many reasons to suppose it is so, and the cause of her sensitiveness is owing to the consciousness of her dereliction from duty, and the opposition of her practices from the first principles of right, and the object for which the Constitution was formed.

The next object was to provide for the common defence. Even in this purpose, although it might more particularly be applied to foes without, and the securing ourselves from external attacks, the common defence cannot be so well provided for when it is necessary that a good portion of our troops have to be employed in keeping in subjection a portion of our own people; and therefore, in providing for the common defence, as wise legislatures, and a wise people, we should take into consideration all the circumstances that would interfere with the facility of defending the country in the best possible manner. If, then, slavery, or any other circumstances, arise to prevent its defence, and these domestic relations come in to thwart, and to prevent the security of the country from external foes, then the congress of the United States would not be fulfilling its duty, did it not do away, so far as in them laid, the obstruction, and prepare the country for the defence, one of the objects for which the Constitution was formed. We see not how we can get rid of such a conclusion; and that slavery does lay the country open to the facility of external attacks, and that slaves, as a body, might be easily worked upon to join a foreign standard, might be easily conceived; and that the Hon. John Q. Adams was correct, when he

asserted the whole system might come under the action of congress, by the way of the war powers.

The next object was to "promote the general welfare." How is this to be done? Certainly not by fostering and maintaining within our borders what is, and what has heretofore been, considered and acknowledged a moral and political evil; because such a proceeding could not be for the general welfare. And here, again, we think, may be seen one of the causes why our southern politicians are so anxious to have the character of slavery changed, and that it should be considered a blessing rather than a curse, and the reason of their anxiety to show that it was an institution of the Bible.1 For none of them could hope, for a moment, now at this late day, to maintain that the slaves of this country had not been in the land a sufficient length of time to learn the plan of civilized society, if they had been properly instructed. They cannot now complain of the want of time, because they have, in many cases, made it penal to teach a slave to read. Hence they would change the ideas of the civilized world on the character of its guilt, and would denounce every one who would not agree with them upon the subject as "being worthy of death without benefit of clergy." Fatal mistake! to suppose man-" kind will ever consent that wrong is right, and right wrong. The public mind need or needed but to be enlightened on the subject, to cause

1 Hon. Mr. McDuffie's patriarchal institution.

them to express a universal execration of the foulness of its nature. Our fathers may in some measure be excused for not taking more summary measures for cutting off so unseemly an excres

from the opposition they had to encounter, and the trials and troubles they had already gone through; and, no doubt, the argument that they would receive within their civil privileges a body of comparatively heathen and ignorant people, who would not appreciate their situation, and might endanger, through their want of knowledge, in that part of the country where they were the most numerous, the free institutions which they had been so long laboring to establish; and it was mainly for this reason that they passed over the subject with the silence they did, with the expectation that what they had accomplished would soon extirpate the evil. But, as has been before remarked, it was a sad mistake; and, since a sufficient time has elapsed to have instructed these men, so that that excuse can have now no weight, we should exert all our powers to do away an evil so monstrous, and relieve our land from a disgrace under which it is laboring, and from the necessary evils slavery must and does bring in its course, such as ignorance, dissipation, vice, immorality, and the consequent degradation and death to which these lead, and which are utterly opposed, not only to the general welfare of this country, but to a large portion of mankind in different quarters of the globe. The arts, sciences, manufactures, even agriculture, declines under its withering influences.

Under the general welfare of the United States, which was placed in the power of congress to consult, might they not take into consideration the whole subject of slavery. We cannot get rid of this by saying there was any compact, for there was none: there is neither letter nor page where it can be found. But here is a declaration before the world, and this nation has committed itself, that this country shall be ruled by impartial laws, and that the congress of the United States shall consult in all things the general welfare of the people. And if they do not, then are they false to their trust, and do not fulfil the intention of our fathers; and the objects for which the Constitution was formed are laid low in the dust, and we cannot look to that instrument as a guide and a rule for the conduct of our representatives: nor can foreigners look to it as an instrument from whence they can learn the genius of our government; and if they cannot look here to find out the object for which it was formed, where can they? evidently, nowhere. Here is the only official declaration given to the world, of the object, intent, and purposes, for which any government was adopted; and if we of this generation have departed from these principles, and mean this great continent shall be ruled or governed on different ones, it is time we should change the caption to the Constitution, and place another in its stead, that mankind may not be deceived, and particularly those of the African race, if they should read this instrument to become acquainted with its principles, for the purpose of determining whether to come to our shores.

The last and most important object for which the Constitution was formed was to secure liberty not only to themselves, but to us and our posterity; or, as they expressed it, "the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity." They looked abroad upon this great land; they found a great portion of this continent placed under their jurisdiction; and, however fallible many and perhaps all of them may have been, and however anxious. many may have been to secure to the few the principal portion of the government, yet a vast majority, perceiving the inestimable value of individual liberty, and that it was by this alone any great improvement could be carried on in civil society, they made this the keystone of the arch that was to bear the weight of the republic. This was to be considered as paramount; it capped the climax of the blessings to be communicated to generations yet unborn. They had become acquainted with the evils of individual slavery, as it then existed in the African; they had successfully resisted the attempt of Great Britain to impose on them a political slavery; and they now stood forth to the world, free and independent. They had, by severe exertions, secured to themselves freedom from the restraints of the mother country; and they were now preparing to secure themselves from any unwarrantable exercise of power that might spring up among themselves, and prevent any individual or individuals from gaining any unlimited power. Propositions had been made, and rejected, to create these United States into a