HKB
the States. The very instrument, then, which secured the admission of new States, on an equal footing with the original States, itself provided that they were never to tolerate slavery.
The new States, then, neither were to have, nor have they, any political equality which the prohibition violates, as Southern gentlemen contend. Certainly those formed and admitted under the plan of Government devised by the fathers, have not. In this sense they are not political equals. The original States were, from the beginning, and have ever been, political equals in this and every sense. Not, however, because the Constitution says they are, for it says nothing on the subject; but because they were independent sovereignties, and as such, made a compact which united them under one Federal Government, with discriminating restrictions upon the subject of slavery, or upon any other subject. But the fact that the evil and inequality of slavery existed in the original States, and was tolerated from necessity, was no reason why it should be allowed in the Territories and new States, where it did not and need never exist. So the power of the Territories and new States was sufficiently restricted to secure equality in personal rights and freedom to all the "inhabitants." Of course it cannot be pretended that the mere fact that one or more States had established, and had power to perpetuate slavery, secured to new States the right to establish and perpetuate the same enormity, as a necessary result of State equality. That would make the right or power of one State, resulting from State equality, necessarily coextensive with tolerated evil in another. Manifestly "the fathers" had no such idea as this. Theirs was the common sense and rational idea that a moral and political evil which existed in the old States, and could not be removed, need not for that reason be tolerated in new States.
The Constitution guarantees to each State a republican form of Government merely; but the ordinance of 1787 provides that the "Constitution and Government of each new State shall be republican." Why this difference? In the original States slavery existed, or in most of them; and so far they were anti-republican in fact and practice, though republican in form. The framers of the Constitution, having no power to abolish this anti-republican institution of slavery in those States, did nothing more than guarantee them Governments republican in form. But having the power to exclude it from the new States, they did exclude it, and provided that their constitutions and governments should be republican. That this was the reason for the difference may be inferred from the remark of LUTHER MARTIN, a distinguished member of the Federal Convention, that "slavery is inconsistent with the genius of republicanism," and of General HEATH in the Massachusetts Convention, that "Congress has declared that the new States shall be republican and have no slavery." No other reason can be given. Thus republicanism in fact, and not in form merely, was made a condition of admitting new States. This is part of the unalterable compact to which validity was given by the Constitution. The Constitution, therefore, while it guarantees a republican form of government, does in fact, by giving validity to the ordinance, guarantee republican governments to the new States. This is another very significant fact harmonizing perfectly with all the other facts in the original plan for extending the Union by admitting States from Territories.
The States are all equals, or not, according to the terms of their admission. The original States became members of the Union upon the single condition of ratifying the Constitution, which left them at liberty to tolerate slavery or not. But the States formed in the only Territory which belonged to the United States at the time the Constitution was framed, were admitted on condition that slavery should be perpetually interdicted within their limits, and as parties to an unalterable compact to that effect.