principle of the non-interference of Congress with the Territories once secured, there yet stood in the way of its universal application the time-honored agreement called the Missouri Compromise. Down to the year 1820, Congress had legislated to keep Slavery out of the Territories; but at that disastrous era, a weak dread of civil convulsion led to the surrender of a single State (Missouri) to this evil, — under a solemn stipulation and warrant, however, that it should never again be introduced north of a certain line. Originating with the Slave-holders, and sustained by the Slave-holders, this compact was sacredly respected by them for thirty-three years; it was respected until they had got out of it
