rest; but that it
was _intended_ so to operate by the farmers of the Constitution. The
highest Judicial authorities--Chief Justice SHAW, of the Supreme Court
of Massachusetts, in the LATIMER case, and Mr. Justice STORY, in the
Supreme Court of the United States, in the case of _Prigg_ vs. _The
State of Pennsylvania_,--tell us, I know not on what evidence, that
without this "compromise," this security for Southern slaveholders,
"the Union could not have been formed." And there is still higher
evidence, not only that the framers of the Constitution meant by this
clause to protect slavery, but that they did this, knowing that
slavery was wrong. Mr. MADISON[13] informs us that the clause in
question, as it came of the hands of Dr. JOHNSON, the chairman of the
"committee on style," read thus: "No person legally held to service,
or labor, in one State, escaping into another, shall," &c. and that
the word "legally" was struck out, and the words "under the laws
thereof" inserted after the word "State," in compliance with the wish
of some, who thought the term _legal_ equivocal, and favoring the idea
that slavery was legal "_in a moral view_." A conclusive proof that,
although future generations might apply that clause to other kinds of
"service or labor," when slavery should have died out, or been killed
off by the young spirit of liberty, which was _then_ awake and at work
in the land; still, slavery was what they were wrapping up in
"equivocal" words; and wrapping it up for its protection and safe
keeping: a conclusive proof that the framers of the Constitution were
more careful to protect themselves in the judgment of coming
generations, from the charge of ignorance, than of sin; a conclusive
proof that they knew that slavery was _not_ "legal in a moral view,"
that it was a violation of the moral law of God; and yet knowing and
confessing its immorality, they dared to make this stipulation for its
support and defence.

[Footnote 13: Madison Papers, p. 1589.]

This language may sound harsh to the ears of those who think it a part
of their duty, as citizens, to maintain that whatever the patriots of
the Revolution did, was right; and who hold that we are bound to _do_
all the iniquity that they covenanted for us that we _should_ do. But
the claims of truth and right are paramount to all other claims.

With all our veneration for our constitutional fathers, we must
admit,--for they have left on record their own confession