Page:The Barbarism of Slavery - Sumner - 1863.pdf/81

 75 is

often denied, that, in defiance of

commanding

rules of inter-

words there employed have that " irresistible clearness " which is necessary in taking away Human Eights yet nothing can be clearer than that the fugitives, whosoever they may be, are regarded under the Constitution as jiersons, and not as property. I disdain to dwell on that other argument, brought forward by Senators, who, denying the Equality of Man, speciously assert the Equality of the States and from this principle, true pretation, the equivocal

—



in

many

jump the name

respects,

are entitled, in

to the conclusion, that Slave-masters

of Equality, to take their slaves into

the National Territories, under the solemn safeguards of the

But

argument comes back to the first pre"property" in the Constitution. To that pretension, already amply exposed, we are always brought, nor can any sounding allegations of State Equality avoid it. And yet this very argument betrays the inConstitution.

this

tension, that slaves are recognized as

its authors. If persons held to service in the Slave States are "property" under the Constitution, then under

consistency of

the provision

—known as the " three

representation in the other

fifths " rule

House on such

—which founds

persons, there

is

a

property representation from the Slave States, with voice and vote,

while there States

is

no such property

is

With

States.

representation

from the Free

glaring inequality, the representation of Slave

founded

first

on "persons," and secondly on a large

part of their pretended property

the Free States

is



while the representation of

founded simply on "persons," leaving

their boundless millions of

property unrepresented.

all

Thus,

whichever way we approach it, the absurdity of this pretension becomes manifest. Assuming the pretension of property in man under the Constitution, you slap in the face the whole theory of State Equality, for you disclose a gigantic inequality between the Slave States and the Free States and assuming the

Equality of States, in the House of ^Representatives as elsewhere, you slap in the face the whole pretension of property in man

under the Constitution. I disdain to dwell also on that other argument, which, in the of Popular Sovereignty, undertakes to secure to the peo-

name

ple in the Territories the wicked

confusion of terms, right

—

power

—sometimes

to enslave their fellow-men

called,

by

as if this