Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 9).djvu/197

 one {164} of its principal streams, is said to be navigable for 180 miles by small craft.

From the best information that I can procure, this western division of the country, north of the Ohio, appears to be highly eligible to new settlers. It unites the advantages of having high lands and navigable waters in immediate contact, and a shorter and a better communication with the ocean than any part of western America, that is to be exclusively cultivated by freemen.

The country on Missouri river, has been already noticed as possessing advantages in soil and climate, but the difficulty of the navigation upward, amounts to a considerable objection against adopting that territory. A convention of the people formed a constitution, and laid before Congress their claim for being admitted as a State in the Federal Union. The new constitution asserts the right of the people to hold slaves, and of admitting more negroes from other parts of the United States. Towards the conclusion of last Session of the legislature, this question of right was warmly discussed, most of the members from the Southern States maintained, that Congress have no right to dictate to the people of any new State on this subject, viewing it as a matter of internal policy, and one that does not come under the jurisdiction of the general government,—and the treaty of Session stipulated, that the Spanish colonists remaining in the country, should retain their former rights and privileges. In opposition to these doctrines, the members from Northern States argued, that Congress has a constitutional right to interfere, and urged as a precedent, the act prohibiting the introduction of slavery into the country north-west of Ohio river, with other arguments too numerous to be recapitulated here. It is painful {165} to learn that the repre