The clause begins with the descriptive words, “No _person_ held to service or labor in one State under the laws thereof.” Now a slave is not a “person,” with the rights of persons, but a _chattel_ or _thing_. Such is the received definition of the Slave States, handed down from Aristotle. He is not “held to service or labor,” but he is held as property. The terms employed describe an apprentice, but not a slave. And he must be held “under the laws” of a State. Here again is the case of an apprentice, who is clearly held “under the laws” of a State. But we have the authority of Mr. Mason, recently of the Senate from Virginia, for saying that no proof can be produced that Slavery in any State “is established by _existing laws_.”[325] The person thus described shall not “be _discharged_ from such service or labor.” Clearly an apprentice is discharged, but a slave is manumitted or emancipated. This undischarged person “shall be delivered up on _claim_ of the party to whom such service or labor may be _due_.” But all these words imply _contract_, or at least _debt_, as in the case of an apprentice. The slave can _owe_ no “service or labor” to his master. There is nothing in their relations out of which any such obligation can spring. The whole condition stands on force and nothing else. It is robbery tempered by the lash,--not merely robbery of all the fruits of industry, but robbery of wife and child. To such terrible assumption the language of _contract_ or _debt_ is totally inapplicable. Nothing can be “due” from slave to master, unless it be that “resistance to tyrants” which is “obedience to God.” It is absurd to say that “labor or service,” in any sense, whether of justice or of law, can be “due” from the slave. The same power which takes wife and child may exact this further sacrifice, but not because it is “due.” Such is the simple truth touching this much debated clause. At the touchstone of unquestioned rules of interpretation its _odious_ character disappears, and astonishment prevails that the public mind for so long a period could have been perverted with regard to its true meaning. Nobody can doubt that this clause _may_ be interpreted in favor of Freedom, so as to exclude all idea of property in man. But if it _may_, then such is the voice of Freedom that it _must_. APPLICABLE TO INDENTED SERVANTS.