ch we live," who have, upon their official
responsibility and their corporal oaths, acted upon the very question
which the text affirms they "understood just as well, and even better
than we do now"; and twenty-one of them--a clear majority of the whole
"thirty-nine"--so acting upon it as to make them guilty of gross political
impropriety and wilful perjury, if, in their understanding, any proper
division between local and Federal authority, or anything in the
Constitution they had made themselves, and sworn to support, forbade the
Federal Government to control as to slavery in the Federal Territories.
Thus the twenty-one acted; and, as actions speak louder than words, so
actions under such responsibilities speak still louder.

Two of the twenty-three voted against Congressional prohibition of slavery
in the Federal Territories, in the instances in which they acted upon the
question. But for what reasons they so voted is not known. They may have
done so because they thought a proper division of local from Federal
authority, or some provision or principle of the Constitution, stood in
the way; or they may, without any such question, have voted against
the prohibition on what appeared to them to be sufficient grounds
of expediency. No one who has sworn to support the Constitution can
conscientiously vote for what he understands to be an unconstitutional
measure, however expedient he may think it; but one may and ought to vote
against a measure which he deems constitutional, if, at the same time, he
deems it inexpedient. It therefore would be unsafe to set down even the
two who voted against the prohibition as having done so because, in their
understanding, any proper division of local from Federal authority, or
anything in the Constitution, forbade the Federal Government to control as
to slavery in Federal territory.

The remaining sixteen of the "thirty-nine," so far as I have discovered,
have left no record of their understanding upon the direct question of
Federal control on slavery in the Federal Territories. But there is much
reason to believe that their understanding upon that question would not
have appeared different from that of their twenty-three compeers, had it
been manifested at all.

For the purpose of adhering rigidly to the text, I have purposely omitted
whatever understanding may have been manifested by any person, however
distinguished, other than the thirty-nine fathers who framed the original
Constit