So far as the Constitution touches the question out of which the present unhappy controversy has arisen, I say it means this: That slavery, as it existed or might exist within the limits of the original States, should not be interfered with to the injury of the lawful rights of slaveholders under State authority; on the contrary, that it should have the right of recaption, and a qualified protection; but that outside of those limits, otherwise than in this right of recaption, it should never exist, neither in the territories nor in the new States.
And let me say here, that when I speak of the original States, I mean the territory of those States as then bounded. Alabama and Mississippi belonged to Georgia, Tennessee belonged to North Carolina, Kentucky belonged to Virginia, Vermont belonged to New York, and Maine belonged to Massachusetts, and were parts of the thirteen original States, at the time the Constitution was adopted. When, therefore, I speak of territory outside the original States, I do not refer to territory within any of the States named.
Mr. BOUTWELL:—I trust my colleague does not claim to speak for Massachusetts, when he denies the right of any State of this Union to establish and maintain slavery within its jurisdiction, or to prohibit it altogether, according to its discretion. This right was reserved to the States; and States in this Union, whether original or new, stand on a footing of perfect equality.
Mr. GOODRICH:—I certainly do not claim to speak for Massachusetts, though I believe the opinion of the great majority of her people agrees with my own on this subject. However, what I claim is, that Ohio and the other States of the northwestern territory have no constitutional power to legalize slavery within their limits; that they were admitted into the Union without any such power, and that every other new State formed from territory outside the limits of the original States, according to the "spirit of the compact of our fathers," should have been admitted without that power, or the right to acquire it. This I will now proceed to show.
On the first day of March, 1784, the northwest territory, constituting the present States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin, was ceded by Virginia to the United States. The jurisdiction of the United States was then exclusive and paramount, or soon became so—such other States as had claimed any right of jurisdiction having ceded it. The cession of Virginia was made by Thomas Jefferson, Samuel Hardy, Arthur Lee, and James Monroe, who were delegates in Congress from that State, and had been appointed Commissioners for this purpose. On the same day the cession was made, Mr. Jefferson, in behalf of a committee, reported a plan for temporary governments in the United States territory then and afterwards to be ceded, and for forming therein permanent governments.
That plan provided, "that so much of the territory ceded, or to be ceded, by individual States to the United States, shall be divided into distinct States." It is obvious that this plan contemplated the possession of territory in no other way than by cession from the States. It was expected that Georgia and North Carolina would cede their western lands, now the States of Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee, as they did some years later; and Mr. Jefferson's plan was intended to embrace those lands or territories to be ceded. Consequently, the following provisions, which were part of the plan reported, were intended by him to apply to Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee, viz.:
"After the year 1800 of the Christian era, there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said States, otherwise that in the punishment of crimes."
Here the States were evidently those to be formed in United States territory. And farther on in the plan it is stated,
"That the preceding articles shall be formed into a charter of compact, and shall stand as fundamental Constitutions between the thirteen original States, and each of the several States now newly described, unalterable ... but by the joint consent of the United States in Congress assembled, and of the particular State within which such alteration is proposed to be made."
This was a proposition to exclude slavery forever after 1800, not only from the territories which had been, and might afterwards be, ceded, but from the States to be formed in them, and to make it a fundamental Constitution between the original States and each new State. It excited a short discussion, and was postponed from time to time to the 19th of April, when Mr. Speight, of North Carolina, moved to strike it out. The motion was seconded by Mr. Reed, of South Carolina. The vote by States, on the motion to strike out, was: