it may, it legislates nothing for or against slavery. But it is too clear to be disputed, that the enslaved African race were not intended to be included, and formed no part of the people who asserted their rights in this Declaration. The evidence is, that if the men who framed it had intended to refer to African slavery, they would have completely stultified themselves. For the majority of them, and of the States which they represented, continued to hold Africans in bondage just as before. A few years after, the same men met in federal convention, and framed the late constitution of the United States; by which property in slaves was protected and perpetuated as before, and traffick in Africans was prolonged until 1808, and made subject of taxation like other merchandise. The States which were emancipating their own Africans, equally with those which retained them in bondage, retained their laws prohibiting the marriage of Africans with whites.[64] Connecticut, until 1796, prohibited free negroes from travelling beyond their township without a pass. New Hampshire, and Congress itself, precluded negroes from serving in the militia.[65] The Declaration of Independence was therefore intended by its framers to assert the liberties of civilized Americans and Englishmen, and not of African barbarians held in bondage. Whether their consistency therein can be defended, is a separate question, to which attention will be given in the proper place. But all publicists are agreed, that the meaning of a document is the document; and that this meaning is to be ascertained by the intentions of those who frame and adopt it. [Footnote 64: Law of Massachusetts, 1786, reënacted 1836. Rhode Island, Laws of, 1822 and 1844.] [Footnote 65: Code of New Hampshire, 1815. Acts of Congress, 1792.]