"I submit, on the other hand, most respectfully, that the Constitution not merely does not affirm that principle, but, on the contrary, altogether excludes it"
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A lawyerly blade wrapped in velvet: Seward leads with “I submit” and “most respectfully” not because he’s meek, but because he’s about to detonate a consensus. The sentence is engineered to sound procedural while performing a moral jailbreak. By insisting the Constitution “not merely does not affirm” a principle but “altogether excludes it,” he’s rejecting the era’s favorite political cop-out: the claim that America’s founding document is neutral on slavery, or worse, silently endorses it. The doubled negatives and careful escalation move from absence to prohibition, turning constitutional interpretation into an offensive weapon rather than a defensive alibi.
The subtext is a direct challenge to “compromise constitutionalism,” the habit of treating slavery as an unfortunate but legally protected reality. Seward’s phrasing implies that pro-slavery readings aren’t just arguable; they’re illegitimate, smuggled in through custom and cowardice. He’s also speaking to anxious moderates: the politeness signals fidelity to law, even as he redefines what fidelity demands.
Context matters: Seward was a leading antislavery Whig and later a Republican, operating in the volatile pre-Civil War period when constitutional arguments were the only language powerful enough to compete with property rights, sectional threats, and federal appeasement. This is the “higher law” politician learning to speak in courtroom syntax. It works because it reframes abolition not as radical rupture, but as constitutional common sense the country has been trained not to see.
The subtext is a direct challenge to “compromise constitutionalism,” the habit of treating slavery as an unfortunate but legally protected reality. Seward’s phrasing implies that pro-slavery readings aren’t just arguable; they’re illegitimate, smuggled in through custom and cowardice. He’s also speaking to anxious moderates: the politeness signals fidelity to law, even as he redefines what fidelity demands.
Context matters: Seward was a leading antislavery Whig and later a Republican, operating in the volatile pre-Civil War period when constitutional arguments were the only language powerful enough to compete with property rights, sectional threats, and federal appeasement. This is the “higher law” politician learning to speak in courtroom syntax. It works because it reframes abolition not as radical rupture, but as constitutional common sense the country has been trained not to see.
Quote Details
| Topic | Equality |
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