s."

It says "persons," not slaves, not negroes; but this "three-fifths" can be
applied to no other class among us than the negroes.

Lastly, in the provision for the reclamation of fugitive slaves, it is
said:

"No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof,
escaping into another, shall in consequence of any law or regulation
therein be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered
up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due."

There again there is no mention of the word "negro" or of slavery. In
all three of these places, being the only allusions to slavery in the
instrument, covert language is used. Language is used not suggesting that
slavery existed or that the black race were among us. And I understand the
contemporaneous history of those times to be that covert language was used
with a purpose, and that purpose was that in our Constitution, which it
was hoped and is still hoped will endure forever,--when it should be read
by intelligent and patriotic men, after the institution of slavery had
passed from among us,--there should be nothing on the face of the great
charter of liberty suggesting that such a thing as negro slavery had ever
existed among us. This is part of the evidence that the fathers of the
government expected and intended the institution of slavery to come to
an end. They expected and intended that it should be in the course of
ultimate extinction. And when I say that I desire to see the further
spread of it arrested, I only say I desire to see that done which the
fathers have first done. When I say I desire to see it placed where the
public mind will rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate
extinction, I only say I desire to see it placed where they placed it.
It is not true that our fathers, as Judge Douglas assumes, made this
government part slave and part free. Understand the sense in which he
puts it. He assumes that slavery is a rightful thing within itself,--was
introduced by the framers of the Constitution. The exact truth is, that
they found the institution existing among us, and they left it as they
found it. But in making the government they left this institution with
many clear marks of disapprobation upon it. They found slavery among
them, and they left it among them because of the difficulty--the absolute
impossibility--of its immediate removal. And when Judge Douglas asks me
why we cannot let it remain