What, sir! The Constitution of our country says to the
South, "you shall count as the basis of your representation five slaves
as being three white men; you may be protected in the natural increase
of your slaves; nay, more, as a matter of compromise you may increase
their number if you choose, for twenty years, by importation; when these
twenty years are out, you shall stop." The Supreme Court of the United
States says, "well; is not this a recognition of slavery, of property
in slaves?" "Oh, no," says the gentleman, "the rule must work both
ways; there is a converse to the proposition." Now, sir, to an
ordinary, uninstructed intellect, it would seem that the converse of the
proposition was simply that at the end of twenty years you should not
any longer increase your numbers by importation; but the gentleman says
the converse of the proposition is that at the end of the twenty years,
after you have, under the guarantee of the Constitution, been adding by
importation to the previous number of your slaves, then all those that
you had before, and all those that, under that Constitution, you have
imported, cease to be recognized as property by the Constitution, and
on this proposition he assails the Supreme Court of the United States--a
proposition which he says will occur to anybody.
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