and instructive episode in the political
history of the country.

The allusion which has been made to the Ordinance of 1787, renders it
proper to notice, very briefly, the argument put forward during the
discussion of the Missouri question, and often repeated since, that the
Ordinance afforded a precedent in support of the claim of a power in
Congress to determine the question of the admission of slaves into the
Territories, and in justification of the prohibitory clause applied in
1820 to a portion of the Louisiana Territory.

The difference between the Congress of the Confederation and that of the
Federal Constitution is so broad that the action of the former can, in
no just sense, be taken as a precedent for the latter. The Congress of
the Confederation represented the States in their sovereignty, each
delegation having one vote, so that all the States were of equal weight
in the decision of any question. It had legislative, executive, and in
some degree judicial powers, thus combining all departments of
government in itself. During its recess a committee known as the
Committee of the States exercised the powers of the Congress, which was
in spirit, if not in fact, an assemblage of the States.

On the other hand, the Congress of the Constitution is only the
legislative department of the General Government, with powers strictly
defined and expressly limited to those delegated by the States. It is
further held in check by an executive and a judiciary, and consists of
two branches, each having peculiar and specified functions.

If, then, it be admitted--which is at least very questionable--that the
Congress of the Confederation had rightfully the power to exclude slave
property from the territory northwest of the Ohio River, that power must
have been derived from its character as an assemblage of the sovereign
States; not from the Articles of Confederation, in which no indication
of the grant of authority to exercise such a function can be found. The
Congress of the Constitution is expressly prohibited from the assumption
of any power not distinctly and specifically delegated to it as the
legislative branch of an organized government. What was questionable in
the former case, therefore, becomes clearly inadmissible in the latter.

But there is yet another material distinction to be observed. The
States, owners of what was called the Northwestern Territory, were
component members of the Congress which adopted the Ord