Douglass had escaped slavery in 1838 and then spent the next three decades fighting to free the rest of his people. He characterized the Constitution as so “cunningly” framed that “no one would have imagined that it recognized or sanctioned slavery. But having a terrestrial, and not a celestial origin, we find no difficulty in ascertaining its meaning in all the parts which we allege relate to slavery. Slavery existed before the Constitution…. Slaveholders took a large share in making it.”
