te into the Union, by the name
of Louisiana. The acts of Congress for these purposes, in addition to
sundry important provisions respecting rivers and public lands, which
are declared to be irrevocable unless by common consent, annex other
terms and conditions, whereby it is established, not only that the
Constitution of Louisiana should be republican, but that it should
contain the fundamental principles of civil and religious liberty,
that it should secure to the citizens the trial by jury in all criminal
cases, and the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus according to the
Constitution of the United States; and after its admission into the
Union, that the laws which Louisiana might pass, should be promulgated;
its records of every description preserved; and its judicial and
legislative proceedings conducted in the language in which the laws and
judicial proceedings of the United States are published and conducted.

* * * * *

Having annexed these new and extraordinary conditions to the act for the
admission of Louisiana into the Union, Congress may, if they shall deem
it expedient, annex the like conditions to the act for the admission of
Missouri; and, moreover, as in the case of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois,
provide by an article for that purpose, that slavery shall not exist
within the same.

Admitting this construction of the Constitution, it is alleged that the
power by which Congress excluded slavery from the States north-west of
the river Ohio, is suspended in respect to the States that may be formed
in the province of Louisiana. The article of the treaty referred to
declares: "That the inhabitants of the territory shall be incorporated
in the Union of the United States, and admitted as soon as possible;
according to the principles of the Federal Constitution, to the
enjoyment of all rights, advantages, and immunities of citizens of
the United States; and in the meantime, they shall be maintained and
protected in the free enjoyment of their liberty, property, and the
religion which they profess."

Although there is want of precision in the article, its scope and
meaning can not be misunderstood. It constitutes a stipulation by which
the United States engage that the inhabitants of Louisiana should be
formed into a State or States, and as soon as the provisions of the
Constitution permit, that they should be admitted as new States into the
Union on the footing of the other States; and befor