of all parties asserted the right to exclude slavery from the territory by Congressional legislation, and demanded the prompt and efficient exercise of this power to that end. This insulting and unconstitutional demand was met with great moderation and firmnesss by the South. We had shed our blood and paid our money for its acquisition; we demanded a division of it, on the line of the Missouri restriction, or an equal participation in the whole of it. These propositions were refused, the agitation became general, and the public danger great. The case of the South was impregnable. The price of the acquisition was the blood and treasure of both sections—of all; and therefore it belonged to all, upon the principles of equity and justice. The Constitution delegated no power to Congress to exclude either party from its free enjoyment; therefore, our right was good, under the Constitution. Our rights were further fortified by the practice of the government from the beginning. Slavery was forbidden in the country Northwest of the Ohio river, by what is called the Ordinance of 1787. That ordinance was adopted under the old confederation, and by the assent of Virginia, who owned and ceded the country; and, therefore, this case must stand on its own special circumstances. The government of the United States claimed territory by virtue of the treaty of 1783 with Great Britain; acquired territory by cession from Georgia and North Carolina; by treaty from France, and by treaty from Spain. These acquisitions largely exceeded the original limits of the Republic. In all of these acquisitions the policy of the government was uniform. It opened them to the settlement of all the citizens of all the States of the Union. They emigrated thither with their property of every kind (including slaves),—all were equally protected by public authority in their persons and property, until the inhabitants became sufficiently numerous, and otherwise capable of bearing the burthens and performing the duties of self-government, when they were admitted into the Union, upon equal terms with the other States, with whatever republican constitution they might adopt for themselves.
Under this equally just and beneficent policy, law and order, stability and progress, peace and prosperity marked
