blic sentiment, it is certainly no marvel that
slavery was not allowed to extend into the Territories and new States.
It was not prohibited in the northwest territory, because it was
supposed to be, or would become, an evil in that territory
particularly, or a greater evil there than anywhere else; but because
it was regarded as an evil everywhere, and therefore wrong to permit
its extension anywhere, when there was power to prevent it. There can
be no doubt it would have been prohibited in the Territories and new
States of Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee, if Georgia and North
Carolina, previous to the Federal Convention, had ceded them to the
United States upon the same conditions Virginia had ceded the
northwest territory. Proof of this is found in the fact that the plan
of territorial governments interdicting slavery forever after 1800,
embraced all territory ceded, or to be ceded by individual States; and
still further proof is in the fact, that the cessions by Georgia and
North Carolina, after the adoption of the Constitution, were upon the
express condition that slavery should not be prohibited; thereby
showing that the policy of the Federal Government, as they understood
it, was restrictive of slavery in the far southern latitudes as well
as in the more northern, and that they expected the power to restrict
would be exercised, if not withheld in the deeds of cession. A
proposition was, in fact, made to apply the anti-slavery clause of
1787, to all the southern part of the Mississippi territory, now the
southern parts of Alabama and Mississippi, by the act of April 7th,
1798, it being supposed at one time that it belonged to the United
States; but the debate shows that the proposition was withdrawn
because the jurisdiction was in Georgia, or because not five members
of Congress, after the question was examined, believed otherwise.
Georgia claimed absolute title and right of jurisdiction, and denied
all right on the part of the United States to interfere with slavery.
Congress did, however, prohibit the importation of slaves into the
territory, and declare every slave so imported to be entitled to his
freedom. This was probably wholly unauthorized, as it was six years
before Georgia ceded it to the United States, and ten years before
Congress had power to prohibit the importation of slaves into that
State. But these facts show a strong disposition on the part of "the
fathers" to curtail and circumscribe slavery,