s of the power of the United States to prohibit slavery
within this part of the territory of the United States; for it clearly
shows that slavery was thereafter to be prohibited there, and it could
be prohibited only by an exertion of the power of the United States,
under the Constitution; no other power being capable of operating
within that territory after the Constitution took effect.

On the 2d of April, 1790, (1 Stat. at Large, 106,) the first Congress
passed an act accepting a deed of cession by North Carolina of that
territory afterwards erected into the State of Tennessee. The fourth
express condition contained in this deed of cession, after providing
that the inhabitants of the Territory shall be temporarily governed in
the same manner as those beyond the Ohio, is followed by these words:
"_Provided, always_, that no regulations made or to be made by
Congress shall tend to emancipate slaves."

This provision shows that it was then understood Congress might make a
regulation prohibiting slavery, and that Congress might also allow it
to continue to exist in the Territory; and accordingly, when, a few
days later, Congress passed the act of May 20th, 1790, (1 Stat. at
Large, 123,) for the government of the Territory south of the river
Ohio, it provided, "and the Government of the Territory south of the
Ohio shall be similar to that now exercised in the Territory northwest
of the Ohio, except so far as is otherwise provided in the conditions
expressed in an act of Congress of the present session, entitled, 'An
act to accept a cession of the claims of the State of North Carolina
to a certain district of western territory.'" Under the Government
thus established, slavery existed until the Territory became the State
of Tennessee.

On the 7th of April, 1798, (1 Stat. at Large, 649,) an act was passed
to establish a Government in the Mississippi Territory in all respects
like that exercised in the Territory northwest of the Ohio, "excepting
and excluding the last article of the ordinance made for the
government thereof by the late Congress, on the 13th day of July,
1787." When the limits of this Territory had been amicably settled
with Georgia, and the latter ceded all its claim thereto, it was one
stipulation in the compact of cession, that the ordinance of July
13th, 1787, "shall in all its parts extend to the Territory contained
in the present act of cession, that article only excepted which
forbids slavery." The G