ANALYSIS OF THE WORDS OF THE FUGITIVE CLAUSE.
Looking more minutely at the precise words of this clause, we see how completely it is stamped with equivocation from beginning to end. Every descriptive word it contains is double in signification. The clause may be seen, first, in what it does not contain; and, secondly, in what it does contain. It does not contain the word “slave” or “slavery,” which singly and exclusively denotes the idea of property in man. Had either of these fatal words been employed, there would have been no uncertainty or duplicity. But in abandoning these words, all idea of property in man was abandoned also. Other words were adopted, simply because they might mean something else, and therefore would not render the Constitution on its face “odious.” But the unquestionable fact that these words might mean something else makes it impossible for them to mean “slave” or “slavery,” unless in this behalf we set aside the most commanding rules of interpretation. It is clear that the authors of this clause attempted an impossibility. They wished to secure Slavery without plainly saying so; but such is Slavery that it cannot be secured without plainly saying so. Naturally and inevitably they failed, as if they had attempted to describe black by words which might mean white, or to authorize crime by words which naturally mean something that is not crime. The thing could not be done. The attempt to square the circle is not more absurd.
The clause begins with the descriptive words, “No person held to service or labor in one State under the laws thereof.” Now a slave is not a “person,” with the rights of persons, but a chattel or thing. Such is the received definition of the Slave States, handed down from Aristotle. He is not “held to service or labor,” but he is held as property. The terms employed describe an apprentice, but not a slave. And he must be held “under the laws” of a State. Here again is the case of an apprentice, who is clearly held “under the laws” of a State. But we have the authority of Mr. Mason, recently of the Senate from Virginia, for saying that no proof can be produced that Slavery in any State “is established by existing laws.”[325] The person thus described shall not “be discharged from such service or labor.” Clearly an apprentice is discharged, but a slave is manumitted or emancipated. This undischarged person “shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.” But all these words imply contract, or at least debt, as in the case of an apprentice. The slave can owe no “service or labor” to his master. There is nothing in their relations out of which any such obligation can spring. The whole condition stands on force and nothing else. It is robbery tempered by the lash,—not merely robbery of all the fruits of industry, but robbery of wife and child. To such terrible assumption the language of contract or debt is totally inapplicable. Nothing can be “due” from slave to master, unless it be that “resistance to tyrants” which is “obedience to God.” It is absurd to say that “labor or service,” in any sense, whether of justice or of law, can be “due” from the slave. The same power which takes wife and child may exact this further sacrifice, but not because it is “due.”
Such is the simple truth touching this much debated clause. At the touchstone of unquestioned rules of interpretation its odious character disappears, and astonishment prevails that the public mind for so long a period could have been perverted with regard to its true meaning. Nobody can doubt that this clause may be interpreted in favor of Freedom, so as to exclude all idea of property in man. But if it may, then such is the voice of Freedom that it must.