question. . . .
It would belong to diplomacy and legislation, and not to the
administration of existing laws."(36)

Plainly no part of the treaty of cession fastened slavery, or any
other institution of France, on the territory ceded to the United
States. If its provisions were violated by the United States,
France, internationally, or the inhabitants at the date of the
treaty, might have complained and had redress. Obviously the treaty
had no bearing on the question of slavery in the United States,
but its provisions were seized upon, as was every possible pretext,
by the votaries of slavery to maintain and extend it.

It was also, by a majority of the court, held in this memorable
case (hereafter to be mentioned) that under the third article of
the cession slaves could be taken from any State into any part of
the Louisiana Purchase during its territorial state, and there
held, and hence that the Missouri Compromise, of 1820, forbidding
slavery in the territory north of 36 deg. 30', was in violation of the
treaty and was unconstitutional, as were all other acts of Congress
excluding slavery from United States territory. This was in the
heyday (1857) of the slave power, and when it aspired, practically,
to make slavery national.

This aggressive policy, as we shall see when we come to consider
the Nebraska Act of 1854 relating to a principal part of the
Louisiana Purchase, led to a great uprising of the friends of
freedom, the political overthrow of the advocates of slavery in
most branches of the Union; then to secession; then to war, whence
came, with peace, universal freedom, and slavery in the Republic
forever dead.

(35) For map showing territory acquired by the U. S., by each
treaty, etc., see _History Ready Ref._, vol. v., p. 3286, and
_Louisiana Purchase_ (Hermann, Com. Gen. Land Office). The original
thirteen States and Territories comprised 8,927,844 sq. mi. The
Louisiana Purchase, 1,171,931, sq. mi.

(36) Dred Scott Case, 19 Howard, 393, etc.

XI
FLORIDA

Florida did not become a slave colony even on being taken possession
of by the English in 1763, nor on its re-conquest by Spain in 1781.

By the treaty of peace at the end of the war of the Revolution
(1783) Great Britain recognized as part of the southern boundary
of the United States a line due east from the Mississippi at 31 deg.
of latitude; and at the same time, by a separate treaty, she ceded
to Spain the then two Floridas. Flori