Slavery in the United States has now been brought down to the time of the abolition of the slave trade by both the United States and Great Britain, and it will be seen that the former government had no jurisdiction over the matter in any way, except to give protection to that species of property in the states where it existed, in the same way that it was bound to protect every other species of property within the scope of its delegated powers. Slavery existed in the states prior to the creation of the government and independent of it, and the states in forming that government as sovereign states, reserved to themselves the exclusive power of continuing or discontinuing it at their option. Not only was this so with regard to the original states, but by express stipulation with the states of North Carolina and Georgia at the time of their cession of territory. Congress had bound itself not to interfere with slavery in that territory. Kentucky had been formed out of part of Virginia and was admitted into the Union upon the same footing as that state, and by the treaty with France upon the acquisition of Louisiana, the faith of the United States was pledged to respect and protect the right of property in slaves within the limits of the acquired territory in the same way that it was pledged to respect and protect the right of property in every thing else. This embraced all of the territory within the limits of the United States except the northwestern territory, and to that the prohibition against slavery had been extended by the ordinance of 1787, prior to the adoption of the Federal Constitution. The validity of that ordinance has been disputed, and certainly if it had any validity, that was given by the assent of Virginia from whom the territory was acquired. The act for the organization of the government of the Northwestern territory recognized the validity of the restriction contained in the ordinance, and did not create it.