Mr. LANDRUM. Now, Mr. Chairman, we are asked to legislate to exclude slavery from the Territories, because slavery is a moral wrong, because it is a sin against God, and because it is a crime against humanity. And we are invoked to adopt that legislation by the example of our forefathers. Now, what precedent do they furnish us in this clause of the Constitution? The Constitution of the United States did make regulations in regard to the slavery question. One of those regulations was to permit the African slave trade until the year 1808. Now, sir, was there anything so morally wrong in the African slave trade; was it any such crime against humanity as to deter the ancestors of those gentlemen from coming into a Union which permitted the African slave trade? Why, sir, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Hampshire, voted to extend the limitation against the prohibition of that traffic from 1800 to 1808. Does the honorable chairman of this committee (Mr. BUFFINGTON) blush for his ancestors because they knew so little of the primary truths of common morality, as expounded by the gentleman from Connecticut, (Mr. FERRY,) in the commencement of this debate, soon after the organization of this House, in voting such a provision as that? The State of Massachusetts was a sovereign State before she entered into this Confederacy, unabridged by any limitation. She could have prevented her citizens then, as the United States does now, from participating in the slave trade even between foreign ports in foreign nations; and yet your ancestors not only voted with South Carolina and Georgia, who refused to come into the Union unless the African slave trade was permitted so long as they desired it, but in coming into that Union, it gave to the citizens of Massachusetts, too, a like authority to engage in that trade. What a sin against God, what a crime against humanity, did these Massachusetts legislators vote to perpetuate! And yet, I imagine, the honorable Chairman is proud of his ancestors; and we are told now that because we will not join you in the hue-and-cry against slavery, and do not legislate to exclude slavery from the Territories, we are the authors of the evils with which the country is afflicted. You are not satisfied with our silence, our inaction; you say that we want to perpetuate a crime against humanity, and have departed from the lesson of wisdom inculcated by our ancestors. Sir, I believe in the teachings of the ancient patriots. I take their precedents, and although not _now_ in favor of the reopening of the African slave trade, because it is inexpedient, (though, as I do not consider the question before the country, I confess I have not studied it,) yet I venerate those legislators who sacrificed their prejudices in order that they might get South Carolina and Georgia into the Union, who refused to come in without it.