_Eighth._ Persons, whom some of the state governments recognize as slaves, are made eligible, by the constitution of the United States, to the office of president of the United States. The constitutional provision on this subject is this: "No person, except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States at the time of the adoption of this constitution, shall be eligible to the office of president; neither shall any person be eligible to that office, who shall not have attained the age of thirty-five years, and been fourteen years a resident of the United States." According to this provision, _all_ "persons",[23] who have resided within the United States fourteen years, have attained the age of thirty-five years, and are either _natural born citizens, or were citizens of the United States at the time of the adoption of the constitution_, are eligible to the office of president. No other qualifications than these being required by the constitution, no others can be legally demanded. The only question, then, that can arise, is as to the word "citizen." Who are the persons that come within this definition, as here used? The clause itself divides them into two classes, to wit, the "natural born," and those who were "citizens of the United States at the time of the adoption of the constitution." In regard to this latter class, it has before been shown, from the preamble to the constitution, that all who were "people of the United States," (that is, permanent inhabitants,) at the time the constitution was adopted, were made citizens by it. And this clause, describing those eligible to the office of president, implies the same thing. This is evident; for it speaks of those who were "citizens of the _United States_ at the time of the adoption of the constitution." Now there clearly could have been no "citizens of the United States, at the time of the adoption of the constitution," unless they were made so by the constitution itself; for there were _no_ "citizens of the _United States_" _before_ the adoption of the constitution. The Confederation had no citizens. It was a mere league between the state governments. The separate states belonging to the confederacy had each their own citizens respectively. But the confederation itself, as such, had no citizens. There were, therefore, no "citizens of the United States," (but only citizens of the respective states,) before the adoption of the constitution.--Yet this clause asserts that immediately on the adoption, or "at the time of the adoption of this constitution," there _were_ "citizens of the United States." Those, then, who were "citizens of the United States at the time of the adoption of the constitution," were necessarily those, and only those, who had been made so by the adoption of the constitution; because they could have become citizens at that precise "time" in no other way. If, then, any persons were made