Charles Sumner on the conscience of the Constitution

The Constitution was the crowning labor of the authors of the Declaration of Independence. It was established to perpetuate, in the form of an organic law, those rights which the Declaration had promulgated, and which the sword of Washington had secured—“We hold these truths to be self evident--that all men are created equal, that they are endowed with certain inalienable rights,—that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Such are the emphatic words which our country took upon its lips, when it first claimed its place among the nations of the earth. These were its baptismal vows. And the preamble of the Constitution renews them, when it declares its objects to be, among other things, “to establish justice, to promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity." Mark; it is not to establish injustice--not to promote the welfare of a class, or of a few slaveholders, but the general welfare; not to foster the curse of slavery, but to secure the blessings of liberty. And the declared opinions of the fathers were all in harmony with these instruments.... It is apparent that our Constitution was formed by lovers of Human Freedom.

-Speech for Union...Against the Slave Power, June 28, 1848, in 2 Orations and Speeches by Charles Sumner 253 (1850).