ch I have been able to
discover.

To enumerate the persons who thus acted as being four in 1784, three in
1787, seventeen in 1789, three in 1798, two in 1804, and two in
1819-20, there would be thirty of them. But this would be counting
John Langdon, Roger Sherman, William Few, Rufus King, and George Read
each twice, and Abraham Baldwin three times. The true number of those
of the "thirty-nine" whom I have shown to have acted upon the question
which, by the text, they understood better than we, is twenty-three,
leaving sixteen not shown to have acted upon it in any way.

Here, then, we have twenty-three out of our "thirty-nine" fathers "who
framed the government under which we live," who have, upon their
official responsibility and their corporal oaths, acted upon the very
question which the text affirms they "understood just as well, and even
better, than we do now;" and twenty-one of them--a clear majority of
the whole "thirty-nine"--so acting upon it as to make them guilty of
gross political impropriety and wilful perjury if, in their
understanding, any proper division between local and Federal authority,
or anything in the Constitution they had made themselves, and sworn to
support, forbade the Federal Government to control as to slavery in the
Federal Territories. Thus the twenty-one acted; and, as actions speak
louder than words, so actions under such responsibility speak still
louder.

Two of the twenty-three voted against Congressional prohibition of
slavery in the Federal Territories, in the instances in which they
acted upon the question. But for what reasons they so voted is not
known. They may have done so because they thought a proper division of
local from Federal authority, or some provision or principle of the
Constitution, stood in the way; or they may, without any such question,
have voted against the prohibition on what appeared to them to be
sufficient grounds of expediency. No one who has sworn to support the
Constitution can conscientiously vote for what he understands to be an
unconstitutional measure, however expedient he may think it; but one
may and ought to vote against a measure which he deems constitutional
if, at the same time, he deems it inexpedient. It, therefore, would be
unsafe to set down even the two who voted against the prohibition as
having done so because, in their understanding, any proper division of
local from Federal authority, or anything in the Constitution, forba