ed and signed the bill;
thus completing its validity as a law, and thus showing that, in his
understanding, no line dividing local from Federal authority, nor anything
in the Constitution, forbade the Federal Government to control as to
slavery in Federal territory.

No great while after the adoption of the original Constitution, North
Carolina ceded to the Federal Government the country now constituting the
State of Tennessee; and, a few years later, Georgia ceded that which
now constitutes the States of Mississippi and Alabama. In both deeds of
cession it was made a condition by the ceding States that the Federal
Government should not prohibit slavery in the ceded country. Besides this,
slavery was then actually in the ceded country. Under these circumstances,
Congress, on taking charge of these countries, did not absolutely prohibit
slavery within them. But they did interfere with it--take control of
it--even there, to a certain extent. In 1798, Congress organized the
Territory of Mississippi: In the act of organization they prohibited the
bringing of slaves into the Territory from any place without the United
States, by fine and giving freedom to slaves so brought. This act passed
both branches of Congress without yeas and nays. In that Congress were
three of the "thirty-nine" who framed the original Constitution. They were
John Langdon, George Read, and Abraham Baldwin. They all, probably, voted
for it. Certainly they would have placed their opposition to it upon
record, if, in their understanding, any line dividing local from Federal
authority, or anything in the Constitution, properly forbade the Federal
Government to control as to slavery in Federal territory.

In 1803, the Federal Government purchased the Louisiana country. Our
former territorial acquisitions came from certain of our own States;
but this Louisiana country was acquired from a foreign nation. In 1804,
Congress gave a territorial organization to that part of it which now
constitutes the State of Lousiana. New Orleans, lying within that part,
was an old and comparatively large city. There were other considerable
towns and settlements, and slavery was extensively and thoroughly
intermingled with the people. Congress did not, in the Territorial Act,
prohibit slavery; but they did interfere with it take control of it--in
a more marked and extensive way than they did in the case of Mississippi.
The substance of the provision therein made in relation to