without express stipulation, is too well adapted to excite a feeling in which I shall not permit myself to indulge. The inhabitants of Louisiana will naturally ask themselves how this comports with the professions of the Chief Magistrate of the Union, who, in announcing our possession of the country, congratulated the nation on the acquisition of new brethren to partake of the blessings of freedom and self-government. They must arrive at the melancholy conclusion that we consider the treaty of cession as articles of capitulation of a fallen enemy. Nor, as articles of capitulation, could we, in conscience, insist for this limited or rather mangled interpretation. Even a robber, who had received his black mail, or extorted revenue, on a promise that he would not depredate your property, would be disgraced among his comrades by a quibble or pretence that you were only to be safe in your property to-day, but that tomorrow was a different thing. To what condition would society be reduced if public assurances for the protection of property only applied to the property held at the instant? Every barter or exchange of property would exempt us from the protection. Children would not be entitled to the benefit of the treaty, if born after its date, and all who became inhabitants or citizens after its date would be excluded from the treaty and from the rights of citizens. Their lands are not secured otherwise than their slaves, and would therefore be subject to the same confiscation. The same interpretation, if applied to that portion of the Federal Constitution which secures private property, would only afford protection to the property held in 1787, when the Constitution was made; and, by the same rule, we must be deprived of all authority over the Territories, for the clause giving to Congress authority to make needful rules and regulations to govern and dispose of the Territories, being adopted in 1787, could not be extended to Louisiana, acquired afterwards. A free Government protects or affects the property of its citizens through the medium of its laws, and in that respect has a discretionary power to make, alter, and repeal those laws. The sovereign authority makes treaties as well as laws; and, if such treaty contains a promise to maintain and protect property, it evidently relates to the discretion of the sovereign to make laws affecting property, and includes a pledge of faith for the continuance of the laws under which property is held and protected. But, if the infraction of such treaty be designed, the sovereign authority proceeds to impair or alter the laws for the protection of property, and has no other means of violating such a treaty.

We violate the treaty of cession if we repeal the laws of Louisiana, which maintain and protect their property. France, in 1762, ceded this same province of Louisiana to Spain by a treaty, with injunctions for the protection of property; and, in proof of the sense entertained by the parties of the import of that treaty, I refer to the letter of the King of France to L'Abbadie, the commandant of the province, to deliver up the possession, and expressing the King's expectation that the magistracy would continue to administer justice accord- |

FEBRUARY, 1820.

ing to the laws, forms, and usages of the colony. The cession by Virginia, to Congress, of the Northwest Territory, dated March, 1784, provides that the French inhabitants, and other settlers of the Kaskaskias, St. Vincents, and the neighboring villages, who had professed themselves citizens of Virginia, should have their property secured, and be protected in the enjoyment of their rights and liberties.

When Congress, by the ordinance of 1787, established laws for the government of the Territory, it expressed a proviso that they should not be construed to infringe on the laws affecting the property of those inhabitants. In the same cession from Virginia, there were other stipulations required on the part of Congress, in relation, too, to the mere advantage of the inhabitants of the ceded territory, in like manner as the stipulations in the cession from France contained clauses for the protection of property, and for incorporation in the Union, for the mere benefit of the inhabitants. But, when Congress became desirous to exercise a more ample discretion as to the circumstances under which the new States of the Northwest Territory should be admitted, it made application to Virginia, being the other party to the contract, for her consent, as will be seen by the resolution of the Old Congress, of July the 7th, 1786. Yet the advocates of restriction do not think of applying, either to France or the inhabitants of Louisiana, for consent to the exercise of regulations which repeal the treaty of cession. This nation, whether considered with regard to its municipal institutions, or its character arising from its diplomatic intercourse, is the last from which the world could expect a disregard of public faith, by a violation of the lawful and pre-existing relations between the people of Missouri and their slaves.

Previous to the treaty of cession, it was known to all the world that these States recognised slaves as property, and, indeed, that the political bond which knotted together their interests and energies had some of its most conspicuous features in an adjustment of its proportions to the interests or rights of slaveholders.

The first essay by this Government of its diplomatic correspondence with any European nation, after the adoption of the Constitution, is found in an effort to obtain from the British Government compensation for slaves carried off by the King's troops in evacuating the country, for which I quote the correspondence of the President of the United States with Gouverneur Morris, our confidential agent in Europe, in 1789. Our Government in 1791, through the agency of Mr. Seagrove, its public commissioner, negotiated with the Governor of East Florida to issue such proclamation and permanent orders as would prevent fugitive slaves from the United States from taking shelter in Florida; and our treaties with the bordering Indian nations have made effectual provision against the violation of property in slaves, for which, see the treaties with the Delawares, Cherokees, Chickasaws, Creeks, and other nations.

The inhabitants of Louisiana, before the cession, had acquired a great portion of their slaves from