e and unchristian to embody it in
the form of a disqualifying legal sentence and an indelible political
brand. But its manifest untruth was clearly shown by Justice Curtis in
his dissenting opinion. He reminded the Chief-Justice that at the
adoption of the Constitution:

[Sidenote] 19 Howard, p. 582.

In five of the thirteen original States colored persons then
possessed the elective franchise, and were among those by whom the
Constitution was ordained and established. If so, it is not true
in point of fact that the Constitution was made exclusively by the
white race, and that it was made exclusively for the white race is
in my opinion not only an assumption not warranted by anything in
the Constitution, but contradicted by its opening declaration that
it was ordained and established by the people of the United States
for themselves and their posterity; and as free colored persons
were then citizens of at least five States, and so in every sense
part of the people of the United States, they were among those for
whom and whose posterity the Constitution was ordained and
established.

Elsewhere in the same opinion he said:

[Sidenote] Ibid., pp. 574-5.

I shall not enter into an examination of the existing opinions of
that period respecting the African race, nor into any discussion
concerning the meaning of those who asserted in the Declaration of
Independence that all men are created equal; that they are endowed
by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these
are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. My own opinion
is, that a calm comparison of these assertions of universal
abstract truths, and of their own individual opinions and acts,
would not leave these men under any reproach of inconsistency;
that the great truths they asserted on that solemn occasion they
were ready and anxious to make effectual; wherever a necessary
regard to circumstances, which no statesman can disregard without
producing more evil than good, would allow; and that it would not
be just to them, nor true in itself, to allege that they intended
to say that the Creator of all men had endowed the white race
exclusively with the great natural rights which the Declaration of
Independence asserts.

Justice McLean, in his dissenting opinion, completed the outline of
the true historical picture in a