rvice, expires, they become free, or,
as the common phrase is, "their own masters." It was necessary and proper,
therefore, to specify whether, in the enumeration of inhabitants, they
were to be estimated as free persons or as persons not free.

But would there be any fairness in construing this clause into an
admission, by inference or otherwise, that an apprentice, while "bound to
service," is a slave? Clearly not. He is a person not free for the time,
because another has a legal claim to his service or labor. The
Constitution admits this: nothing more.

And so of slaves. "Other persons" they are called, in contradistinction to
"free persons"; therefore persons not free: and properly so called, seeing
that, like the apprentice before his term expires, they are "bound to
service," and that, unlike him, they remain thus bound for life.

But unless we admit that the apprentice, bound to service for a season, is
a slave during that season, we cannot justly allege, that, by this
provision of the Constitution, the negro, held to service or labor for
life, is recognized as a slave.

A mere technical view of a great political question is usually a
contracted one, of little practical value, and unbecoming a statesman.
"The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life." Yet we must not mistake
for technicality a careful interpretation, distinctly warranted by the
terms employed, of a public instrument. Every public instrument, by which
the governed delegate powers to those who govern, should be strictly
construed.

I am not arguing, that the men who framed the Constitution did not regard
negroes held to service or labor as slaves. I am not arguing that
temporary claims, to the number (let us suppose) of forty or fifty
thousand, may, for a moment, compare in importance with life-long claims,
to the number of four millions; or that it is safe or proper to legislate
in regard to the latter, involving as they do vast industrial interests,
with as light consideration as might suffice in enacting regulations for
the former. I am not arguing that a political element, which has gradually
assumed proportions so gigantic as has American Slavery, can, with any
safety or propriety, be dealt with, except after the gravest deliberation
and the most sedulous examination, in advance, of every step we propose to
take. I allege nothing of all this.

What I assert is, that neither the number of slaves nor the magnitude of
the interests involv