ded territory lying north of
thirty-six degrees thirty minutes, and west and north of the present
State of Missouri, was then a wilderness, uninhabited save by savages,
whose possessory title had not then been extinguished.

It is impossible for me to conceive on what ground France could have
advanced a claim, or could have desired to advance a claim, to
restrain the United States from making any rules and regulations
respecting this territory, which the United States might think fit to
make; and still less can I conceive of any reason which would have
induced the United States to yield to such a claim. It was to be
expected that France would desire to make the change of sovereignty
and jurisdiction as little burdensome as possible to the then
inhabitants of Louisiana, and might well exhibit even an anxious
solicitude to protect their property and persons, and secure to them
and their posterity their religious and political rights; and the
United States, as a just Government, might readily accede to all
proper stipulations respecting those who were about to have their
allegiance transferred. But what interest France could have in
uninhabited territory, which, in the language of the treaty, was to be
transferred "forever, and in full sovereignty," to the United States,
or how the United States could consent to allow a foreign nation to
interfere in its purely internal affairs, in which that foreign nation
had no concern whatever, is difficult for me to conjecture. In my
judgment, this treaty contains nothing of the kind.

The third article is supposed to have a bearing on the question. It is
as follows: "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 mean time they shall be
maintained and protected in the enjoyment of their liberty, property,
and the religion they profess."

There are two views of this article, each of which, I think,
decisively shows that it was not intended to restrain the Congress
from excluding slavery from that part of the ceded territory then
uninhabited. The first is, that, manifestly, its sole object was to
protect individual rights of the then inhabitants of the territory.
They are to be "maintained and protected in the free enjoyment of
their lib