that State it came to an end in consequence of a clause
inserted in the Constitution itself--tantamount to the one in our
Declaration of Independence, that freedom is a natural and inalienable
right. Successive judicial decisions, upon this clause, without any
special legislation, had abolished slavery there; so that the exact
period of its actual termination is not easily definable. This recalls
another point on which Mr. Thompson would have been the better of
possessing a little chronological information. He had repeatedly
stated that the American Constitution was founded on the principle,
that all men are created free and equal. Now, this was not so. The
principle was no doubt, a just one; it was asserted most fully by the
Continental Congress of 1776, and might be said to form the basis of
our Declaration of Independence. But it was not contained in the
American Constitution, which was formed twelve years afterwards. That
Constitution was formed in accordance with the circumstances in which
the different states were placed. Its chief object was to guard
against external injury, and regulate external affairs; it interfered
as little as possible with the internal regulations of each state. The
American was a federative system of government; twenty-four distinct
republics were united for certain purposes, and for these alone. So
far was the national government from possessing unlimited powers, that
the Constitution itself was but a very partial grant of those, which,
in their omnipotence, resided, according to our theory, only in the
people themselves in their primary assemblies. It had been specially
agreed in the Constitution itself, that the powers not delegated
should be as expressly reserved, as if excepted by name; and, amongst
the chief subjects, exclusively interior, and not delegated, and so
reserved, is slavery. Had this not been the case, the confederacy
could not have been formed. It had been said that the American
Constitution had not only tolerated slavery, but that it had actually
guaranteed the slave-trade for twenty years. Nothing could be more
uncandid than this statement. Never had facts been more perverted. One
of the causes of the American Revolution had been the refusal of the
British King to sanction certain arrangements on which some of the
states wished to enter, for the abolition of the slave-trade. At the
formation of the Federal Constitution, while slavery was excluded from
the control of Co