Such is so much of the ordinance as bears directly upon the point I am discussing. And the Convention, as if for the very purpose of giving the unequivocal sanction of the Constitution and of the country to this compromise, and of establishing it as the permanent policy of the Government, expressly provided that the "engagements entered into before the adoption of this Constitution shall be as valid against the United States under this Constitution, as under the Confederation."
This ordinance, then, which was an unalterable compact, prohibiting slavery, and fixing and establishing freedom as the basis of all laws, constitutions, and governments in the Territory forever—State Constitutions and Governments of course included—was made valid by the Constitution itself. And on this point I refer to the highest Southern authority, the late Judge Berrien, who was thoroughly pro-slavery in his views, and should certainly be ranked among the ablest lawyers and statesmen Georgia has ever produced, who spoke to this precise point during the compromise discussion in the United States Senate in 1850, as follows:
"Validity was given to their act by the clause in the Constitution, which declares that contracts and engagements entered into by the Government of the Confederation, should be obligatory upon the Government of the United States established by the Constitution."
It is the "act" of Congress in passing the ordinance referred to here. This being so, it was the same in effect as though the ordinance had been written word for word in the Constitution itself. A contract can be made valid, only by making it binding and obligatory upon the parties to it, according to its terms and meaning. To make an unalterable compact valid is to make it perpetually binding.
Having shown that the articles of compact in the ordinance were unalterable; that validity was given to them by the Constitution itself; that in express terms they applied to States as well as to Territories, and must, therefore, being made valid by the Constitution, necessarily have been understood and intended by Congress and the Convention to prohibit slavery as effectually in one as the other, I will now show very briefly that they were also so understood in all parts of the country.
Mr. Wilson, of Pennsylvania, a prominent member of the Federal Convention, and also of the State Convention for ratifying the Constitution, remarked in the latter as follows:
"I consider this clause as laying the foundation for banishing slavery out of the land.... The new States which are to be formed will be under the control of Congress in this particular, and slavery will never be introduced among them."
Mr. Wilson speaks of the clause authorizing the prohibition of the African slave trade.
In the Massachusetts Convention to adopt the Constitution, Gen. Heath said:
"Slavery cannot be extended. By their ordinance Congress has declared that the new States shall be republican States, and have no slavery."