aration of independence?

The Declaration was certainly the constitutional law of this country for
certain purposes. For example, it absolved the people from their
allegiance to the English crown. It would have been so declared by the
judicial tribunals of this country, if an American, during the
revolutionary war or since, had been tried for treason to the crown. If,
then, the declaration were the constitutional law of the country for
that purpose, was it not also constitutional law for the purpose of
recognizing and establishing, as law, the natural and inalienable right
of individuals to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? The
lawfulness of the act of absolving themselves from their allegiance to
the crown, was avowed by the people of the country--and that too in the
same instrument that declared the absolution--to rest entirely upon, and
to be only a consequence of the natural right of all men to life,
liberty and the pursuit of happiness. If, then, the act of absolution
was lawful, does it not necessarily follow that the principles that
legalized the act, were also law? And if the country ratified the act of
absolution, did they not also necessarily ratify and acknowledge the
principles which they declared legalized the act?

It is sufficient for our purpose, if it be admitted that this principle
was the law of the country at that particular time, (1776)--even though
it had continued to be the law only for a year, or even a day. For if it
were the law of the country even for a day, it freed every slave in the
country--(if there were, as we say there were not, any legal slaves then
in the country.) And the burden would then be upon the slaveholder to
show that slavery had _since_ been _constitutionally_ established. And
to show this, he must show an express _constitutional_ designation of
the particular individuals, who have since been made slaves. Without
such particular designation of the individuals to be made slaves, (and
not even the present constitutions of the slave States make any such
designation,) all constitutional provisions, purporting to authorize
slavery, are indefinite, and uncertain in their application, and for
that reason void.

But again. The people of this country--in the very instrument by which
they first announced their independent political existence, and first
asserted their right to establish governments of their own--declared
that the natural and inalienable right of all men to