in every part, and especially is this the case in reference to the now all-absorbing question of negro slavery.

What was the state of this institution at the adoption of the Constitution, and how did the Constitution deal with it?

The first introduction of African slaves into the American colonies was in 1620. The total number imported by means of the African slave trade between 1715 and 1790, was about 300,000. When the Constitution was ratified in 1790, the total number of slaves in all the States and territories was near 700,000. All the States ratifying the Constitution, except Massachusetts, held slaves; Virginia the largest number—over 293,000; New Hampshire the smallest number—158. Even the granite hills of New Hampshire were not then free from the feet of bondmen.

Our fathers were not responsible for the existence of slavery in their midst. As already stated, the introduction of slaves had commenced in 1620, 156 years before the declaration of independence, and the institution had under the patronage of the British government, insidiously grown up and strengthened itself, especially in the Southern States, which were adapted to negro labor. There it had interwoven itself with the entire fabric of the social and domestic relations, and could not be suddenly or rashly severed without involving greater evils than its own existence.

It is undoubtedly true that a large number of the framers of the Constitution were themselves slaveholders, among them George Washington himself. With these men domestic slavery, though it might have been regarded as an evil, was certainly not looked upon as a mortal sin, nor were they, whatever might have been their theoretical opinions, practical believers in the doctrine of universal equality of rights or universal suffrage.

Here then, coeval with the organization of the Federal government, was the domestic institution of slavery, existing in all the States but one, and embracing over one sixth of their entire population. There were two very plain methods by which it might have been dealt with. One was by an express declaration of the Constitution, affirming as the Republican sectional party affirm, that slavery is a relic of barbarism, and therefore slavery shall be abolished in all the States and territories of the American Union. Another method was to have declared in the Constitution, as ultra men of the South now declare, that slavery is a benign institution, deserving of protection, encouragement and extension by the Federal government, and therefore slavery shall be protected and extended in all the States and territories of the American Union. Had the constitutional convention been a sectional and not a national organization; had its members been governed by a sectional and not a national spirit, they would doubtless have taken one or the other of the horns of this dilemma, but in that "spirit of amity, mutual deference and concession," which governed their lofty patriotism, they took neither of the extremes. They took the position that the institution of domestic slavery was of local origin and of local concern—a matter directly pertaining to the internal sovereignty of each State; that it was not a legitimate subject for national or Federal legislation, and so far as related to its extension or its abolition within the States, they left it where they found it, with the people of the States whom it most concerned, the Congress assuming only the right, after the period of twenty years, to prohibit the importations of slaves from beyond the limits of the United States. The political reason of this prohibition is apparent. Without it the principle of non-intervention with slavery by the Federal government which pervades the Constitution, could not have been carried out. So long as the foreign traffic in slaves was made lawful to any of the States, slavery was nationalized. American slave ships, engaged in a lawful commerce, and bearing the national flag, would be as much entitled to national protection as any other of the American mercantile marine. Permission of the African slave trade was essentially intervention in favor of slavery, and the right to prohibit it, and the exercise of that right, in no wise conflict with the principle of non-interference with it within the States.

There are but four provisions of the Constitution wherein the subject of slavery is alluded to, viz: Art. 1, sec. 2; art. 1, sec. 9; art. 4, sec. 2; and art. 5.

It is plain from these provisions—

1st—That the slaveholding States are entitled under the Constitution to representation in the national legislature upon three-fifths of their slaves, so long as slavery exists in those States; and they are subject to direct taxation accordingly.

2d—That the right under State laws to import slaves into the then existing States, was guaranteed for twenty years, or until 1808, and the guarded concession of the right involved the converse, that after 1808 the foreign slave trade was to be prohibited by Congress, for the reason already assigned, and any attempt by Congress now to open the African slave trade, would be as direct a moral violation of this compromise of the Constitution as if the Congress were to attempt directly to abolish slavery in any State.

3d—It is equally plain that the right of slave owners to recover fugitive slaves, escaping from the State where they are held, under the laws thereof, into another, is guaranteed.

The Federal Constitution so far as relates to the subject of slavery within the United States, involves the three propositions stated and nothing more, and there is nothing in these in the least degree expressing or implying a right in Congress to abolish or establish slavery in any State or territory of the Union. On the contrary, the whole tenor of the Constitution is, slavery is the creation of local law, and Congress is to let it alone.

Now as to the question of slavery in the territories and the power and policy of the Federal government concerning it there.

The power to acquire territory for the purpose of colonization or the creation of States was not expressly granted to the Federal government, either by the Articles of Confederation or by the Constitution, but it has been largely exercised under both systems of government. The acts of the government of the Confederation in accepting cessions from several of the States of unoccupied territory, claimed by them in the west, and organizing territorial governments therein, were declared in 1788, by as high authority as James Madison, to be "without the least color of constitutional authority." But as has been the case with many other usurpations of the Federal and other governments, the value of the ends to be attained seems to have justified the usurpation in the public mind.

The territory acquired by Congress under the Confederation was territory which was claimed by or belonged to certain of the original States. The territory acquired under the Constitution has been foreign territory. Louisiana was acquired in 1803 from France, Florida in 1819 from Spain, Texas in 1846 by annexation as a State, a portion of Oregon in 1846 by a boundary treaty, and a large territory including New Mexico, Utah and California by treaty with Mexico in 1848.

The purchase of Louisiana was a measure of Mr. Jefferson, but so serious were his doubts as to the constitutionality of the purchase, that he advised an amendment of the Constitution, but no such amendment was attempted, and the purchase was finally made and acquiesced in, upon the principle that the end justified the means. It seems now, however, to be generally conceded that the power of the Federal government to acquire territory, exists by implications either in the treaty making power or in the power to admit new