n the said Territory, otherwise than in the
punishment of crimes, whereof the party shall have been duly
convicted; _Provided, always_, That any person escaping into
the same from whom labor or service is lawfully claimed in
any one of the original States, such fugitive may be
lawfully reclaimed, and conveyed to the person claiming his
or her labor or service as aforesaid."

Such is so much of the ordinance as bears directly upon the point I am
discussing. And the Convention, as if for the very purpose of giving
the unequivocal sanction of the Constitution and of the country to
this compromise, and of establishing it as the permanent policy of the
Government, expressly provided that the "engagements entered into
before the adoption of this Constitution shall be as valid against the
United States under this Constitution, as under the Confederation."

This ordinance, then, which was an unalterable compact, prohibiting
slavery, and fixing and establishing freedom as the basis of all laws,
constitutions, and governments in the Territory forever--State
Constitutions and Governments of course included--was made valid by
the Constitution itself. And on this point I refer to the highest
Southern authority, the late Judge BERRIEN, who was thoroughly
pro-slavery in his views, and should certainly be ranked among the
ablest lawyers and statesmen Georgia has ever produced, who spoke to
this precise point during the compromise discussion in the United
States Senate in 1850, as follows:

"Validity was given to their act by the clause in the
Constitution, which declares that contracts and engagements
entered into by the Government of the Confederation, should
be obligatory upon the Government of the United States
established by the Constitution."

It is the "act" of Congress in passing the ordinance referred to here.
This being so, it was the same in effect as though the ordinance had
been written word for word in the Constitution itself. A contract can
be made valid, only by making it binding and obligatory upon the
parties to it, according to its terms and meaning. To make an
unalterable compact valid is to make it perpetually binding.

Having shown that the articles of compact in the ordinance were
unalterable; that validity was given to them by the Constitution
itself; that in express terms they applied to States as well as to
Territories, and must, therefore, being made