recisely parallel case. Here was a territory in which, in 1787, slavery
was prohibited. Here was a territory ceded by North Carolina, which
became the territory of the United States south of the Ohio, in
reference to which it was stipulated with North Carolina, that Congress
should pass no laws tending to the emancipation of slaves. But I believe
it never occurred to any one that the legislation of 1790 acted back
upon the ordinance of 1787, or furnished a rule by which any effect
could be produced upon the state of things existing under that
ordinance, in the territory to which it applied.

I certainly intend to do the distinguished chairman of the committee
no injustice; and I am not sure that I fully comprehend his argument in
this respect; but I think his report sustains the view which I now take
of the subject: that is, that the legislation of 1850 did not establish
a principle which was designed to have any such effect as he intimates.
That report states how matters stood in those new Mexican territories.
It was alleged on the one hand that by the Mexican _lex loci_ slavery
was prohibited. On the other hand that was denied, and it was maintained
that the Constitution of the United States secures to every citizen the
right to go there and take with him any property recognized as such
by any of the States of the Union. The report considers that a similar
state of things now exists in Nebraska--that the validity of the eighth
section of the Missouri Act, by which slavery is prohibited in that
Territory, is doubtful, and that it is maintained by many distinguished
statesmen that Congress has no power to legislate on the subject.
Then, in this state of the controversy, the report maintains that
the legislation of Congress in 1850 did not undertake to decide these
questions. Surely, if they did not undertake to decide them, they could
not settle the principle which is at stake in them; and, unless they did
decide them, the measures then adopted must be considered as specific
measures, relating only to those case and not establishing a principle
of general operation. This seems to me to be as direct and conclusive as
anything can be.

At all events, these are not impressions which are put forth by me under
the exigencies of the present debate or of the present occasion. I have
never entertained any other opinion. I was called upon for a particular
purpose, of a literary nature, to which I will presently allude more
dist