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Page 8
The State of Virginia, which ceded to the United States her claims to
this territory, consented by her delegates in the old Congress to this
ordinance--not only Virginia, but North Carolina, South Carolina, and
Georgia, by the unanimous votes of their delegates in the old Congress,
approved of the ordinance of 1787, by which slavery is forever abolished
in the territory northwest of the river Ohio.
Without the votes of these States, the ordinance could not have passed;
and there is no recollection of an opposition from any of these States
to the act of confirmation, passed under the actual Constitution.
Slavery had long been established in these States--the evil was felt in
their institutions, laws, and habits, and could not easily or at once be
abolished. But these votes so honorable to these States, satisfactorily
demonstrate their unwillingness to permit the extension of slavery into
the new States which might be admitted by Congress into the Union.
The States of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, on the northwest of the river
Ohio, have been admitted by Congress into the Union, on the condition
and conformably to the article of compact, contained in the ordinance
of 1787, and by which it is declared that there shall be neither slavery
nor involuntary servitude in any of the said States.
Although Congress possess the power of making the exclusion of slavery a
part or condition of the act admitting a new State into the Union, they
may, in special cases, and for sufficient reasons, forbear to exercise
this power. Thus Kentucky and Vermont were admitted as new States into
the Union, without making the abolition of slavery the condition of
their admission. In Vermont, slavery never existed; her laws excluding
the same. Kentucky was formed out of, and settled by, Virginia, and
the inhabitants of Kentucky, equally with those of Virginia, by
fair interpretation of the Constitution, were exempt from all such
interference of Congress, as might disturb or impair the security of
their property in slaves. The western territory of North Carolina and
Georgia, having been partially granted and settled under the authority
of these States, before the cession thereof to the United States, and
these States being original parties to the Constitution which recognizes
the existence of slavery, no measure restraining slavery could be
applied by Congress to this territory. But to remove all doubt on this
head, it was made a condition of the cession of this territory to the
United States, that the ordinance of 1787, except the sixth article
thereof, respecting slavery, should be applied to the same; and that
the sixth article should not be so applied. Accordingly, the States of
Tennessee, Mississippi, and Alabama, comprehending the territory ceded
to the United States by North Carolina and Georgia, have been admitted
as new States into the Union, without a provision, by which slavery
shall be excluded from the same. According to this abstract of the
proceedings of Congress in the admission of new States into the Union,
of the eight new States within the original limits of the United States,
four have been admitted without an article excluding slavery; three have
been admitted on the condition that slavery should be excluded; and one
admitted without such condition. In the few first cases, Congress were
restrained from exercising the power to exclude slavery; in the next
three, they exercised this power; and in the last, it was unnecessary to
do so, slavery being excluded by the State Constitution.
The province of Louisiana, soon after its cession to the United States,
was divided into two territories, comprehending such parts thereof as
were contiguous to the river Mississippi, being the only parts of the
province that were inhabited. The foreign language, laws, customs,
and manners of the inhabitants, required the immediate and cautious
attention of Congress, which, instead of extending, in the first
instance, to these territories the ordinance of 1787, ordained special
regulations for the government of the same. These regulations were from
time to time revised and altered, as observation and experience showed
to be expedient, and as was deemed most likely to encourage and
promote those changes which would soonest qualify the inhabitants for
self-government and admission into the Union. When the United States
took possession of the province of Louisiana in 1804, it was estimated
to contain 50,000 white inhabitants, 40,000 slaves, and 2,000 free
persons of color.
More than four-fifths of the whites, and all the slaves, except about
thirteen hundred, inhabited New Orleans and the adjacent territory; the
residue, consisting of less than ten thousand whites, and about thirteen
hundred slaves, were dispersed throughout the country now included in
the Arkansas and Missouri territories. The greater part of the thirteen
hundred slaves were in the Missouri territory, some of them having been
removed thither from the old French settlements on the east side of
the Mississippi, after the passing of the ordinance of 1787, by which
slavery in those settlements was abolished.
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