e thought it improper to vote for it.

In 1787, still before the Constitution, but while the convention was in
session framing it, and while the Northwestern Territory still was
the only Territory owned by the United States, the same question of
prohibiting slavery in the Territory again came before the Congress of the
Confederation; and two more of the "thirty-nine" who afterward signed the
Constitution were in that Congress, and voted on the question. They were
William Blount and William Few; and they both voted for the prohibition
thus showing that, in their understanding, no line dividing local from
Federal authority, nor anything else, properly forbade the Federal
Government to control as to slavery in Federal territory. This time the
prohibition became a law, being part of what is now well known as the
Ordinance of '87.

The question of Federal control of slavery in the Territories seems not
to have been directly before the convention which framed the original
Constitution; and hence it is not recorded that the "thirty-nine," or any
of them, while engaged on that instrument, expressed any opinion on that
precise question.

In 1789, by the first Congress which sat under the Constitution, an act
was passed to enforce the Ordinance of '87, including the prohibition of
slavery in the Northwestern Territory. The bill for this act was reported
by one of the "thirty-nine," Thomas Fitzsimmons, then a member of the
House of Representatives from Pennsylvania. It went through all its stages
without a word of opposition, and finally passed both branches without
yeas and nays, which is equivalent to a unanimous passage. In this
Congress there were sixteen of the thirty-nine fathers who framed the
original Constitution. They were John Langdon, Nicholas Gilman, Wm. S.
Johnnson, Roger Sherman, Robert Morris, Thos. Fitzsimmons, William Few,
Abraham Baldwin, Rufus King, William Paterson, George Claimer, Richard
Bassett, George Read, Pierce Butler, Daniel Carroll, James Madison.

This shows that, in their understanding, no line dividing local from
Federal authority, nor anything in the Constitution, properly forbade
Congress to prohibit slavery in the Federal territory; else both their
fidelity to correct principles and their oath to support the Constitution
would have constrained them to oppose the prohibition.

Again: George Washington, another of the "thirty nine," was then President
of the United States, and, as such, approv