The Bible was quoted freely to attack or
defend human bondage. Resolutions of State Legislatures added their
weight to either side. Some debaters in Congress deplored the "poisoning
of the national affection," seeing in it the revival of the sectional
envy and dislike dormant for the past thirty years. Other hot-blooded
speakers declared that this contest could be ended only by bloodshed.
Looking beneath the unfortunate sectionalism, which was to retard the
growth of the Union for the coming half-century, one sees that the
people faced a new question: had the United States a right to place
an anti-slavery restriction on a sovereign State at the time of
creating it from a Territory? The answer would greatly affect the
relation of the States to the Union. Few States had been admitted
without some conditions, such as the non-taxation of public lands and
the perpetual freedom of navigable waters; but those were of national
importance and different from slavery, which was claimed to be of local
concern. In admitting Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, formed from the
North-west Territory, Congress had provided that their constitutions
should not be repugnant to the Ordinance of 1787.
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