And I will say further,
perhaps other gentlemen may remember the instances, that although
slavery, as a system of servitude attached to the earth, exists in
various countries of Europe, I am not at the present moment aware of any
place on the globe in which this property of man in a human being as a
slave, transferable as a chattel, exists, except America. Now, that it
existed, in the form in which it still exists, in certain States, at the
formation of this Constitution, and that the framers of that
instrument, and those who adopted it, agreed that, as far as it existed,
it should not be disturbed or interfered with by the new general
government, there is no doubt.
The Constitution of the United States recognizes it as an existing fact,
an existing relation between the inhabitants of the Southern States. I
do not call it an "institution," because that term is not applicable to
it; for that seems to imply a voluntary establishment. When I first came
here, it was a matter of frequent reproach to England, the mother
country, that slavery had been entailed upon the colonies by her,
against their consent, and that which is now considered a cherished
"institution" was then regarded as, I will not say an _evil_, but an
entailment on the Colonies by the policy of the mother country against
their wishes. At any rate, it stands upon the Constitution. The
Constitution was adopted in 1788, and went into operation in 1789. When
it was adopted, the state of the country was this: slavery existed in
the Southern States; there was a very large extent of unoccupied
territory, the whole Northwestern Territory, which, it was understood,
was destined to be formed into States; and it was then determined that
no slavery should exist in this territory.
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