iii. Constitution

This state of public opinion had undergone no change when the constitution was adopted,
as is equally evident from its provisions and language.

The brief preamble sets forth by whom it was formed, for what purposes, and for whose
benefit and protection. It declares that it is formed by the people of the United States; that is to
say, by those who were members of the different political communities in the several States; and
its great object is declared to be to secure the blessings of liberty to themselves and their
posterity. It speaks in general terms of the people of the United States, and of citizens of the
several States, when it is providing for the exercise of the powers granted or the privileges
secured to the citizen. It does not define what description of persons are intended to be included
under these terms, or who shall be regarded as a citizen and one of the people. It uses them as
terms so well understood that no further description or definition was necessary.

But there are two clauses in the Constitution which point directly and specifically to the
negro race as a separate class of persons, and show clearly that they were not regarded as a
portion of the people or citizens of the government then formed.

One of these clauses reserves to each of the thirteen States the right to import slaves until
the year 1808, if it thinks proper. And the importation which it thus sanctions was un-
questionably of persons of the race of which we are speaking, as the traffic in slaves in the
United States had always been confined to them. And by the other provision the States pledge
themselves to each other to maintain the right of property of the master, by delivering up to him
any slave who may have escaped from his service, and be found within their respective
territories. By the first above-mentioned clause, therefore, the right to purchase and hold this
property is directly sanctioned and authorized for twenty years by the people who framed the
Constitution. And by the second, they pledge themselves to maintain and uphold the right of the
master in the manner specified, as long as the government they then formed should endure. And
these two provisions show, conclusively, that neither the description of persons therein referred
to, nor their descendants, were embraced in any of the other provisions of the Constitution; for
certainly these two clauses were not intended to confer on them or their posterity the blessings of
liberty, or any of the personal rights so carefully provided for the citizen.

No one of that race had ever migrated to the United States voluntarily; all of them had
been brought here as articles of merchandise. The number that had been emancipated at that time
were but few in comparison with those held in slavery; and they were identified in the public
mind with the race to which they belonged, and regarded as a part of the slave population rather
than the free. It is obvious that they were not even in the minds of the framers of the Constitution
when they were conferring special rights and privileges upon the citizens of a State in every other
part of the Union.

iv. State Laws

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