rtunity of consultation with the members of
the convention, to ascertain their opinions. And even if they had
consulted them, they would not have been bound at all by their opinions.
But being unable to consult them, they were compelled to adopt or reject
the instrument, on their own judgment of its meaning, without any
reference to the opinions of the convention. The instrument, therefore,
is now to be regarded as expressing the intentions of the people at
large; and not the intentions of the convention, if the convention had
any intentions differing from the meaning which the law gives to the
words of the instrument.

But why do the partizans of slavery resort to the debates of the
convention for evidence that the constitution sanctions slavery? Plainly
for no other reason than because the words of the instrument do not
sanction it. But can the intentions of that convention, attested only by
a mere skeleton of its debates, and not by any impress upon the
instrument itself, add any thing to the words, or to the legal meaning
of the words of the constitution? Plainly not. Their intentions are of
no more consequence, in a legal point of view, than the intentions of
any other equal number of the then voters of the country. Besides, as
members of the convention, they were not even parties to the instrument;
and no evidence of their intentions, at _that_ time, is applicable to
the case. They became parties to it only by joining with the rest of the
people in its subsequent adoption; and they themselves, equally with
the rest of the people, must then be presumed to have adopted its legal
meaning, and that alone--notwithstanding any thing they may have
previously said. What absurdity then is it to set up the opinions
expressed in the convention, and by a few only of its members, in
opposition to the opinions expressed by the whole people of the country,
in the constitution itself.

But notwithstanding the opinions expressed in the convention by some of
the members, we are bound, as a matter of law, to presume that the
convention itself, in the aggregate, had no intention of sanctioning
slavery--and why? Because, after all their debates, they agreed upon an
instrument that did not sanction it. This was confessedly the result in
which all their debates terminated. This instrument is also the _only_
authentic evidence of their intentions. It is subsequent in its date to
all the other evidence. It comes to us, also, as none of t