ision therefore absolutely prohibits the passage of slave laws,
because laws that make men slaves must necessarily impair the obligation
of all their contracts.

_Eighth._ Persons, whom some of the state governments recognize as
slaves, are made eligible, by the constitution of the United States, to
the office of president of the United States. The constitutional
provision on this subject is this:

"No person, except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United
States at the time of the adoption of this constitution, shall be
eligible to the office of president; neither shall any person be
eligible to that office, who shall not have attained the age of
thirty-five years, and been fourteen years a resident of the United
States."

According to this provision, _all_ "persons",[23] who have resided
within the United States fourteen years, have attained the age of
thirty-five years, and are either _natural born citizens, or were
citizens of the United States at the time of the adoption of the
constitution_, are eligible to the office of president. No other
qualifications than these being required by the constitution, no others
can be legally demanded. The only question, then, that can arise, is as
to the word "citizen." Who are the persons that come within this
definition, as here used? The clause itself divides them into two
classes, to wit, the "natural born," and those who were "citizens of the
United States at the time of the adoption of the constitution." In
regard to this latter class, it has before been shown, from the preamble
to the constitution, that all who were "people of the United States,"
(that is, permanent inhabitants,) at the time the constitution was
adopted, were made citizens by it. And this clause, describing those
eligible to the office of president, implies the same thing. This is
evident; for it speaks of those who were "citizens of the _United
States_ at the time of the adoption of the constitution." Now there
clearly could have been no "citizens of the United States, at the time
of the adoption of the constitution," unless they were made so by the
constitution itself; for there were _no_ "citizens of the _United
States_" _before_ the adoption of the constitution. The Confederation
had no citizens. It was a mere league between the state governments. The
separate states belonging to the confederacy had each their own citizens
respectively. But the confederation itself, as s