“How far that little candle throws his beams!”—
he would peruse the Constitution from beginning to end, from its opening Preamble to its final Amendment, and then the joyful opinion would be given.
There are three things he must observe: first and foremost, that the dismal words “Slave” and “Slavery” do not appear in the Constitution; so that, if the unnatural pretension of property in man lurk anywhere in that text, it is under a feigned name, or an alias, which is cause of suspicion, while an imperative rule renders its recognition impossible. Next, he would consider the Preamble, which is the key to open the whole succeeding instrument; but here no single word is found which does not open the Constitution to Freedom and close it to Slavery. The object of the Constitution is announced to be “in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity”; all of which, in every particular, is absolutely inconsistent with Slavery. And, thirdly, he would observe those time-honored, most efficacious, chain-breaking words in the Amendments: “No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” Scorning all false interpretations and glosses fastened upon the Constitution in support of Slavery, and with these three things before him, he would naturally declare that there was nothing in the original text on which this appalling wrong could be founded anywhere within the sphere of its operation. With wonder he would ask again by what strange delusion or hallucination the reason had been so far overcome as to recognize Slavery in the Constitution, when plainly it is not there, and cannot be there. The answer is humiliating, but easy.
People find in texts of Scripture the support of their own religious opinions or prejudices; and, in the same way, they find in texts of the Constitution the support of their political opinions or prejudices. And this may not be in either case because Scripture or Constitution, when truly interpreted, supports such opinions or prejudices, but because people are apt to find in texts simply a reflection of themselves. Most clearly and indubitably, whoever finds support of Slavery in the National Constitution has first found such support in himself: not that he will hesitate, perhaps, to condemn Slavery in words of approved gentleness, but because, from unhappy education, or more unhappy insensibility to the wrong, he has already conceded to it a certain traditional foothold of immunity, which he straightway transfers from himself to the Constitution. In dealing with this subject, it is not the Constitution, so much as human nature itself, which is at fault. Let the people change, and the Constitution will change also; for the Constitution is but the shadow, while the people are the substance.
Thank God, under influence of the struggle for national life, and in obedience to its incessant exigencies, the people have changed, and in nothing so much as on Slavery. Old opinions and prejudices have dissolved, and that traditional foothold Slavery once possessed is gradually weakening, until now it scarcely exists. Naturally this change must sooner or later show itself in the interpretation of the Constitution. But it is already visible even there, in the concession of powers over Slavery formerly denied. The time, then, has come when the Constitution, so long interpreted for Slavery, may be interpreted for Freedom. This is one stage of triumph. Universal emancipation, which is at hand, can be won only by complete emancipation of the Constitution itself, which has been so long degraded to wear chains that its real character is scarcely known.
Sometimes the concession is made on the ground of military necessity. The capacious war powers of the Constitution are invoked, and it is said that in their legitimate exercise Slavery may be destroyed. There is much in this concession,—more even than is imagined by many from whom it proceeds. It is war, say they, which puts these powers in motion; but they forget, that, wherever Slavery exists, there is perpetual war,—that Slavery itself is a state of war between two races, where one is for the moment victor,—pictured accurately by Jefferson as “permitting one half the citizens to trample on the rights of the other, transforming those into despots and these into enemies.”[274] Therefore, wherever Slavery exists, even in seeming peace, the war powers may be invoked to terminate a condition which is internecine, and to overthrow pretensions hostile to every attribute of the Almighty.
It is not on military necessity alone that the concession is made. Many, as they read the Constitution now, see its powers over Slavery more clearly than before. The old superstition is abandoned; and they join with Patrick Henry, when, in the Virginia Convention, he declared the power of manumission accorded to Congress. He did not hesitate to argue against the adoption of the Constitution, because it accorded this power. And shall we be less perspicacious for Freedom than this Virginia statesman for Slavery? Discerning the power, he confessed his dismay: let us confess our joy.
We have already seen that Slavery finds no support in the Constitution. Glance now at positive provisions by which it is brought completely under control of Congress.