the propagandism of slavery. The transition is easy from such a theory
to the fulfillment of the boast of Senator Toombs, 'that the roll of
slaves might yet be called at the foot of Bunker Hill Monument.' But no
straining of the language of the Constitution can make it mean the
recognition of the natural right of slavery, The guarded manner in which
the provision was made for the rendition of slaves, and all the
circumstances connected with the adoption of the Constitution, show
conclusively that slavery was considered only a local and municipal
institution, a serious evil, to be suppressed and curtailed by the slave
States, and never by the General Government a blessing to be fostered
and extended where it did not exist at the time the Union of the
thirteen States was perfected.

Alexander H. Stephens, Vice-President of the Confederate States, in a
speech at Atlanta, Georgia, said:

'Jefferson, Madison, Washington, and many others, were tender of
the word slave, in the organic law, and all looked forward to the
time when the institution of slavery should be removed from our
midst as a trouble and a stumbling-block. The delusion could not be
traced in any of the component parts of the Southern Constitution.
In that instrument we solemnly discarded the pestilent heresy of
fancy politicians, that all men of all races were equal, and we
have made African inequality, and subordination, the chief
corner-stone of the Southern Republic.'

Here we have the great idea of an essential difference in relation to
the Constitution and slavery existing at the present day South, from
that which did exist at the time of its ratification universally by the
people of the thirteen States. The Vice-President of the Southern