Such a stranger, coming from afar, with eyes that no local bias had distorted, and with understanding no local custom had disturbed, would naturally see the Constitution in its precise text, and would interpret it in its true sense, without prepossession or prejudice. Of course he would know, what all jurisprudence teaches and all reason confirms, that human rights cannot be taken away by any indirection, or by any vain imagining of something intended, but not said, and, as a natural consequence, that Slavery exists, if exist it can at all, only by virtue of _positive text_, and that what is true of Slavery is true also of all its incidents; and the enlightened stranger would insist, that, in every interpretation of the Constitution, that cardinal principle must never for a moment be out of mind, but must be kept ever forward as guide and master, that _Slavery cannot stand on inference_, nor can any support of Slavery stand on inference. Thus informed, and in the light of pervasive principle,-- “How far that little candle throws his beams!”-- he would peruse the Constitution from beginning to end, from its opening Preamble to its final Amendment, and then the joyful opinion would be given. There are three things he must observe: first and foremost, that the dismal words “Slave” and “Slavery” do not appear in the Constitution; so that, if the unnatural pretension of property in man lurk anywhere in that text, it is under a feigned name, or an _alias_, which is cause of suspicion, while an imperative rule renders its recognition impossible. Next, he would consider the Preamble, which is the key to open the whole succeeding instrument; but here no single word is found which does not open the Constitution to Freedom and close it to Slavery. The object of the Constitution is announced to be “in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of _liberty_ to ourselves and our posterity”; all of which, in every particular, is absolutely inconsistent with Slavery. And, thirdly, he would observe those time-honored, most efficacious, chain-breaking words in the Amendments: “_No person shall be deprived of_ life, _liberty_, or property, _without due process of law_.” Scorning all false interpretations and glosses fastened upon the Constitution in support of Slavery, and with these three things before him, he would naturally declare that there was nothing in the original text on which this appalling wrong could be founded anywhere within the sphere of its operation. With wonder he would ask again by what strange delusion or hallucination the reason had been so far overcome as to recognize Slavery in the Constitution, when plainly it is not there, and cannot be there. The answer is humiliating, but easy.