But the Constitution was made not only for southern and northern states, but for states neither northern nor southern, namely, the western states, their coming in being foreseen and provided for.

The proposition of an established classification of states as slave states and free states, as insisted on by some, and into northern and southern, as maintained by others, seems to me purely imaginary, and of course the supposed equilibrium of those classes a mere conceit.

It is the maintenance of slavery by law in a state, not parallels of latitude, that makes its a southern state; and the absence of this, that makes it a northern state.

The United States are a political state, or organized society, whose end is government, for the security, welfare, and happiness of all who live under its protection.

We show our sympathy with slavery by emancipating slaves where we cannot reach them, and holding them in bondage where we can set them free.

I deem it established, then, that the Constitution does not recognize property in man, but leaves that question, as between the states, to the law of nature and of nations.

But there is a higher law than the Constitution, which regulates our authority over the domain, and devotes it to the same noble purposes.