John Jay Chapman, William Lloyd Garrison

[15] the Colonies into a more lasting union, a certain suppression of truth, a certain trampling upon instinct had been resorted to in the Constitution. All the parties to that instrument thoroughly understood the iniquity of slavery and deplored it. All the parties were ashamed of slavery and yet felt obliged to perpetuate it. They wrapped up a twenty years protection of the African slave trade in a colorless phrase.

“The migration or importation of such persons as any of the states now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a tax or duty may be imposed on such importations, not exceeding ten dollars for each person.”

Now the slave trade meant the purchase upon African coasts of negroes and negresses, their branding, herding, manacling, and transportation between decks across tropical seas. The African slave trade is probably the most brutal organized crime in history. Our fathers did not dare to name it. So of the fugitive-slave law;--the Constitution deals with it in the cruel, quiet way in which monstrous tyranny deals with the fictions of administrative law. “No ”