here, Congress, in defiance of the constitution, has undertaken to establish a degraded caste in society, and to perpetuate it through all generations. Now, can any reasonable man for a moment suppose that the constitution meant to debar Congress from passing acts of attainder against individuals, but to permit it to pass wholesale, sweeping laws, working disfranchisement of an entire race, and entailing degradation forever? Let us look at another general prohibition of the constitution: “No title of nobility shall be granted by the United States.” (art. 1, § 9, clause 8.) “The distinction of rank and honors,” says Blackstone, “is necessary in every well-governed state, in order to reward such as are eminent for their services to the public.” But the framers of the constitution did not think so; the people of the United States did not think so; and therefore they incorporated a provision into their organic law that “no title of nobility should be granted.” But it matters not whether the favored individual is called “Marquess” or “Master.” If he is invested by the government with a monopoly of rights and privileges, in virtue of his title and its legal incidents, without any corresponding civil duties, he belongs to an order of nobility,--he is a nobleman. Mr. McDuffie defends the institution of slavery, on the ground that it establishes the highest of all ranks and the broadest of all distinctions between men. He says no nation has yet existed which has not in some form created the distinction of classes,--such as patrician and plebeian, or citizen and helot, or lord and commoner,--and that the institution of slavery stands here instead of these orders, and supersedes them all, by being equivalent to them all. Now, is it not inconceivable that the constitution should interdict the bestowment of special favors to distinguished individuals for meritorious services, and yet should authorize Congress to confer the highest of all earthly prerogatives,--the prerogative over property, liberty, and volition itself, upon one class of men over another class of men? Yet if Congress can create or legalize slavery, it can establish the worst order of nobility that ever existed. It can give to one class of men the power to own and to control, to punish and to despoil another class; to sell father, mother, wife, and children, into bondage. To prohibit Congress from doing one of these things, and to permit it to do the other, is straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel,--a whole caravan of camels!