coming down to the year 1822. These acts were severally signed by
seven Presidents of the United States, beginning with General
Washington, and coming regularly down as far as Mr. John Quincy Adams,
thus including all who were in public life when the Constitution was
adopted.

If the practical construction of the Constitution contemporaneously
with its going into effect, by men intimately acquainted with its
history from their personal participation in framing and adopting it,
and continued by them through a long series of acts of the gravest
importance, be entitled to weight in the judicial mind on a question
of construction, it would seem to be difficult to resist the force of
the acts above adverted to.

It appears, however, from what has taken place at the bar, that
notwithstanding the language of the Constitution, and the long line of
legislative and executive precedents under it, three different and
opposite views are taken of the power of Congress respecting slavery
in the Territories.

One is, that though Congress can make a regulation prohibiting slavery
in a Territory, they cannot make a regulation allowing it; another is,
that it can neither be established nor prohibited by Congress, but
that the people of a Territory, when organized by Congress, can
establish or prohibit slavery; while the third is, that the
Constitution itself secures to every citizen who holds slaves, under
the laws of any State, the indefeasible right to carry them into any
Territory, and there hold them as property.

No particular clause of the Constitution has been referred to at the
bar in support of either of these views. The first seems to be rested
upon general considerations concerning the social and moral evils of
slavery, its relations to republican Governments, its inconsistency
with the Declaration of Independence and with natural right.

The second is drawn from considerations equally general, concerning
the right of self-government, and the nature of the political
institutions which have been established by the people of the United
States.

While the third is said to rest upon the equal right of all citizens
to go with their property upon the public domain, and the inequality
of a regulation which would admit the property of some and exclude the
property of other citizens; and, inasmuch as slaves are chiefly held
by citizens of those particular States where slavery is established,
it is insisted that a regulation excl