Again. The word "free" cannot be presumed to be used as the correlative of slavery--because slavery then had no _legal_ existence. The word must obviously be presumed to be used as the correlative of something that did _legally_ exist, rather than of something that did not legally exist. If it were used as the correlative of something that did not legally exist, the words "all other persons" would have no legal application. Until, then, it be shown that slavery had a legal existence, authorized either by the United States constitution, or by the then existing state constitutions--a thing that cannot be shown--the word "free" certainly cannot be claimed to have been used as its correlative. But even if slavery had been authorized by the _state_ constitutions, the word "free," in the United States constitution, could not have been claimed to have been used as its correlative, unless it had appeared that the United States constitution had itself provided or suggested no correlative of the word "free;" for it would obviously be absurd and inadmissible to go out of an instrument to find the intended correlative of one of its own words, when it had itself suggested one. This the constitution of the United States has done, in the persons of aliens. The power of naturalization is, by the constitution, taken from the states, and given exclusively to the United States. The constitution of the United States, therefore, necessarily supposes the existence of aliens--and thus furnishes the correlative sought for. It furnishes a class both for the word "free," and the words "all other persons" to apply to. And yet the slave argument contends that we must overlook these distinctions, necessarily growing out of the laws of the United States, and go out of the constitution of the United States to _find_ persons whom it describes as the "free," and "all other persons." And what makes the argument the more absurd is, that by going out of the instrument to the _then existing state constitutions_--the only instruments to which we can go--we can find there _no other_ persons for the words to apply to--no other classes answering to the description of the "free persons" and "all other persons,"--than the very classes suggested by the United States constitution itself, to wit, citizens and aliens; (for it has previously been shown that the then existing state constitutions recognized no such persons as slaves.)