The last great martyr to the double meaning in our Constitution,
mentioned below, was Lincoln. It was a clause that protected the most
gigantic evil of history:
An American historian says of the Constitution of the United
States: “Our Constitution in its spirit and legitimate utterance
is doubtless the noblest document which ever emanated from the
mind of man. It contains not one word hostile to liberty.... But
yet ingloriously, guiltily, under sore temptation, we consented
to use one phrase susceptible of a double meaning, ‘held to
service or labor.’ (Article IV Section 2.) These honest words
at the North mean a hired man, an apprentice. At the South
they mean a slave, feudal bondage. So small, apparently so
insignificant, were those seeds sown in our Constitution which
have resulted in such a harvest of misery.”
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