Consequently they did not
seek to forbid negro servitude; and inasmuch as it seemed at that time
to be on the road to extinction through the action of natural causes,
the makers of the Constitution had a good excuse for refusing to
sacrifice their whole project to the abolition of slavery, and in
throwing thereby upon the future the burden of dealing with it in some
more radical and consistent way. Later, however, it came to pass that
slavery, instead of being gradually extinguished by economic causes, was
fastened thereby more firmly than ever upon one section of the country.
The whole agricultural, political, and social life of the South became
dominated by the existence of negro slavery; and the problem of
reconciling the expansion of such an institution with the logic of our
national idea was bound to become critical. Our country was committed by
every consideration of national honor and moral integrity to make its
institutions thoroughly democratic, and it could not continue to permit
the aggressive legal existence of human servitude without degenerating
into a glaring example of political and moral hypocrisy.
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