"_Art._ 6. There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said Territory otherwise than in the punishment of crimes whereof the party shall have been duly convicted; provided always that any person escaping into the same, from whom labor or service is lawfully claimed in any one of the original States, such fugitive may be lawfully reclaimed, and conveyed to the person claiming his or her labor or service." On passing the ordinance, the ayes and nays were required by Judge Yates, of New York, when it appeared _that his was the only vote in the negative_. The ordinance of April 23, 1784, was a brief outline of that of '87. It was reported by a Committee, of which Mr. Jefferson was chairman, and the report contained a slavery prohibition intended to take effect in 1800. This was stricken out of the report, six States voting to retain it--three voting to strike out--one being divided (N.C.), and the others not being represented. (The assent of nine States was necessary to retain any provision.) And this is the vote alluded to by Mr. Lincoln. But subsequently, March 16, 1785, a motion was made by Rufus King to commit a proposition "that there be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude" in any of the Territories; which was carried by the vote of eight States, including Maryland.--_Journal Am. Congress,_ vol. 4, pp. 373, 380, 481, 752. When, therefore, the ordinance of '87 came before Congress, on its final passage, the subject of slavery prohibition had been "_agitated_" for nearly three years; and the deliberate and almost unanimous vote of that body upon that question leaves no room to doubt what the fathers believed, and how, in that belief, they acted.] [Footnote 11:--It singularly and fortunately happens that one of the "thirty-nine," "while engaged on that instrument," viz., while advocating its ratification before the Pennsylvania Convention, did express an opinion upon this "precise question," which opinion was _never_ disputed or doubted, in that or any other Convention, and was accepted by the opponents of the Constitution, as an indisputable fact. This was the celebrated James Wilson, of Pennsylvania. The opinion is as follows:-- MONDAY, _Dec._ 3, 1787.