[15] This act passed both branches of Congress without yeas
and nays. In that Congress were three of the "thirty-nine" who
framed the original Constitution. They were John Langdon, George
Read and Abraham Baldwin.[16] They all, probably, voted for it.
Certainly they would have placed their opposition to it upon record,
if, in their understanding, any line dividing local from federal
authority, or anything in the Constitution, properly forbade the
Federal Government to control as to slavery in federal territory.
In 1803, the Federal Government purchased the Louisiana country. Our
former territorial acquisitions came from certain of our own States;
but this Louisiana country was acquired from a foreign nation. In
1804, Congress gave a territorial organization to that part of it
which now constitutes the State of Louisiana. New Orleans, lying
within that part, was an old and comparatively large city. There
were other considerable towns and settlements, and slavery was
extensively and thoroughly intermingled with the people. Congress
did not, in the Territorial Act, prohibit slavery; but they did
interfere with it--take control of it--in a more marked and
extensive way than they did in the case of Mississippi.
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