Notwithstanding all this, however, the slavery interest was steadily waxing in influence and power throughout this period. First of all the existence and the extension of slavery in the vast territory purchased from France was secured. The custom of slave-holding had been introduced into this territory by the French and Spanish immigrants, while it was in the possession of France and Spain, before the year 1800. In that year Spain, as we have seen, receded it to France. Nine years before this date, slavery had been abolished in France by the National Assembly. It is certainly a question, then, whether the re-establishment of French supremacy over Louisiana in 1800 did not produce the abolition of slavery there. It will be remembered that France was at that moment subject to the consular government of Bonaparte, and that the Consul was not an enthusiast for the revolutionary ideals. He did not disturb the custom of slave-holding {55} in Louisiana, and when he ceded this vast territory to the United States, in 1803, the custom existed in all its inhabited parts. The Treaty of cession contained a provision which pledged the Government of the United States to uphold the rights of property of the inhabitants of the province. It can be fairly said, therefore, that the United States Government obligated itself to France to maintain slavery within the territory ceded until it should be erected into a Commonwealth, or into Commonwealths, of the Union. The United States Government might have violated the Treaty, if it had chosen to do so, and the question then raised would have been one of a purely diplomatic or international character. There would have been no question of constitutional power involved. The act of the United States Government breaking the Treaty would have been the law of the land for the inhabitants of this territory.