Mr. Sumner. Allow me to ask the Senator [Johnson] whether, in his opinion, the Ordinance governing the Northwest Territory, prohibiting slavery everywhere throughout that Territory, and which was declared to be a perpetual compact, could be set aside by any one of the States in the Territory now.
Mr. Johnson. I certainly think they can, except so far as rights are vested.
Mr. Sumner. The Senator, then, thinks Ohio can enslave a fellow-man?
Mr. Johnson. Just as much as Massachusetts can.
Mr. Sumner. Massachusetts cannot.
Mr. Johnson. Why not?
Mr. Sumner. Massachusetts cannot do an act of injustice.
Mr. Johnson. Oh, indeed! I did not know that. [Laughter.][[411]]
Notwithstanding this claim for his native State Sumner admitted a moment later that Massachusetts had united in the Convention of 1787 with South Carolina to deny to Congress authority to prohibit the slave trade for twenty years, and he confessed that such action was unjust. His inconsistency was still further exposed by Senator Henderson, who called attention to the fact that the educational qualification imposed by the Massachusetts constitution would exclude from the franchise almost every negro in Louisiana if the provisions were applicable in the latter State.[[412]]
After this colloquy, not uninteresting to the student of constitutional history, the Maryland Senator resumed his remarks: