n 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.

"_Resolved unanimously_, That the suspension of the said article
would be equally advantageous to the Territory, to the States
from whence the negroes would be brought, and to the negroes
themselves....

"The States which are overburdened with negroes would be
benefited by their citizens having an opportunity of disposing
of the negroes which they can not comfortably support, or of
removing with them to a country abounding with all the
necessaries of life; and the negro himself would exchange a
scanty pittance of the coarsest food for a plentiful and
nourishing diet, and a situation which admits not the most
distant prospect of emancipation for one which presents no
considerable obstacle to his wishes."

These resolutions were submitted to a committee drawn, like the former,
from different sections of the country, which again reported favorably,
reiterating in substance the reasons given by the former committee.
Their report was sustained by the House, and a resolution to suspend the
prohibitory article was adopted. The proposition failed, however, in the
Senate, and there the matter seems to have been dropped. The proceedings
constitute a significant