“I know not that history records a sublimer act than this. The United American States, having just brought their perilous struggle for freedom and independence to a successful issue, proceeded to declare the terms and conditions on which their vacant territory might be settled and organized into States; and these terms were, not tribute, not render of service, not subordination of any kind, but _the perpetual maintenance of the genuine principles of American Liberty, declared to be incompatible with Slavery_; and that these principles might be inviolably maintained, they were made _the articles of a solemn covenant_ between the original States, then the proprietors of the territory and responsible for its future destiny, and the people and the States who were to occupy it. Every settler within the territory, by the very act of settlement, became a party to this _compact, bound by its perpetual obligations_, and entitled to the full benefit of its excellent provisions for himself and his posterity. No subsequent act of the original States could affect it, without his consent. _No act of his, nor of the people of the territory, nor of the States established within it, could affect it, without the consent of the original States._”[221] According to these words, which I am sure would not be disowned by the present Chief Justice of the United States, the Ordinance is a sublime act, having for its object nothing less than _the perpetual maintenance of the genuine principles of American Liberty_. In form it is a compact, unalterable except by the consent of the parties, and therefore _forever_. If anything in our history is settled by original authority, supported by tradition and time, it is the binding character of the Ordinance for the Government of the Northwest Territory. Nobody presumed to call it in question, until at last Slavery flung down its challenge to everything that was settled for Freedom. The great Ordinance, with its prohibition of Slavery, was not left unassailed.