ounted in the apportionment
of representatives in Congress, if it had not been agreed that
fugitives from service should be returned to their owners, the
Thirteen States would not have been able in 1787 "to form a more
perfect union." These adjustments in the Constitution were effected
after the Congress of the old Confederation had dedicated the entire
North-west Territory to freedom. The ancient commonwealth of
Virginia had, for the good of all, generously and patriotically
surrendered her title to the great country north of the Ohio and
east of the Mississippi, which to-day constitutes five prosperous
and powerful States and a not inconsiderable portion of a sixth.
This was the first territory of which the General Government had
exclusive control, and the prompt prohibition of slavery therein
by the Ordinance of 1787 is an important and significant fact.
The anti-slavery restriction would doubtless have been applied to
the territory south of the Ohio had the power existed to impose
it. The founders of the government not only looked to the speedy
extinction of slavery, but they especially abhorred the idea of a
geographical line, with freedom decreed on one side, and slavery
established on the other. But the territory south of the Ohio
belonged to the Southern States of the Union,--Kentucky to Virginia;
Tennessee to North Carolina; Alabama and Mississippi to Georgia,
with certain co-extensive claims put forth by South Carolina. When
cessions of this Southern territory were made to the General
Government, the States owning it exacted in every case a stipulation
that slavery should not be prohibited. It thus came to pass that
the Ohio River was the dividing-line. North of it freedom was
forever decreed. South of it slavery was firmly established.
Within the limits of the Union as originally formed the slavery
question had therefore been compromised, the common territory
partitioned, and the Republic, half slave, half free, organized
and sent forth upon its mission.

The Thirteen States whose independence had been acknowledged by
George III., occupied with their outlying territories a vast area,
exceeding in the aggregate eight hundred thousand square miles.
Extended as was this domain, the early statesmen of the Union
discovered that its boundaries were unsatisfactory,--hostile to
our commercial interests in time of peace, and menacing our safety
in time of war. The Mississippi River was our western limit. O