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and to the mandates of the Constitution of the United States as augmented by the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Articles of Amendment, may the sacred light of divine grace and power ever shine upon one and all their patrons! That the deep shadows of the past may fade away before the unutterable splendors of universal freedom in America, and that thy law, O Heavenly Father, "without whose help all labor is in effective, and without whose grace all wisdom is folly," may be put in their inward parts and written in their hearts; that civil liberty, which the visible hand of thy providence has planted in America, may never be rooted out of the kindly soil of constitutional law; that their cup of gall and bitterness may pass altogether from the lips of seven millions of thy people; that those of this great multitude who have not known the full fruition of thy civil peace may speedily attain unto it as complete citizens of the American state; and that the interpretation of thy decrees, which are embodied in these amendments, may never hereafter be blemished with the stain of human infirmity, is the fervent prayer of seven millions of thy devoted people, in the dedication of this work to those faithful servants unto whom thou hast seen fit to commit the preservation of the pure spirit of that civil liberty which in the course of thy providence seems destined to enlighten and bless the civilized world.