The life and public services of Abraham Lincoln ... together with his state papers, including his speeches, addresses, messages, letters, and proclamations, and the closing scenes connected with his life and death. By Henry J. Raymond. To which are added anecdotes and personal reminiscences of President Lincoln, by Frank B. Carpenter.

88 THE LIFE, PUBLIC SERVICES, AND
ham Baldwin and Jonathan Dayton. As stated in the case of Mississippi,
it is probable they both voted for it. They would not have allowed it to
pass without recording their opposition to it, if, in their understanding,
it violated either the line properly dividing local from Federal authority,
or any provision of the Constitution.
In 1819 —20, came and passed the Missouri question. Many votes were
taken, by yeas and nays, in both branches of Congress, upon the various
pl]ases of the general question. Two of the " thirty-nine"-Rufus King
and Charles Pinckney-were members of that Congress. Mr. King
steadily voted for slavery prohibition and against all compromises, while
Mr. Pinckney as steadily voted against slavery prohibition, and against
all compromises. By this, Mr. King showed that, in his understanding,
no line dividing local from Federal authority, nor any thing in the Constitution, was violated by Congress prolibiting slavery in Federal territory;
while Mr. Pinckney, by his vote, slowe(l tliat, in his understanding, there
was somle sufficient reason for opposing such prohibition in that case.
The cases I have menltioned are the only acts of the "thirty-nine," or
of any of them, upon the direct issue, which I have been able to discover.
To enumerate the persons who thus acted, as being four in 1784, two
in 1787, seventeen in 1789, three in 1798, two in 1804, and two in 1819 -20-there would be thirty of them. But this would be counting John
Langdon, Roger Sherman, William Few, Rufus King, and George Read,
each twice, and Abraham Baldwin, three times. The true number of
those of the " thirty-nine " whom I have shown to have acted upon the
question whlich, by the text, they understood better than we, is twentythree, leaving sixteen not shown to have acted upon it in any way.
here, tllen, we have twenty-three out of our thirty-nine fathers " who
framed tlhe Government under which we live," who have, upon their
official responsibility and their corporal oaths, acted upon the very question which the text affirns they " understood just as well, and even better than we do now;" and twenty-one of them-a clear majority of the
whole " thirty-nine "-so acting upon it as to make them guilty of gross
political impropriety and wilful perjury, if, in their understanding, any
proper division between local and Federal authority, or any thing in the
Constitution they had made themselves, and sworn to support, forbade
the Federal Government to control as to slavery in the Federal territories.
Thus the twenty-one acted; and, as actions speak louder than words, so
actions, under such responsibility, speak still louder.
Two of the twenty-three voted against Congressional prohibition of
slavery in the Federal territories, in the instances in which they acted
upon the question. But for what reasons they so voted is not known.
They may have done so because they thought a proper division of local
from Federal authority, or some provision or principle of the Constitution,
stood in the way; or they may, without any such question, have voted
against the prohibition on what appeared to them to be sufficient grounds