The men who framed it, and those who adopted it, framed and adopted it for the people, and the whole people--colored men being at that time legal voters in most of the States.
From his autobiography, Douglass asserts that the Constitution was framed for all people, including Black men who were voters at the time of its adoption.
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More from Frederick Douglass
It was in the air, and men breathed it and were permeated by it, often when they were quite unconscious of its presence.
It was perhaps better for the country and for mankind that the good man could not know the end from the beginning.
But we are not here to applaud manly courage, save as it has been displayed in a noble cause.
The sentiment that brings us here to-day is one of the noblest that can stir and thrill the human heart.