And let me say here, that when I speak of the original States, I mean the territory of those States as then bounded. Alabama and Mississippi belonged to Georgia, Tennessee belonged to North Carolina, Kentucky belonged to Virginia, Vermont belonged to New York, and Maine belonged to Massachusetts, and were parts of the thirteen original States, at the time the Constitution was adopted. When, therefore, I speak of territory outside the original States, I do not refer to territory within any of the States named. Mr. BOUTWELL:--I trust my colleague does not claim to speak for Massachusetts, when he denies the right of any State of this Union to establish and maintain slavery within its jurisdiction, or to prohibit it altogether, according to its discretion. This right was reserved to the States; and States in this Union, whether original or new, stand on a footing of perfect equality. Mr. GOODRICH:--I certainly do not claim to speak for Massachusetts, though I believe the opinion of the great majority of her people agrees with my own on this subject. However, what I claim is, that Ohio and the other States of the northwestern territory have no constitutional power to legalize slavery within their limits; that they were admitted into the Union without any such power, and that every other new State formed from territory outside the limits of the original States, according to the "spirit of the compact of our fathers," should have been admitted without that power, or the right to acquire it. This I will now proceed to show. On the first day of March, 1784, the northwest territory, constituting the present States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin, was ceded by Virginia to the United States. The jurisdiction of the United States was then exclusive and paramount, or soon became so--such other States as had claimed any right of jurisdiction having ceded it. The cession of Virginia was made by THOMAS JEFFERSON, SAMUEL HARDY, ARTHUR LEE, and JAMES MONROE, who were delegates in Congress from that State, and had been appointed Commissioners for this purpose. On the same day the cession was made, Mr. JEFFERSON, in behalf of a committee, reported a plan for temporary governments in the United States territory then and afterwards to be ceded, and for forming therein permanent governments.