that position in which the Southern States have been placed; and I
will not call them wicked, impious, and abominable, because they now
hold by slavery, as other nations have held by it at some period of
their career. It is their misfortune that they must do so now--now,
when so large a portion of the world has thrown off the system,
spurning as base and profitless all labor that is not free. It is
their misfortune, for henceforth they must stand alone, with small
rank among the nations, whereas their brethren of the North will
still "flame in the forehead of the morning sky."

When the present Constitution of the United States was written--the
merit of which must probably be given mainly to Madison and
Hamilton, Madison finding the French democratic element, and
Hamilton the English conservative element--this question of slavery
was doubtless a great trouble. The word itself is not mentioned in
the Constitution. It speaks not of a slave, but of a "person held
to service or labor." It neither sanctions nor forbids slavery. It
assumes no power in the matter of slavery; and under it, at the
present moment, all Congress voting together, with the full consent
of the legislatures of thirty-three States, could not
constitutionally put down slavery in the remaining thirty-fourth
State. In fact the Constitution ignored the subject.

But, nevertheless, Washington, and Jefferson from whom Madison
received his inspiration, were opposed to slavery. I do not know
that Washington ever took much action in the matter, but his
expressed opinion is on record. But Jefferson did so throughout his
life. Before the Declaration of Independence he endeavored to make
slavery illegal in Virginia. In this he failed, but long afterward,
when the United States was a nation, he succeeded in carrying a law