"
What is the question which, according to the text, those fathers
understood "just as well, and even better than we do now"?
It is this: Does the proper division of local from federal
authority, or anything in the Constitution, forbid _our Federal
Government_ to control as to slavery in _our Federal Territories_?
Upon this, Senator Douglas holds the affirmative, and Republicans
the negative. This affirmation and denial form an issue; and this
issue--this question--is precisely what the text declares our
fathers understood "better than we."
Let us now inquire whether the "thirty-nine," or any of them, ever
acted upon this question; and if they did, how they acted upon
it--how they expressed that better understanding.
In 1784, three years before the Constitution--the United States then
owning the Northwestern Territory, and no other,[6] the Congress of
the Confederation had before them the question of prohibiting
slavery in that Territory; and four of the "thirty-nine" who
afterward framed the Constitution, were in that Congress, and voted
on that question. Of these, Roger Sherman, Thomas Mifflin, and Hugh
Williamson voted for the prohibition,[7] thus showing that, in their
understanding, no line dividing local from federal authority, nor
anything else, properly forbade the Federal Government to control as
to slavery in federal territory.
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