[21]
Here, then, we have twenty-three out of our thirty-nine fathers "who
framed the Government under which we live," who have, upon their
official responsibility and their corporal oaths, acted upon the
very question which the text affirms they "understood just as well,
and even better than we do now"; and twenty-one of them--a clear
majority of the whole "thirty-nine"--so acting upon it as to make
them guilty of gross political impropriety and wilful perjury, if,
in their understanding, any proper division between local and
federal authority, or anything in the Constitution they had made
themselves, and sworn to support, forbade the Federal Government to
control as to slavery in the federal territories. Thus the
twenty-one acted; and, as actions speak louder than words, so
actions under such responsibility speak still louder.
Two of the twenty-three voted against Congressional prohibition of
slavery in the federal territories, in the instances in which they
acted upon the question. But for what reasons they so voted is not
known. They may have done so because they thought a proper division
of local from federal authority, or some provision or principle of
the Constitution, stood in the way; or they may, without any such
question, have voted against the prohibition on what appeared to
them to be sufficient grounds of expediency.
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