_All_ insurrections and _all_ cases of domestic violence are here provided for. To constitute an insurrection within the meaning of the Constitution, there must be a rising against those laws which are recognized as such by the Constitution; and, to make out a case of domestic violence, the violence must be exerted against that right or power which is recognized by the Constitution as lawful. But, by Art. 4, sec. 2, the Constitution admits that some persons are legally slaves; else the clause itself must be entirely inoperative. Consequently, if these persons rise in rebellion, or commit acts of violence contrary to the laws which hold them in slavery, their rising constitutes an insurrection; such acts are acts of violence within the meaning of the Constitution, and consequently must be suppressed by the national power. And what insurrections were more likely to happen and more to be dreaded than slave-insurrections, and therefore more likely to have been provided for? Slave-owners are not the only slaveholders. All persons who voluntarily assist or pledge themselves to assist in holding persons in slavery are slaveholders. _In sober truth, then, we are a nation of slaveholders!_ for we have bound our whole national strength to the slave-owners, to aid them, if necessary, in holding their slaves in subjection! CHAPTER XIII. THE CONSTITUTION AS ITS FRAMERS INTENDED TO MAKE IT. "Yes!--it cannot be denied--the slaveholding lords of the South prescribed, as a condition of their assent to the Constitution, three special provisions to secure the perpetuity of their dominion over their slaves."--_John Quincy Adams._ The question, What kind of a Constitution did its framers intend to make? is purely an historical one; and it must be obvious to all, that any thing like a complete statement of the evidence on this point cannot be given within the limits of this pamphlet. On the 17th of September, 1787, the Philadelphia Convention adopted the plan of the present Constitution. The draft thus made was submitted to the people, assembled in State Conventions, "for their assent and ratification." President Madison has preserved a record of the debates in the Philadelphia Convention; and we have also published accounts of the debates in several of the State Conventions. We draw our evidence mainly from these sources. APPORTIONMENT OF REPRESENTATIVES. (Const. Art. 1, sec. 2.)