o enforce the Ordinance of '87, including the prohibition of
slavery in the Northwestern Territory. The bill for this act was reported
by one of the "thirty-nine," Thomas Fitzsimmons, then a member of the
House of Representatives from Pennsylvania. It went through all its stages
without a word of opposition, and finally passed both branches without
yeas and nays, which is equivalent to a unanimous passage. In this
Congress there were sixteen of the thirty-nine fathers who framed the
original Constitution. They were John Langdon, Nicholas Gilman, Wm. S.
Johnnson, Roger Sherman, Robert Morris, Thos. Fitzsimmons, William Few,
Abraham Baldwin, Rufus King, William Paterson, George Claimer, Richard
Bassett, George Read, Pierce Butler, Daniel Carroll, 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 principles 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 with