ionality.
Whether it be or be not constitutional, may depend upon a variety of
contingencies--such as the kind of service or labor required, and the
conditions on which it requires it. Any service or labor, that is
inconsistent with the duties which the constitution requires of the
people, is of course not sanctioned by this clause of the constitution
as being lawfully required. Neither, of course, is the requirement of
service or labor, _on any conditions, that are inconsistent with any
rights that are secured to the people by the constitution_, sanctioned
by the constitution as lawful. Slave laws, then, can obviously be held
to be sanctioned by this clause of the constitution, only by
gratuitously assuming, 1st, that the constitution neither confers any
rights, nor imposes any duties, upon the people of the United States,
inconsistent with their being made slaves; and, 2d, that it sanctions
the general principle of holding "persons to service or labor"
arbitrarily, without contract, without compensation, and without the
charge of crime. If this be really the kind of constitution that has
been in force since 1789, it is somewhat wonderful that there are so few
slaves in the country. On the other hand, if the constitution be not of
this kind, it is equally wonderful that we have any slaves at all--for
the instrument offers no ground for saying that a colored man may be
made a slave, and a white man not.

Again. Slave acts were not "laws" according to any state constitution
that was in existence at the time the constitution of the United States
was adopted. And if they were not "laws" at that time, they have not
been made so since.

6. The constitution itself, (Art. 1. Sec. 2,) in fixing the basis of
representation, has plainly _denied_ that those described in Art. 4, as
"persons held to service or labor," are slaves,--for it declares that
"persons bound to service for a term of years" shall be "included" in
the "number of _free_ persons." There is no _legal_ difference between
being "bound to service," and being "held to service or labor." The
addition, in the one instance, of the words, "for a term of years," does
not alter the case, for it does not appear that, in the other, they are
"held to service or labor" beyond a fixed term--and, in the absence of
evidence from the constitution itself, the presumption must be that they
are not--because such a presumption makes it unnecessary to go out of
the constitution to fi