the converse, that after
1808 the foreign slave trade was to be prohibited by Congress, for the
reason already assigned, and any attempt by Congress now to open the
African slave trade, would be as direct a moral violation of this
compromise of the Constitution as if the Congress were to attempt
directly to abolish slavery in any State.

3d--It is equally plain that the right of slave owners to recover
fugitive slaves, escaping from the State where they are held, _under the
laws thereof_, into another, is guaranteed.

The Federal Constitution so far as relates to the subject of slavery
within the United States, involves the three propositions stated and
nothing more, and there is nothing in these in the least degree
expressing or implying a right in Congress to abolish or establish
slavery in any State or territory of the Union. On the contrary, the
whole tenor of the Constitution is, slavery is the creation of _local
law_, and Congress is to let it alone.

Now as to the question of slavery in the territories and the power and
policy of the Federal government concerning it there.

The power to acquire territory for the purpose of colonization or the
creation of States was not expressly granted to the Federal government,
either by the Articles of Confederation or by the Constitution, but it
has been largely exercised under both systems of government. The acts of
the government of the Confederation in accepting cessions from several
of the States of unoccupied territory, claimed by them in the west, and
organizing territorial governments therein, were declared in 1788, by as
high authority as James Madison, to be "_without the least color of
constitutional authority_." But as has been the case with many other
usurpations of the Federal and other governments, the value of the ends
to be attained seems to have justified the usurpation in the public
mind.

The territory acquired by Congress under the Confederation was territory
which was claimed by or belonged to certain of the original States. The
territory acquired under the Constitution has been foreign territory.
Louisiana was acquired in 1803 from France, Florida in 1819 from Spain,
Texas in 1846 by annexation as a State, a portion of Oregon in 1846 by a
boundary treaty, and a large territory including New Mexico, Utah and
California by treaty with Mexico in 1848.

The purchase of Louisiana was a measure of Mr. Jefferson, but so serious
were his doubts as to the