Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/489

 to annex conditions to the admission of a new state into the union. The result of all this is, that all amendments and conditions are proper, which suit a certain class of gentlemen, hut whatever amendment is proposed, which does not comport with their interests or their views, is unconstitutional, and a flagrant violation of this sacred charter of our rights. In order to be consistent, gentlemen must go hack and strike out the various amendments to which they have already agreed. The constitution applies equally to all, or to none.

Sir, we have been told that this is a new principle for which we contend, never before adopted, or thought of. So far from this being correct, it is due to the memory of our ancestors to say, it is an old principle, adopted by them as the policy of our country. Whenever the United States have had the right and the power, they have heretofore prevented the extension of slavery. The states of Kentucky and Tennessee were taken off from other states, and were admitted into the Union without condition, because their lands were never owned by the United States. The territory northwest of the Ohio is all the land which ever belonged to them. Shortly after the cession of those lands to the Union, congress passed, in 1787, a compact, which was declared to be unalterable, the sixth article of which provides that "there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory, otherwise than in the punishment for crimes, whereof the parties shall have been duly convicted." In pursuance of this compact, all the states formed from that territory have been admitted into the Union upon various conditions, and, amongst which, the sixth article of this compact is included as one.

Let gentlemen also advert to the law for the admission of the state of Louisiana into the Union; they will find it filled with conditions. It was required not only to form a constitution upon the principles of a republican government, but it was required to contain the "fundamental principles of civil and religious liberty." It was even required, as a condition of its admission, to keep its records, and its judicial and its legislative proceedings in the English language; and also to secure the trial by jury, and to surrender all claim to unappropriated lands in the territory, with the prohibition to tax any of the United States' lands.

After this long practice and constant usage to annex conditions to the admission of a state into the Union, will gentlemen yet tell us it is unconstitutional, and talk of our principles being novel and extraordinary? It has been said that if this amendment prevails, we shall have a union of states possessing unequal rights. And we have been asked, whether we wished to see such a "checkered union?" Sir, we have such a union already. If the prohibition of slavery is a denial of a right, and constitutes a checkered union, gladly would I behold such rights denied, and such a checker spread over every state in the Union. It is now spread over the states northwest of the Ohio, and forms the glory and the strength of those states. I hope it will be extended from the Mississippi to the Pacific ocean.

Sir, we have been told that the proposed amendment cannot be received, because it is contrary to the treaty and cession of Louisiana. "Article 3 The