Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/698

 also, of the wisdom and prudence with which this power was exercised. Deluded must be that people who, in the pursuit of plausible theories, become deaf to the lessons, and blind to the results, of their own experience.

Let us next inquire by what rule of uniformity congress was governed, in the exercise of this power of determining the condition of each territory as to slavery, while remaining a territory, as manifested in those thirteen instances. An examination of our history will show that this was not done from time to time by agitation and local or party triumphs in congress. The rule pursued was uniform and clear; and whoever may have lost by it, peace and prosperity have been gained. That rule was this:

Where slavery was actually existing in a country to any considerable or general extent, it was (though somewhat modified as to further importation in some instances, as in Mississippi and Orleans territories) suffered to remain. The fact that it had been taken and existed there, was taken as an indication of its adaptation and local utility. Where slavery did not in fact exist to any appreciable extent, the same was, by congress, expressly prohibited; so that in either case the country settled up without difficulty or doubt as to the character of its institutions In no instance was this difficult and disturbing subject left to the people who had and who might settle in the territory, to be there an everlasting bone of contention, so long as the territorial government should continue. It was ever regarded, too, as a subject in which the whole country had an interest, and, therefore, improper for local legislation.

And though whenever the people of a territory come to form their own organic law, as an independent state, they would, either before or after their admission as a state, form and mould their institutions, as a sovereign state, in their own way, yet it must be expected, and has always proved true, that the state has taken the character her pupilage has prepared her for, as well in respect to slavery as in other respects. Hence, six of the thirteen states are free states, because slavery was prohibited in them by congress while territories, to wit: Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Iowa. Seven of the thirteen are slaveholding states, because slavery was allowed in them by congress while they were territories, to wit: Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Missouri.

On the 6th of March, A. D. 1820, was passed by congress the act preparatory to the admission of the state of Missouri into the Union. Much controversy and discussion arose on the question whether a prohibition of slavery within said state should be inserted, and it resulted in this: that said state should be admitted without such prohibition, but that slavery should be forever prohibited in the rest of that country ceded to us by France lying north 36° 30' north latitude, and it was so done. This contract is known as the Missouri compromise. Under this arrangement Missouri was admitted as a slaveholding state, the same having been a slaveholding territory. Arkansas, south of the line, was formed into a territory, and slavery allowed therein, and afterwards admitted as a slaveholding state. Iowa was made a territory, north of the line, and, under the operation of the law, was settled up without slaves