nstitution denied this doctrine by
clear implication, certainly for the first twenty years. It withheld
from Congress the power to prohibit the importation of slaves into the
"existing" States till 1808, while their importation into the
Territories and new States might be prohibited at once. Ohio was
admitted in 1802. Congress had power to prohibit the importation of
slaves into that State from that time, and did do it in effect by the
very terms and conditions of her admission, which required that her
Constitution and Government should not be repugnant to the ordinance
of the 13th of July, 1787, which interdicted slavery. But Congress had
no power to prohibit the importation of slaves into Georgia till after
1808. Georgia and Ohio, therefore, in this respect, were not political
equals from 1802 to 1808.

Nor have the States been all political equals in the sense claimed,
since 1808. It will surprise many to be told that there is nothing in
the Constitution about State equality, and especially nothing that
affirms the equality of the new with the original States, even after
1808. And yet this is true. The only passages which refer to the new
States, except impliedly in the importation clause, are these: "New
States may be admitted by Congress into the Union; but no new State
shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other
State." There is nothing, certainly, in this language to show that the
new States were to be admitted on an equality, or an equal footing
with the original States.

And yet provision was made, when the Constitution was framed, for the
admission of all the new States to be formed in United States
Territory then possessed, "on an equal footing with the original
States." But it was a footing of equality which was in nowise
inconsistent with an absolute denial of the right to establish the
inequality of slavery. And this is proved by the only compact in the
English language contemporaneous with the Constitution which touches
the subject, namely, that part of the fifth article of compact in the
ordinance of 1787 which I have already quoted. There can be no shadow
of claim that any thing else secured, or pretended to secure, the
right of new States to admission into the Union on an equal footing
with the original States. That, I admit, did. It is, to repeat it, in
these words:

"Whenever any of said States shall have sixty thousand free
inhabitants therein, such State shall be a