onstitutions providing for perpetual slavery, it would
be the merest folly to refuse to admit the first State whose
constitution provided for gradual emancipation.[84]

A new issue was injected into the debate when Mr. Collamer, of
Vermont, while reviewing what is implied in being a sovereign State
and a State in the Union, argued that the imposition by Congress of
any condition precedent to the entrance, whether or not that condition
be the abolition of slavery, is an unwarranted interference with the
internal affairs of that State. Under such circumstances the proposed
new State would not come into the Union on equal footing with other
States. He did not wish, however, to be understood as saying that he
would not vote against a State desiring to come in as a perpetual
slave-holding State; but he failed to see the wisdom or justice in
making the abolition of slavery a condition precedent to entrance. On
the other hand, he saw no difference, in principle, between the
provision in the bill as reported and the amendment offered by Mr.
Sumner, since both of them failed to reflect the will of the
Convention that framed the State's constitution.[85]

Thereupon Mr. Willey announced that he would offer the following
amendment: "That after the fourth day of July, 1863, the children born
of slave mothers within the limits of the said State shall be free,
and that no law shall be passed by the said State by which any citizen
of either of the States of this Union shall be excluded from the
enjoyment of the privileges and immunities to which such citizen is
entitled under the Constitution of the United States; provided that
the convention that ordained the constitution aforesaid, to be
reconvened in the manner prescribed in the schedule thereto annexed,
shall by a solemn public ordinance declare the assent of the said
State to the said fundamental condition, and shall transmit to the
President of the United States on or before the 15th of November,
1862, an authentic copy of the said ordinance; upon receipt whereof
the President by proclamation shall announce the fact; whereupon and
without any further procedure on the part of Congress the admission of
the said State into the Union shall be considered as complete."[86]

Throughout the debate that followed there were found many supporters
of the program of gradual emancipation for the proposed new State.
Chairman Wade, of the Committee of Territories, made thereupon the
following