if they and the officers of the States were the ministers, respectively,
of foreign governments in a state of mutual hostility rather than
fellow-magistrates of a common country peacefully subsisting under the
protection of one well-constituted Union. Thus here also aggression was
followed by reaction, and the attacks upon the Constitution at this
point did but serve to raise up new barriers for its defense and
security.

The third stage of this unhappy sectional controversy was in
connection with the organization of Territorial governments and
the admission of new States into the Union. When it was proposed to
admit the State of Maine, by separation of territory from that of
Massachusetts, and the State of Missouri, formed of a portion of the
territory ceded by France to the United States, representatives in
Congress objected to the admission of the latter unless with conditions
suited to particular views of public policy. The imposition of such a
condition was successfully resisted; but at the same period the question
was presented of imposing restrictions upon the residue of the territory
ceded by France. That question was for the time disposed of by the
adoption of a geographical line of limitation.

In this connection it should not be forgotten that when France, of
her own accord, resolved, for considerations of the most far-sighted
sagacity, to cede Louisiana to the United States, and that accession was
accepted by the United States, the latter expressly engaged that "the
inhabitants of the ceded territory shall be incorporated in the Union
of the United States and admitted as soon as possible, according to the
principles of the Federal Constitution, to the enjoyment of all the
rights, advantages, and immunities of citizens of the United States;
and in the meantime they shall be maintained and protected in the free
enjoyment of their _liberty, property_, and the religion which they
profess;" that is to say, while it remains in a Territorial condition
its inhabitants are maintained and protected in the free enjoyment of
their liberty and property, with a right then to pass into the condition
of States on a footing of perfect equality with the original States.

The enactment which established the restrictive geographical line was
acquiesced in rather than approved by the States of the Union. It stood
on the statute book, however, for a number of years; and the people of
the respective States acquiesced in the ree