Facts constrain inferences

Suppose the facts are:

The Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery.

Factories expanded afterward.

Possible inferences include:

abolition increased labor mobility;

abolition benefited industrialization.

Those are plausible.

But this inference would not be plausible:

The Thirteenth Amendment was passed because people wanted to build railways on Mars.

Nothing in the facts supports that.

So facts do not dictate one conclusion.

But they eliminate many impossible conclusions.

That is what "constrain" means.