It may, however, be assumed, in the light of authentic history, that the majority of the framers of the Constitution, and a majority of its friends in the States, hoped and believed that slavery would not be permanent under it. In this belief it was framed. Slavery was not affirmatively recognized in it, though there was much discussion as to it in the Constitutional Convention. There was no attempt to abolish it; such an attempt would have failed in the Convention, and the Constitution, so necessary to the new nation, had it even provided for gradual emancipation, would not have been ratified by the States.
It can hardly be said that the Constitution was framed on the line of compromise as to the preservation of human slavery, though it was necessary, in some occult ways, to recognize its existence. This was in the nature, however, of a concession to it; the word slave or slavery was not used in it.
The Supreme Court of the United States, however, early interpreted the third clause of Section IV., Article 2, as providing for the return from one State to another of fugitive slaves. This interpretation has been, on high authority, and with much reason, in the light of history, stoutly denied. The clause reads:
"No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor is due."
The "service or labor" here referred to, it is claimed, was that owing by persons who were under indentures of some kind, growing out of contracts for transportation into the colonies of persons from the Old World, and possibly growing out of other contract obligations wherein they had agreed, for a long or short term, to perform "service or labor." Many such obligations then existed.
Slaves were not then nor since regarded by their owners as "persons" merely "held to service or labor," but they were held as personal chattels, owing no duty to their masters distinguishable from that owing by an ox, a horse, or an ass.
But the supreme judiciary and the executive and legislative departments of the government came soon to treat this as a fugitive- slave clause. It is only now interesting to examine its peculiar phraseology and the history and surrounding circumstances under which it became a part of the Constitution, to demonstrate the great care and desire of the eminent and liberty-loving framers of the Constitution to avoid the direct recognition of African slavery.
The only other clause in which the adherents of slavery claimed it was recognized is paragraph 3, Section 2, Article I., which provided that:
"Representation and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several States . . . according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other persons."
The "other persons" referred to here, if only slaves, are very delicately described. But this clause, too, came to be recognized by all the departments of the government as referring to slaves. It is quite sure that if the good and plain men of the Revolutionary period had been dealing with a subject not shocking to their consciences, sense of justice, and humanity, they would have dealt with it in plain words, of direct and not doubtful import.