and perhaps will continue to be, the most distinguished politician of our history; a Virginian by birth and continued residence, and withal a slaveholder,—­conceived the idea of taking that occasion to prevent slavery ever going into the Northwestern Territory.  He prevailed on the Virginia Legislature to adopt his views, and to cede the Territory, making the prohibition of slavery therein a condition of the deed. (Jefferson got only an understanding, not a condition of the deed to this wish.) Congress accepted the cession with the condition; and the first ordinance (which the acts of Congress were then called) for the government of the Territory provided that slavery should never be permitted therein.  This is the famed “Ordinance of ’87,” so often spoken of.

Thenceforward for sixty-one years, and until, in 1848, the last scrap of this Territory came into the Union as the State of Wisconsin, all parties acted in quiet obedience to this ordinance.  It is now what Jefferson foresaw and intended—­the happy home of teeming millions of free, white, prosperous people, and no slave among them.

Thus, with the author of the Declaration of Independence, the policy of prohibiting slavery in new territory originated.  Thus, away back to the Constitution, in the pure, fresh, free breath of the Revolution, the State of Virginia and the national Congress put that policy into practice.  Thus, through more than sixty of the best years of the republic, did that policy steadily work to its great and beneficent end.  And thus, in those five States, and in five millions of free, enterprising people, we have before us the rich fruits of this policy.

But now new light breaks upon us.  Now Congress declares this ought never to have been, and the like of it must never be again.  The sacred right of self-government is grossly violated by it.  We even find some men who drew their first breath—­and every other breath of their lives—­under this very restriction, now live in dread of absolute suffocation if they should be restricted in the “sacred right” of taking slaves to Nebraska.  That perfect liberty they sigh for—­the liberty of making slaves of other people, Jefferson never thought of, their own fathers never thought of, they never thought of themselves, a year ago.  How fortunate for them they did not sooner become sensible of their great misery!  Oh, how difficult it is to treat with respect such assaults upon all we have ever really held sacred!

But to return to history.  In 1803 we purchased what was then called Louisiana, of France.  It included the present States of Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, and Iowa; also the Territory of Minnesota, and the present bone of contention, Kansas and Nebraska.  Slavery already existed among the French at New Orleans, and to some extent at St. Louis.  In 1812 Louisiana came into the Union as a slave State, without controversy.  In 1818 or ’19, Missouri showed signs of a wish to come in with slavery.  This was resisted by