valid by the
Constitution, necessarily have been understood and intended by
Congress and the Convention to prohibit slavery as effectually in one
as the other, I will now show very briefly that they were also so
understood in all parts of the country.

Mr. WILSON, of Pennsylvania, a prominent member of the Federal
Convention, and also of the State Convention for ratifying the
Constitution, remarked in the latter as follows:

"I consider this clause as laying the foundation for
banishing slavery out of the land.... The new States which
are to be formed will be under the control of Congress in
this particular, and slavery will never be introduced among
them."

Mr. WILSON speaks of the clause authorizing the prohibition of the
African slave trade.

In the Massachusetts Convention to adopt the Constitution, Gen. HEATH
said:

"Slavery cannot be extended. By their ordinance Congress has
declared that the new States shall be republican States, and
have no slavery."

Colonel BLAND, a member of the Convention from Virginia, said he
"wished slavery had never been introduced into America," and that "he
was willing to join in any measure that would prevent its extending
farther." To allow it in new States would not prevent its extending
farther, and therefore it was prohibited in such States.

Doctor RAMSAY, a member of the Convention of South Carolina, in his
History of the United States, says:

"Under these liberal principles, Congress, in organizing
colonies, bound themselves to impart to their inhabitants
all the privileges of coequal States.... These privileges
are not confined to any particular country or complexion.
They are communicable to the emancipated slave, for in the
new State of Ohio, slavery is altogether prohibited."

This compact, then, applies to State as well as Territorial
governments, and was so understood in all sections of the
country--northern, central, and southern--when the Constitution was
ratified.

Let me now call attention to the very significant proviso to the sixth
article. What does the word original mean, and what does the whole
article mean with that word in the proviso?

"There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in
the said Territory, otherwise than in the punishment of
crimes, &c.; _Provided, always_, That any person escaping
into the same, from whom labor or service is la