Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1847-04-16

and any Court must hold The meaning. wick
ed AS II is, TO he expressed with - ir~tesisti-
Bile clearness."
Thus granting 10 Mr.. Spooner all the prin-
ciples Of construction he asks, and allowing
also that the word free" is susceptible Of
two meanings, we have still shown:
LIST. That 10 adopt the most unusual mean
ing does pot get rid Of the injustice Of thu
old Interpretation, but only increases i:-con-
sequently his rule Of preierring the righteous
TO the unrighteous meaning does not apply
here.
ID. That the context, win not allow anv
meaning but the usual one 10 be given 10 this
word without making nonsense of the who'll.
clause. Even then if that rule does not ap-
ply, we have brought the case within the er.
eep'ion stated by MIR. Spooner in the seatenre
above quoted from his 62d page ,has tho
righteous meaning must be given up and the
unrighteous one adopted, however reluctant.
ly, when the other parts Of the lns,ruraen n,
require it,"
in addition 10 the argument on the word
" free" Mr.. SpooBer makes but three points.
LIST. That there was no Slavery in the
States to which our meaning can apply
This falls under our thisd division and will
be fully considered then.
Cd. He says: alt is very evident thai the
word free is not used az the eortelatiye Of
Slavery, because Indians not taxed ara
excluded from its application, yet they are
not, therefore, slayes."-(p. ~
This is a strange mistake on his part
The inference here is precisely the other v,y.
Indians are specially "cxcluded,r beean,,
they are " free" and not slaves, and nat,,ak
~ have been reckoned with free persons;
hence the necessity, as il was not desirnsd
to include them, TO insert a precise direction,
Sd. The difficulty Of aseeftaiRing who are
free and who slaves. He says the Govern
ment, on our plan, have nolegal information,
and are obliged to depend on varying State
laws. Very true; this is often the case in
other matters, and furnishes no objection 10
our Interpretation. In this very section of
the Constitution, the electors Of Representa-
iives in each State, are to be those who are
- electors OF the most Numerous branch Of the
State Legislature" Congress, therefore, in
ascertainlng whether its own members are
chosen, has to depend on the laws Of the
States, which may be, and are diferen, in
different, States, and may be changed every
year. Beside, it is as easy to end legal evil
dence that a man is OF is not a Shave, as that
he IS or is not an lndiah, an apprentice, OF an
alien. These three things are to b. proved
even on Mr. Spooner's plan, and he must 20
out OF the Constitution TO prove them, 10 Ia
mily Bibles, TO private indentures, to actual
inspection. Proving slavery is inst The same.
and just as easy.
But even if any special L" Inconvenience ~
would result, they are not TO DO considered
by a CouIi when the language is clear and
the intention plain.-See our quotation above,
fom =. Cranch, 39O-also 3, Or. 2O3. Dwar-
ris, &C.. &c.-l0 Mod. 34I. Mr.. Justice
Coleridge, 6 A g. 7.
So far we have taken for granted all the
explanations which Mr.. Spooner has given
of these legal rules. In our next we shall
offer some criticisms on those explanations
Meanwhile we would remind the reader tina,
while Mr.. Spooner is bound TO show that
cpery clause in the Constitution is pure and
Anti-Slavery, in order to sustain his hypo-
thesis, if we make out that any single one re-
cognizes the institution, it as fully DESTROYS
his argument, as if we proved a dozen 10 be
in that predicament.
w. =.