That the ordinance abolished the slavery then existing, is also shown by the fact, that persons holding slaves in the territory petitioned for the repeal of the article abolishing slavery, assigning that as a reason.  “The petition of the citizens of Randolph and St. Clair counties in the Illinois country, stating that they were in possession of slaves, and praying the repeal of that act (the 6th article of the ordinance of ’87) and the passage of a law legalizing slavery there.” [Am.  State papers, Public Lands, v. 1. p. 69,] Congress passed this ordinance before the United States Constitution was adopted, when it derived all its authority from the articles of Confederation, which conferred powers of legislation far more restricted than those conferred on Congress over the District and Territories by the United States Constitution.  Now, we ask, how does the Constitution abridge the powers which Congress possessed under the articles of confederation?

The abolition of the slave trade by Congress, in 1808, is another illustration of the competency of legislative power to abolish slavery.  The African slave trade has become such a mere technic, in common parlance, that the fact of its being proper slavery is overlooked.  The buying and selling, the transportation, and the horrors of the middle passage, were mere incidents of the slavery in which the victims were held.  Let things be called by their own names.  When Congress abolished the African slave trade, it abolished SLAVERY—­supreme slavery—­power frantic with license, trampling a whole hemisphere scathed with its fires, and running down with blood.  True, Congress did not, in the abolition of the slave trade, abolish all the slavery within its jurisdiction, but it did abolish all the slavery in one part of its jurisdiction.  What has rifled it of power to abolish slavery in another part of its jurisdiction, especially in that part where it has “exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever?”

9. The Constitution of the United States recognizes this power by the most conclusive implication.  In Art. 1, sec. 3, clause 1, it prohibits the abolition of the slave trade previous to 1808:  thus implying the power of Congress to do it at once, but for the restriction; and its power to do it unconditionally, when that restriction ceased.  Again:  In Art. 4, sec. 2, “No person held to service or labor in one state under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from said service or labor.”  This clause was inserted, as all admit, to prevent the runaway slave from being emancipated by the laws of the free states.  If these laws had no power to emancipate, why this constitutional guard to prevent it?