rights of the citizens of Massachusetts and Virginia are the same, their State rights are dissimilar and different, slavery being forbidden in one, and permitted in the other State.  This difference arises out of the Constitutions and laws of the two States, in the same manner as the difference in the rights of the citizens of these States to vote for representatives in Congress arises out of the State laws and Constitution.  In Massachusetts, every person of lawful age, and possessing property of any sort, of the value of two hundred dollars, may vote for representatives to Congress.  In Virginia, no person can vote for representatives to Congress, unless he be a freeholder.  As the admission of a new State into the Union confers upon its citizens only the rights denominated Federal, and as these are common to the citizens of all the States, as well of those in which slavery is prohibited, as of those in which it is allowed, it follows that the prohibition of slavery in Missouri will not impair the Federal rights of its citizens, and that such prohibition is not sustained by the clause of the treaty which has been cited.

As all nations do not permit slavery, the term property, in its common and universal meaning, does not include or describe slaves.  In treaties, therefore, between nations, and especially in those of the United States, whenever stipulations respecting slaves were to be made, the word “negroes,” or “slaves,” have been employed, and the omission of these words in this clause, increases the uncertainty whether, by the term property, slaves were intended to be included.  But admitting that such was the intention of the parties, the stipulation is not only temporary, but extends no further than to the property actually possessed by the inhabitants of Missouri, when it was first occupied by the United States.  Property since acquired by them, and property acquired or possessed by the new inhabitants of Missouri, has in each case been acquired under the laws of the United States, and not during and under the laws of the province of Louisiana.  Should, therefore, the future introduction of slaves into Missouri be forbidden, the feelings of the citizens would soon become reconciled to their exclusion, and the inconsiderable number of slaves owned by the inhabitants at the date of the cession of Louisiana, would be emancipated or sent for sale into States where slavery exists.

It is further objected, that the article of the act of admission into the Union, by which slavery should be excluded from Missouri, would be nugatory, as the new State in virtue of its sovereignty would be at liberty to revoke its consent, and annul the article by which slavery is excluded.