But Congress has not stopped with the exercise of the constitution-making power. In various forms, and at all times, it has legislated for the territories, in the strictest sense of the word _legislation_. It has legislated again and again, and ten times again, on this very subject of slavery. See the act of 1794, prohibiting the slave trade from “any port _or place_” in the United States. Could any citizen of the United States, under this act, have gone into one of our territories and there have fitted out vessels for the slave trade? Surely he could, if Congress had no right to legislate over territories only as so much land and water. By statute 1798, chapter 28, § 7, slaves were forbidden to be brought into the Mississippi Territory from without the United States, and all slaves so brought in _were made free_. So the act of 1800, chapter 51, in further prohibition of the slave trade, applied to all citizens of the United States, whether living in territories or in organized states. Did not this legislation cover the territories? By statute 1804, chapter 38, § 10, three classes of slaves were forbidden to be introduced into the Orleans Territory. Statute 1807, chapter 22, prohibiting the importation of slaves after January 1, 1808, prohibited their importation into the territories in express terms. Statute 1818, chapter 91, statute 1819, chapter 101, and statute 1820, chapter 113, prohibiting the slave trade, and making it piracy, expressly included all the territories of the United States. Statute 1819, chapter 21, authorized the President to provide for the safe-keeping of slaves imported from Africa, and for their removal to their home in that land. Under this law, the President might have established a depot for slaves within the limits of our territories, on the gulf, or on the Mississippi. By statute 1820, chapter 22, § 8, Congress established what has been called the Missouri compromise line, thereby expressly legislating on the subject of slavery. So of Texas. See _Jo. Res. March 1, 1851_. By statute 1819, chapter 93, statute 1821, chapter 39, § 2, and statute 1822, chapter 13, § 9, Congress legislated on the subject of slavery in the Territory of Florida.