Page:Life and Works of Abraham Lincoln, v6.djvu/43

1860] AT COOPER UNION 21

nine" — so acting upon it as to make them guilty of gross political impropriety and wilful perjury if, in their understanding, any proper division between local and Federal authority, or anything in the Constitution they had made themselves, and sworn to support, forbade the Federal Gov- ernment to control as to slavery in the Federal Territories. Thus the twenty-one acted ; and, as actions speak louder than words, so actions under such responsibility speak still louder.

Two of the twenty-three voted against con- gressional prohibition of slavery in the Federal Territories, in the instances in which they acted upon the question. But for what reasons they so voted is not known. They may have done so because they thought a proper division of local from Federal authority, or some provision or principle of the Constitution, stood in the way; or they may, without any such question, have voted against the prohibition on what appeared to them to be sufficient grounds of expediency. No one who has sworn to support the Constitu- tion can conscientiously vote for what he under- stands to be an unconstitutional measure, how- ever expedient he may think it ; but one may and ought to vote against a measure which he deems constitutional if, at the same time, he deems it inexpedient. It, therefore, would be unsafe to set down even the two who voted against the prohibition as having done so because, in their understanding, any proper division of local from Federal authority, or anything in the Constitu- tion, forbade the Federal Government to control as to slavery in Federal territory.

The remaining sixteen of the "thirty-nine," so far as I have discovered, have left no record of