During the first debate upon the subject, the opponents of the restriction do not seem to have been so clear in their own minds in reference to the principles involved as they became later, and their arguments do not appear so convincing. Nevertheless, they touched the point which was the real gist of the contention, and dealt with it ably from the first. Mr. Scott, the delegate from Missouri Territory, and Mr. P. P. Barbour, of Virginia, made a vigorous attack upon the claim of a power in Congress to enact the restriction, as a condition of admitting Missouri, "as a State," into the Union. They demonstrated quite clearly that the interpretation which the restrictionists placed upon the constitutional provision empowering Congress "to admit new States into the Union" would enable Congress to establish inequalities _ad libitum_ between the original Commonwealths and the new ones; would, in principle, enable Congress to make mere provinces of the new Commonwealths. They showed conclusively that the real question of the controversy was not whether slavery should exist in Missouri or not, but was whether the Commonwealth of Missouri should be allowed to determine that matter for herself or should have it determined for her by the {71} Congress of the United States. They pointed to the facts that the original Commonwealths exercised, before the formation of the existing Constitution of the United States, exclusive power over this matter, each for itself; that the Constitution had not withdrawn this power from them, nor prohibited it to them; and that the Constitution declared all powers not delegated to the United States Government, nor prohibited to the "States," to be reserved to the "States" respectively or to the people. They, therefore, claimed that the determination of the question whether slavery should exist in any Commonwealth or not was a power reserved by the Constitution to each Commonwealth for itself, and that the attempt to introduce a distinction between the old Commonwealths and the new, in regard to the possession of this power, was an attack upon the first principle of federal liberty, the principle of equality in powers and duties between the members of the Union, an attack which could be justified legally only by an express warrant from the Constitution itself. They disputed outright the constitutionality of the restrictions in regard to slavery which Congress had imposed upon the Commonwealths of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, and held that these Commonwealths might, at any time, so amend their organic law as to introduce slavery; and they justified the restrictions imposed upon Louisiana as having express warrant from the Constitution.