"
These were the dispassionate utterances of representatives of every part
of the Union--men contemporary with the origin of the Constitution,
speaking before any sectional division had arisen in connection with the
subject. It is remarkable that the very same opinions which they express
and arguments which they adduce had, fifty years afterward, come to be
denounced and repudiated by one half of the Union as partisan and
sectional when propounded by the other half.
No final action seems to have been taken on the subject before the
adjournment of Congress, but it was brought forward at the next session
in a more imposing form. On the 20th of January, 1807, the Speaker laid
before the House of Representatives a letter from Governor Harrison,
inclosing certain resolutions formally and _unanimously_ adopted by the
Legislative Council and House of Representatives of the Indiana
Territory, in favor of the suspension of the sixth article of the
Ordinance and the introduction of slaves into the Territory, which they
say would "meet the approbation of at least nine tenths of the good
citizens of the same." Among the resolutions were the following:
"_Resolved unanimously_, That the abstract question of liberty
and slavery is not considered as involved in a suspension of the
said article, inasmuch as the number of slaves in the United
States _would not be augmented_ by this measure.
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