m it should also be common. This, it is said, will not happen
if slavery be excluded from Missouri, as the citizens of the States
where slavery is permitted will be shut out, and none but citizens of
States where slavery is prohibited, can become inhabitants of Missouri.

But this consequence will not arise from the proposed exclusion of
slavery. The citizens of States in which slavery is allowed, like all
other citizens, will be free to become inhabitants of Missouri, in like
manner as they have become inhabitants of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois,
in which slavery is forbidden. The exclusion of slaves from Missouri
will not, therefore, operate unequally among the citizens of the United
States. The Constitution provides, "that the citizens of each State
shall be entitled to enjoy all the rights and immunities of citizens of
the several States"; every citizen may, therefore, remove from one
to another State, and there enjoy the rights and immunities of its
citizens. The proposed provision excludes slaves, not citizens, whose
rights it will not, and cannot impair.

Besides there is nothing new or peculiar in a provision for the
exclusion of slavery; it has been established in the States north-west
of the river Ohio, and has existed from the beginning in the old States
where slavery is forbidden. The citizens of States where slavery is
allowed, may become inhabitants of Missouri, but cannot hold slaves
there, nor in any other State where slavery is prohibited. As well might
the laws prohibiting slavery in the old States become the subject of
complaint, as the proposed exclusion of slavery in Missouri; but there
is no foundation for such complaint in either case. It is further urged,
that the admission of slaves into Missouri would be limited to the
slaves who are already within the United States; that their health and
comfort would be promoted by their dispersion, and that their numbers
would be the same whether they remain confined to the States where
slavery exists, or are dispersed over the new States that may be
admitted into the Union.

That none but domestic slaves would be introduced into Missouri, and the
other new and frontier States, is most fully disproved by the thousands
of fresh slaves, which, in violation of our laws, are annually imported
into Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi.

We may renew our efforts, and enact new laws with heavier penalties
against the importation of slaves: the revenue cutters may