They knew that one or the
other system must exclusively prevail.
Unlike too many of those who in modern time invoke their authority, they
had a choice between the two. They preferred the system of free labor,
and they determined to organize the government, and so direct its
activity, that that system should surely and certainly prevail. For this
purpose, and no other, they based the whole structure of the government
broadly on the principle that all men are created equal, and therefore
free--little dreaming that, within the short period of one hundred
years, their descendants would bear to be told by any orator, however
popular, that the utterance of that principle was merely a rhetorical
rhapsody; or by any judge, however venerated, that it was attended by
mental reservation, which rendered it hypocritical and false. By the
ordinance of 1787, they dedicated all of the national domain not yet
polluted by slavery to free labor immediately, thenceforth and forever;
while by the new Constitution and laws they invited foreign free labor
from all lands under the sun, and interdicted the importation of African
slave labor, at all times, in all places, and under all circumstances
whatsoever. It is true that they necessarily and wisely modified this
policy of freedom by leaving it to the several States, affected as they
were by different circumstances, to abolish slavery in their own way and
at their own pleasure, instead of confiding that duty to Congress; and
that they secured to the slave States, while yet retaining the system
of slavery, a three-fifths representation of slaves in the Federal
Government, until they should find themselves able to relinquish it
with safety.
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