nce 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."

The claims to service or labor here referred to may be for years or for
life: both are included in the above provision. In point of fact, there
were existing, at the time that provision was adopted, (as there still
exist,) both classes: the first class, for a term of years, then
consisting, in part, of claims against foreign adults who had bound
themselves to service for a limited time to repay the expenses of their
emigration,--but chiefly, as now, of claims to the service or labor of
what were called apprentices, usually white minors; the second, for life,
were claims to the service or labor of men, women, and children of all
ages, exclusively of African descent, who were called slaves.

The first class of claims were found chiefly in Northern States; the
second chiefly in Southern. There was a great disparity between the
numbers of the two classes. While the claims to service or labor for years
numbered but a few thousands, there were then held to service or labor for
life upwards of six hundred thousand persons: and the number has since
increased to about four millions.

The constitutional provision is, that persons from whom under State laws
service or labor is due shall not be exonerated from the performance of
the same by escaping to another State. The apprentice, or the slave,
shall, in that case, on demand of the proper claimant, be delivered up.

Such a provision clearly involves the recognition of certain rights of
property; but of what kind?

Is the ownership of one human being by another here involved? Is the
apprentice, or the slave, recognized in this clause as an article of
merchandise?

State laws regulating apprenticeship and slavery may give to the master of
the apprentice, or of the slave, the custody of the person and the right
of corporal punishment, in order the better to insure the performance of
the labor due. These laws may declare that an apprentice, or a slave, who
strikes his master, shall suffer death. They may provide that the
testimony of an apprentice, or of a slave, shall not be received in any
court of justice as evidence against his master. They may make the claims
to service or labor, whether for years or for life, transferable by
ordinary sale. They may declare such claims to be, under certain
c