Mr. Pinckney as
steadily voted against slavery prohibition, and against all compromises.
By this, Mr. King showed that, in his understanding, no line dividing
local from Federal authority, nor anything in the Constitution, was
violated by Congress prohibiting slavery in Federal territory; while Mr.
Pinckney, by his vote, showed that in his understanding there was some
sufficient reason for opposing such prohibition in that case.

The cases I have mentioned are the only acts of the "thirty-nine," or of
any of them, upon the direct issue, which I have been able to discover.

To enumerate the persons who thus acted, as being four in 1784, two
in 1787, seventeen in 1789, three in 1798, two in 1804, and two in
1819-20--there would be thirty of them. But this would be counting, John
Langdon, Roger Sherman, William Few, Rufus King, and George Read, each
twice, and Abraham Baldwin three times. The true number of those of the
"thirty-nine" whom I have shown to have acted upon the question which, by
the text, they understood better than we, is twenty-three, leaving sixteen
not shown to have acted upon it in any way.

Here, then, we have twenty-three out of our thirty-nine fathers "who
framed the Government under which we live," who have, upon their official
responsibility and their corporal oaths, acted upon the very question
which the text affirms they "understood just as well, and even better
than we do now"; and twenty-one of them--a clear majority of the whole
"thirty-nine"--so acting upon it as to make them guilty of gross political
impropriety and wilful perjury, if, in their understanding, any proper
division between local and Federal authority, or anything in the
Constitution they had made themselves, and sworn to support, forbade the
Federal Government to control as to slavery in the Federal Territories.
Thus the twenty-one acted; and, as actions speak louder than words, so
actions under such responsibilities speak still louder.

Two of the twenty-three voted against Congressional prohibition of slavery
in the Federal Territories, in the instances in which they acted upon the
question. But for what reasons they so voted is not known. They may have
done so because they thought a proper division of local from Federal
authority, or some provision or principle of the Constitution, stood in
the way; or they may, without any such question, have voted against
the prohibition on what appeared to them to be sufficient grounds