Edwardsville spectator. [volume] (Edwardsville, Ill.) 1819-1826, 1820-01-01

should be applle1 10 inc saHlc, anu eha'
the sixth article should not be SO appli-
ed. Accordingly, the states of Tennes-
see, Mississippi and Alabama, compre-
bending the territory coded to the United
States by North Carolina and Georgia,
have been admitted, as new states, into
the union, without provision by which
slavery shall be excluded from the
same. According to this abstract of the
proceedings of congress in the adnis-
sion of new states into the union of the
eight new states within the original limits
of the United States, four had been ad-
mitted without an article excluding
slavery; three have been admitted on
the condition that slavery should be cX-
cluded; and one admitted without such
condition. In the four first cases, con-
gress, were restrained from exercising
the power to exclude slavery; in the
next three, they exercised this power
and in the last it was unnecessary to do
so, slavery being excluded by the state
constitution.
The province of Louisiana, soon after
its c@Ssion to the United States, was d.
vided into two territories, comprehend
ing such parts thereof as were contigu-
Gus to the river Mississippi, being the
only parts of he province that were in
habited The foreign language, laws,
customs, and manners Of the inhabitants,
required the Immediate and cautious at
tention of colgress, which, instead OF
extending in he first instance to these
territories the ordinance of 1887, ordain-
ed special regulations for the govern
ment of the same. These regulations
were from Tina to time revised and al
tered, as observation and experience
showed to be expedicnt, and as was
deemed most likely to encourage and
promote those changes which would soon
qualify the inhabitants for self govern
ment, and admission into the UNION
When the United States took possession
of the province of Louisiana in 1904, it
was estimated to contain fifty thousand
white inhabitants, forty thousand slaves,
and two thousand free persons of color.s
More than four ftths of the whites, and
all the slaves, except about thirteen hun
drcd, inhabited Ncw-Orleans and the
adjacent territory; the residue, consist
ing of less than ten thousand whites, and
about thirteen hundred slaves, were dis
persed throughout the country now in
cluded in the Arkansaw and Missouri
territories. The greater part Of the thir
teen hundred slaves were in the Missou
ri territory; some of them having remov-
ed thither from the old French settle
ments on the east side Of the Mississippi,
after the passing of the ordinance of 1887,
by which slavery in those settlements
was abolished.
In 1912, the territory of New-Orleans,
to which the ordinance of 1887, with the
exception of certain parts thereof, had
been previously extended, was permitted
by congress to form a constitution and
state government, and admitted as a new
state into the UNION, by the name of Lou
isiana. The acts Of congress for these
purposes, in addition to sundry impor-
tant provisions respecting rivers and
public lands, which are declared to be
irreVocable, unless by common consent,
annex other terms and conditions where
by it is established, not only that the
constitution of Louisiana should be re-
publican, but that it should contain the
fundamental principles of religious lib
erty, that it should secure to the citizens
the trial by Jury in all criminal cases, and
the privilege of the writ of habeas cor
pus, according to the constitution Of the
United States;7 and after its admission
into the union, that the laws which Lou
isana might pass, should be promulga-
ted, its records Of every description pre-
served, and its judicial and Legislative
proceedings conducted in the language
in which the laws and judicial proceed
ings of the Uaited States are published
and conducted.
Guards so friendly to the rights Of the
citizens, and restraints on the state sove- |
reignty SO material to the gradual con-
hrmation and security of their liberties,
demonstrate the extensive and parental
power OF congress; powers, the wise
exercise Of which, on this occasion, is |
not confined to the inhabitants ofthe new
state, but reaches and protects the rights
Of the citizens of all the states. The
habits of the people, and the number of
slaves bywhom the labor of the terrific
ry of NeW Orleans was performed, were
doubtless the reason for the omission of
an article in the act of admission, by
which slavery should be excluded from
the new state.
Having annexed these new and extra