tionary times, tending to show that the people of
the colonies were desirous of regulating their own concerns in their own
way, that the British Government should not interfere; that at one time
they struggled with the British Government to be permitted to exclude
the African slave trade,--if not directly, to be permitted to exclude
it indirectly, by taxation sufficient to discourage and destroy it. From
these and many things of this sort, judge Douglas argues that they were
in favor of the people of our own Territories excluding slavery if they
wanted to, or planting it there if they wanted to, doing just as they
pleased from the time they settled upon the Territory. Now, however his
history may apply and whatever of his argument there may be that is sound
and accurate or unsound and inaccurate, if we can find out what these men
did themselves do upon this very question of slavery in the Territories,
does it not end the whole thing? If, after all this labor and effort
to show that the men of the Revolution were in favor of his popular
sovereignty and his mode of dealing with slavery in the Territories, we
can show that these very men took hold of that subject, and dealt with
it, we can see for ourselves how they dealt with it. It is not a matter of
argument or inference, but we know what they thought about it.

It is precisely upon that part of the history of the country that one
important omission is made by Judge Douglas. He selects parts of the
history of the United States upon the subject of slavery, and treats it as
the whole, omitting from his historical sketch the legislation of Congress
in regard to the admission of Missouri, by which the Missouri Compromise
was established and slavery excluded from a country half as large as the
present United States. All this is left out of his history, and in nowise
alluded to by him, so far as I can remember, save once, when he makes
a remark, that upon his principle the Supreme Court were authorized to
pronounce a decision that the act called the Missouri Compromise was
unconstitutional. All that history has been left out. But this part of the
history of the country was not made by the men of the Revolution.

There was another part of our political history, made by the very men
who were the actors in the Revolution, which has taken the name of the
Ordinance of '87. Let me bring that history to your attention. In 1784, I
believe, this same Mr. Jefferson drew up an ordinance