hes to alter the
ordinance of 1787. For GOD'S sake spare us the argument.

Mr. GOODRICH:--I understand no alteration is proposed in the
ordinance; nor am I arguing against any such proposition. I am showing
what the policy of 1787 was, and what the compact of the fathers was.
And I am doing this because it is in the spirit of that policy and
compact that Kentucky and Virginia tell us they wish to have this
controversy adjusted. Massachusetts and the other Northern States
meant to fix, and supposed they had fixed, a limit to their connection
with, and responsibility for slavery. By consenting to the clause
which secured the right of reclamation, they did become responsible
for it to a certain extent. So far as it was supposed, when that
clause was agreed to, that its effect would be the recapture of
fugitive slaves, and their return to bondage, and so far as the
purpose was to make such recapture and return lawful, so far the
responsibility of adding to the security of slavery was voluntarily
assumed. But this was limited to the existing States by excluding
slavery from all United States territory. If any part of such
territory had been left for slavery--enough for a single slave
State--it might be said that its extension from a part was for reasons
applicable only to a part, and so could not be considered as
establishing the principle of non-extension. But now this cannot be
said. Not a foot was left for slavery.

We thus see what the state of things would have been to-day if foreign
territory had not been acquired. Such acquisitions were not originally
contemplated, and of course not provided for. The first--Louisiana--was
deemed unconstitutional by Mr. JEFFERSON, and yet it was made while he
was President; but with no right, "according to the spirit of the
compact of the fathers," to place the Federal Government or the States
under any other relation to slavery in subsequently acquired territory
than that which they sustained to it--the only one they would consent
to sustain--in the Territories possessed at the time that compact was
made.

A great deal is said about State rights. But the doctrine of State
rights proves too much. Massachusetts had a clear and undoubted right
originally to limit her obligations upon this subject. And she did
limit them. The original compromise was "better security" to slavery
in the original States, with no extension of it to the Territories and
new States. This better security was