nd declarations in
the Congresses which preceded the Constitution and in the Congresses
following which proposed its twelve amendments and enacted various
Territorial prohibitions. His conclusions were irresistibly
convincing.

The sum of the whole is [said he] that of our thirty-nine fathers
who framed the original Constitution, twenty-one--a clear majority
of the whole--certainly understood that no proper division of
local from Federal authority, nor any part of the Constitution,
forbade the Federal Government to control as to slavery in the
Federal Territories; while all the rest probably had the same
understanding. Such unquestionably was the understanding of our
fathers who framed the original Constitution; and the text affirms
that they understood the question "better than we".... It is
surely safe to assume that the thirty-nine framers of the original
Constitution and the seventy-six members of the Congress which
framed the amendments thereto, taken together, do certainly
include those who may be fairly called "our fathers who framed the
Government under which we live." And so assuming, I defy any man
to show that any one of them ever, in his whole life, declared
that in his understanding any proper division of local from
Federal authority, or any part of the Constitution, forbade the
Federal Government to control as to slavery in the Federal
Territories. I go a step further. I defy any one to show that any
living man in the whole world ever did, prior to the beginning of
the present century (and I might almost say prior to the beginning
of the last half of the present century), declare that in his
understanding any proper division of local from Federal authority,
or any part of the Constitution, forbade the Federal Government to
control as to slavery in the Federal Territories. To those who now
so declare, I give, not only "our fathers who framed the
government under which we live," but with them all other living
men within the century in which it was framed, among whom to
search, and they shall not be able to find the evidence of a
single man agreeing with them.

Now, and here, let me guard a little against being misunderstood.
I do not mean to say we are bound to follow implicitly in whatever
our fathers did. To do so would be to discard all the lights of
current experience