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Show 268 'l'lll.C :MI::>SOUlU <iUE:-3'l'lON. less they hnd nine States prcscn t, the old Congress had no power to admit ucw Stale , and of course no power to pre. cribc the forms of government, bills of rio-1-t 0 • bu '' r terms or times of admis ions, benefits, or cxclu ·iou., with 11 lc s number than ni11e. If there were not other strong reasons attending tho pa 'ing this on.linnnce, tho. c already mentioned arc sufficient to show that it is a nullity; that it never had or coulcl have had a binding force; that the present Congress bas not any constitutional right to confirm that part of it which respects the exclusion of involuntary servitude from that rrerritory; and that the States of Ollio and Indiana add Illinois, having by their cou ' litulions voluntarily ex: eluded it, po . c s the power whenever they please to altet· their constitutions, and admit servitude in any way they think proper. Let us, sir, recollect the circum tances the old Congress were in at the time they pas ·ed ibis ordinance: they had dwindled almo t to nothing ; the Convention had then been three mouths in session; it was universally known a Constitution was in it.s essentials agreed to : and the public ~ere daily expecting (what soon happened) the promulgation of a new form of government for the Union. I ask sir, was it, under these circumstance, proper for a feeble: dwindled body, that had wholly lost the confidence of the nation, and which was then waitiug its suppression by the people-a feeble, inefficient body, in which only seven or eight States were represented, the whole of which con is ted of but seventeen or eighteen men-u nnmbcr smaller than your large committees; a body literally in the very agonies of political death ;-was it, sir, even de con t in them (not to say lawful or constitutional) to have passed an orllillauce of such importance ? I do not know or recollect the Hames of the members who voted for it, but it is to be fairly presumed they could uot have been among the men who possessed the t THE MISSOURI QUE.·rriON. 269 greatest confidence of the Union, or at that very timo they would ha.vc been members of the Couvcution sitting at Philadelphia. But I am perhaps taking up your time unnecessarily on thi snhject, and I Rha.ll proceed to others. A great deal has be n . aid on the subject of laverythat it is an infamous stain and hlot on the tntes that hold them; not Ollly dcgrauing the lave, but the master, and making him unfit for republican government; that it is contrary to religion and the law of God; and that Congress onght to do every thing in their power to prevent its extension among the new States. Now, sir, I should be glad to know how any man is acquainted with what is the will or the law of God on this subject. lias it ever been imparted either to the old or new world? Is there a single line in the Old or New Te tament, either censuring or forbidding it?" I an . wer without hesitation, no. But there are hundreds ·peaking of and rccoguizing it. Ilngar, from whom millions sprang, was an .African slave, bought out of Egypt by Abraham, the father of the faitllful and the beloved servant of the Most Hin-h · b ' and he had, besides, three hundred at"!d eighteen male slaves. The Jews in the time of the theocracy, nnd the Greeks and Romans, had all laves; at that time there \Yas no nation without them. If we nrc to beli eve that this world was formed by a great aud omnipotent Being; that nothing is permitted to ex ist here but by his will, uud then throw our eyes throngh~n1t the whole of it, we should form an opinion very difl'crcnt indeed from that asserted, that slavery was against the law of God. Let those acquainted with the situation of the people of A ia and Africa, wh re not one man in ten can be called o. fr·ceman, or whose situation can be compareu \rith the comforts of our slaves, thmw th eir eyes over them, and carry them to Russia, and from the north io the so nth of Europe, whel'e, except Great Britain, nothing like liberty exists. |