Whereupon Mr. Taylor moved that the people of Missouri should be required to ordain and establish in their constitution the prohibition of slavery and involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, in the proposed Commonwealth. Conceding, as the result of the discussions, and {79} the action of the Congress during the preceding session, that Congress had no constitutional authority to impose restrictions upon new Commonwealths, as the condition of their admission into the Union, which the Constitution did not impose upon the original Commonwealths, the new question involved in Mr. Taylor's motion, from the point of view of constitutional law, now was, whether Congress could require of a new Commonwealth, as the condition of its admission to the Union, that it should impose any limitations upon itself which the Constitution of the United States did not impose upon the original Commonwealths. Could Congress effect indirectly what it could not do directly? [Sidenote: Mr. Taylor's argument in support of his amendment.] Mr. Taylor's argument rested substantially upon the proposition, upheld by the restrictionists during the preceding session, that if Congress could admit, it could refuse to admit, and if it could admit or refuse to admit, it could admit upon conditions. He, however, advanced other propositions and suggestions. He held that the admission of a new Commonwealth into the Union was a procedure in the nature of a contract between the United States Government and the people of the new Commonwealth, and, therefore, admitted of any terms accepted by both parties. He further held that the provision of the Constitution, which impliedly vested in Congress the power to prohibit, after 1808, the importation or migration of slaves, covered the case, in that the word migration meant passage from one Commonwealth into another, in distinction from importation, which meant the bringing of slaves into the United States from foreign countries. And he suggested that territory acquired by the United States subsequent to the formation of the Constitution need not be treated with the same consideration, as to the rights of its inhabitants, as that which {80} belonged to the United States at the time of the formation of the Constitution. [Sidenote: Replies to Mr. Taylor's reasoning.] Of course the members from the South resisted Mr. Taylor's conclusions. But they were not alone in their position. Some of the strongest opponents of slavery from the North stood up with them in resisting what they considered to be an attack upon the principle of federal government. Mr. Holmes, of Massachusetts, was again chief among them, and it is to his argument that one must look for the most scientific and unprejudiced view of the subject. [Sidenote: Mr. Holmes' argument against the amendment.]