On the other hand, if the constitution be not of this kind, it is equally wonderful that we have any slaves at all--for the instrument offers no ground for saying that a colored man may be made a slave, and a white man not. Again. Slave acts were not "laws" according to any state constitution that was in existence at the time the constitution of the United States was adopted. And if they were not "laws" at that time, they have not been made so since. 6. The constitution itself, (Art. 1. Sec. 2,) in fixing the basis of representation, has plainly _denied_ that those described in Art. 4, as "persons held to service or labor," are slaves,--for it declares that "persons bound to service for a term of years" shall be "included" in the "number of _free_ persons." There is no _legal_ difference between being "bound to service," and being "held to service or labor." The addition, in the one instance, of the words, "for a term of years," does not alter the case, for it does not appear that, in the other, they are "held to service or labor" beyond a fixed term--and, in the absence of evidence from the constitution itself, the presumption must be that they are not--because such a presumption makes it unnecessary to go out of the constitution to find the persons intended, and it is also more consistent with the prevalent municipal, and with natural law. And it makes no difference to this result, whether the word "free," in the first article, be used in the political sense common at that day, or as the correlative of slavery. In either case, the persons described as "free," could not be made slaves. 7. The words "service or labor" cannot be made to include slavery, unless by reversing the legal principle, that the greater includes the less, and holding that the less includes the greater; that the innocent includes the criminal; that a sanction of what is right, includes a sanction of what is wrong. Another clause relied on as a recognition of the constitutionality of slavery, is the following, (Art. 1. Sec. 2.): "Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several states, which may be included within this union, according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of _free_ persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three-fifths of all other persons." The argument claimed from this clause, in support of slavery, rests entirely upon the word "free," and the words "all other persons." Or rather it rests entirely upon the meaning of the word "free," for the application of the words "all other persons" depends upon the meaning given to the word "free." The slave argument _assumes_, _gratuitously_, that the word "free" is used as the correlative of slavery and thence it infers that the words, "all other persons," mean slaves.