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 67

and ed,

that this would be the case in any territory newly acquirby purchase or by war, as of Mexico on the South or Can-

ada on the North. And here I begin by the remark, that as the assumption of constitutional law is inspired by the assumption of fact with regard to the " ennobling " character of Slavery, so it must lose

much to

be

if

not

all

false, as

When are few

of

its

force

when

the latter assumption

is

shown

has been done to-day.

Slavery

is

who would

seen to be the Barbarism which

not cover

it

from

sight, rather

it is,

there

than

insist

upon sending it abroad with the flag of the Republic. It is only because people have been insensible to its true character that they have tolerated for a moment its exorbitant pretensions. Therefore this long exposition, where Slavery has been made to stand forth in its five-fold Barbarism, with the single object of compelling

way

men

to

This assumption the Constitution,



naturally prepares the

and

may

be described as an attempt to Africanize into it the barbarous Law of

by introducing

Slavery, derived as rica

work without wages,

to consider the assumption of constitutional law.

we have

to Africanize the Territories,

ernment.

seen originally from barbarous Af-

then, through such Africanization of the Constitution,

In using

this

and

to Africanize the National

language to express the obvious

of this assumption, I borrow a suggestive term,

by a Portuguese

first

employed

writer at the beginning of this century,

protesting against the spread of Slavery in Brazil.

Goveffect

when

(See Roster's

Analyze the assumption, and ii. p. 248.) found to stand on two pretensions, either of which These two are first, the Afthe assumption fails also.

Travels in Brazil, vol. it

will be

failing,

—

rican pretension of property in sion that such property

With regard to

the

is

first

man



and, secondly, the preten-

recognized in the Constitution. of these pretensions, I might simply

what I have already said at an earlier stage of this argument. But I should do injustice to the part it has been made refer to

to play in this controversy, if I did not again expose I sought particularly to

show

its

Barbarism



now

it.

I shall

Then show

something more. Property implies an owner .and a thing owned. On the one But the side is a human being, and on the other side a thing. very idea of a human being necessarily excludes the idea of pro-