" These frequent rebuffs by Congress, together with the
constantly increasing emigration from the Free States, prevented the
taking of any further steps to implant Slavery on the soil of that
Territory.
Meanwhile the vast territory included within the Valley of the
Mississippi and known at that day as the "Colony of Louisiana," was, in
1803, acquired to the United States by purchase from the French--to whom
it had but lately been retroceded by Spain. Both under Spanish and
French rule, Slavery had existed throughout this vast yet sparsely
populated region. When we acquired it by purchase, it was already
there, as an established "institution;" and the Treaty of acquisition
not only provided that it should be "incorporated into the Union of the
United States, and admitted as soon as possible, according to the
principles of the Federal Constitution," but that its inhabitants in the
meantime "should be maintained and protected in the free enjoyment of
their liberty, property, and the religion which they professed"--and,
as "the right of property in man" had really been admitted in practice,
if not in theory, by the framers of that Constitution itself--that
institution was allowed to remain there.
Pages:
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51