They have cut themselves off from all chance of a convenient distinction
in or out of that treaty, by insisting that slavery beyond the old
United States is rejected by the Constitution, and by the law of God
as discoverable by the aid of either reason or revelation; and moreover
that the treaty does not include the case, and if it did could not make
it better. They have, therefore, completely discredited their own theory
by their own practice, and left us no theory worthy of being seriously
controverted. This peculiarity in reasoning of giving out a universal
principle, and coupling with it a practical concession that it is wholly
fallacious, has indeed run through the greater part of the arguments
on the other side; but it is not, as I think, the more imposing on that
account, or the less liable to the criticism which I have here bestowed
upon it.
* * * * *
But let us proceed to take a rapid glance at the reasons which have been
assigned for this notion that involuntary servitude and a republican
form of government are perfect antipathies.
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