As to the argument that the constitution of the United States recognizes slavery, and that, upon the cession of new territories, the constitution, by some magical and incomprehensible elasticity, extends itself over them, and carries slavery into them, I think I speak with all due respect when I say it does not come up to the dignity of a sophism. Where do strict constructionists, or even latitudinarian constructionists, find any clause, or phrase, or word, which shows that the constitution is any thing but a compact between _states_? Where do they find any thing that shows it to be a compact between territories, or between territories _and_ states conjoined? On its very face, the constitution meets this pretension with a denial. The preamble declares, “We the people of the United States,”--not the people of the territories, nor the people of the states _and_ territories,--“in order to form a more perfect Union,”--“do ordain and establish this constitution for _the United States_ of America.” If the constitution is a compact between the United States _and_ the territories, then the people of the territories have all the rights under it which the people of the states have,--the right to choose electors for President and Vice-President, &c., and to be represented in Congress by a member who can vote as well as speak. The only way in which the constitution ever was extended, or ever can be extended over any part of the earth’s surface outside of the “original thirteen,” is this: The constitution in express terms authorizes the admission of new states, and therefore, when a new state is admitted, it becomes one of these “United States of America.” The constitution does not extend over the territories, but Congress, being the creature of the constitution, is, when legislating for the territories, not only invested with constitutional powers, but is limited by constitutional restrictions. It would have been a much more plausible pretension, when the purchase of Louisiana and Florida was made, that the constitution carried freedom into those territories; because the constitution was built upon the basis of the common law, and, in terms, adopts the common law for its legal processes and its rules of judicial interpretation; and every body knows that there is no principle more dear to the common law than that all treaties, statutes, and customs shall be construed in favor of life and in favor of liberty. Having, as I trust, refuted the argument of the slaveholder, that the prohibition of slavery in the territories is an act of injustice to his rights, I will consider his next assertion, that it is an insult to his feelings. We are told that the exclusion of slavery from the territories is an affront to the honorable sensibilities of the south; and that acquiescence in this exclusion would involve their dishonor and degradation.