Robert Morris, Thos.
Fitzsimmons, William Few, Abraham Baldwin, Rufus King, William
Patterson, George Clymer, Richard Bassett, George Read, Pierce Butler,
Daniel Carroll, and James Madison.

This shows that, in their understanding, no line dividing local from
Federal authority, nor anything in the Constitution, properly forbade
Congress to prohibit slavery in the Federal territory; else both their
fidelity to correct principle, and their oath to support the
Constitution, would have constrained them to oppose the prohibition.

Again, George Washington, another of the "thirty-nine," was then
President of the United States, and as such, approved and signed the
bill, thus completing its validity as a law, and thus showing that, in
his understanding, no line dividing local from Federal authority, nor
anything in the Constitution, forbade the Federal Government to control
as to slavery in Federal territory.

No great while after the adoption of the original Constitution, North
Carolina ceded to the Federal Government the country now constituting
the State of Tennessee; and a few years later Georgia ceded that which
now constitutes the States of Mississippi and Alabama. In both deeds
of cession it was made a condition by the ceding States that the
Federal Government should not prohibit slavery in the ceded country.
Besides this, slavery was then actually in the ceded country. Under
these circumstances, Congress, on taking charge of these countries, did
not absolutely prohibit slavery within them. But they did interfere
with it--take control of it--even there, to a certain extent. In 1798,
Congress organized the Territory of Mississippi. In the act of
organization they prohibited the bringing of slaves into the Territory
from any place without the United States, by fine, and giving freedom
to slaves so brought. This act passed both branches of Congress
without yeas and nays. In that Congress were three of the
"thirty-nine" who framed the original Constitution. They were John
Langdon, George Read, and Abraham Baldwin. They all probably voted for
it. Certainly they would have placed their opposition to it upon
record if, in their understanding, any line dividing local from Federal
authority, or anything in the Constitution, properly forbade the
Federal Government to control as to slavery in Federal territory.

In 1803, the Federal Government purchased the Louisiana country. Our
former territorial acquisitions came