Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/518

 the purposes of their Creator; and above all, they may boast that they were foremost in removing the pollution of slavery from among them.

"If, indeed, the measure against which Pennsylvania considers it her duty to raise her voice, were calculated to abridge any of the rights guaranteed to the several states; if, odious as slavery is, it was proposed to hasten its extinction by means injurious to the states upon which it was unhappily entailed, Pennsylvania would be among the first to insist upon a sacred observance of the constitutional compact. But it cannot be pretended that the rights of any of the states are at all to be affected by refusing to extend the mischiefs of human bondage over the boundless regions of the west, a territory which formed no part of the Union at the adoption of the constitution; which has been but lately purchased from an European power by the people of the Union at large; which may or may not be admitted as a state into the Union at the discretion of congress; which must establish a republican form of government, and no other; and whose climate affords none of the pretexts urged for resorting to the labor of natives of the torrid zone; such a territory has no right, inherent or acquired, such as those states possessed which established the existing constitution. When that constitution was framed in September, 1787, the concession that three-fifths of the slaves in the states then existing should be represented in congress, could not have been intended to embrace regions at that time held by a [sic]fereign power. On the contrary, so anxious were the congress of that day to confine human bondage within its ancient home, that on the 13th of July, 1787, that body unanimously declared that slavery or involuntary servitude should not exist in the extensive territories bounded by the Ohio, the Mississippi, Canada and the Lakes; and in the ninth article of the constitution itself, the power of congress to prohibit the emigration of servile persons after 1808, is expressly recognized; nor is there to be found in the statute book a single instance of the admission of a territory to the rank of a state in which congress have not adhered to the right, vested in them by the constitution, to stipulate with the territory upon the conditions of the boon.

"The senate and house of representatives of Pennsylvania, therefore, cannot but deprecate any departure from the humane and enlightened policy pursued not only by the illustrious congress which framed the constitution, but by their successors without exception. They are persuaded that to open the fertile regions of the west to a servile race, would tend to increase their numbers beyond all past example, would open a new and steady market for the lawless venders of human flesh, and would render all schemes for obliterating this most foul blot upon the American character useless and unavailing.

"Under these convictions, and in the full persuasion that upon this topic there is but one opinion in Pennsylvania —

"Resolved by the senate and house of representatives of the commonwealth of Pennsylvania, That the senators of this state in the congress of the United States be, and they are hereby instructed, and that the representatives of this state in the congress of the United States be, and they are hereby requested, to vote against the admission of any territory as a state into the