"We owe it to mere casualty, that very serious embarrassments on this subject have been hitherto escaped. By the laws of several states, certain description of aliens, who had rendered themselves obnoxious, were laid under interdicts inconsistent, not only with the rights of citizenship, but with the privileges of residence. What would have been the consequence, if such persons, by residence, or otherwise, had acquired the character of citizens under the laws of another state, and then asserted their rights as such, both to residence and citizenship, within the state proscribing them? Whatever the legal consequences might have been, other consequences would probably have resulted of too serious a nature, not to be provided against. The new constitution has accordingly, with great propriety, made provision against them, and all others proceeding from the defect of the confederation on this head, by authorizing the general government to establish an uniform rule of naturalization throughout the United States." Throughout this whole quotation Mr. Madison obviously takes it for granted that the word "free" is used in the articles of confederation, as the correlative of aliens.--And in this respect he no doubt correctly represents the meaning then given to the word by the people of the United States. And in the closing sentence of the quotation, he virtually asserts that such is the meaning of the word "free" in "the new constitution." CHAPTER VIII. THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES. We come now to the period commencing with the adoption of the constitution of the United States. We have already seen that slavery had not been authorized or established by any of the fundamental constitutions or charters that had existed previous to this time; that it had always been a mere abuse sustained by the common consent of the strongest party, in defiance of the avowed constitutional principles of their governments. And the question now is, whether it was constitutionally established, authorized or sanctioned by the constitution of the United States? It is perfectly clear, in the first place, that the constitution of the United States did not, _of itself, create or establish_ slavery as a _new_ institution; or even give any authority to the state governments to establish it as a new institution.--The greatest sticklers for slavery do not claim this. The most they claim is, that it recognized it as an institution already legally existing, under the authority of the state governments; and that it virtually guarantied to the states the right of continuing it in existence during their pleasure. And this is really the only question arising out of the constitution of the United States on this subject, viz: whether it _did_ thus recognize and sanction slavery as an _existing_ institution?