The close vote, of which Jefferson complains, well illustrates the evils of voting by States in Congress. Seven affirmative State votes were necessary to retain the anti-slavery clause. Only eleven States were represented. One of these had but one delegate and his vote was cast out by the rule requiring a State to be represented by at least two delegates to participate in a vote. Of the ten States remaining, seven must have at least two delegates of an affirmative mind from each to retain the clause. Six of these States voted solidly to keep the restriction, but the seventh State could not be secured, as Jefferson stated. Considered by our present method of voting, sixteen of the twenty-three delegates present voted affirmatively and seven negatively; yet the motion was lost and the clause struck out. Rarely has the power of a minority been so great. The individual may be allowed to hide the mass by being held too close to the vision. However, the defeat of Jefferson's plan of excluding slavery from the territory after the year 1800 must be considered fortunate by all in sympathy with the general purpose. By it, slavery would have been permitted in the western country for sixteen years. The large influx of migration into the territory within that period, especially from the Southern States, would have established the system too thoroughly to be eradicated. The difficulty with which slavery was permanently kept out, although expressly prohibited by the Ordinance of 1787, is a proof of this assertion. The clearing of the way for the later prohibitive action by striking out the clause tended to the ultimate good. On the other hand, it is pointed out that the Jefferson ordinance provided only for "a temporary government of the western territory" and covered "so much of the territory ceded or to be ceded by the individual States to the United States as is already purchased or shall be purchased of the Indian inhabitants and offered for sale by Congress." Eulogists of Jefferson argue, consequently, that if his restricting clause had been allowed to remain it would have prohibited slavery in all the land west of the thirteen States, both north and south, after the year 1800, and thus the entire slavery system would have died through non-extension. But it must be remembered that the only land thus far ceded lay north of the Ohio and immediately west of the free States. It is not conceivable that such a restriction would have been permitted to hold south of the Ohio and west of the slaveholding States, directly in the line of migration. Indeed, when the time did arrive to create a government south of the Ohio, interference with slavery was distinctly prohibited. It is true, also, that Jefferson's ordinance as adopted solemnly declared its articles a charter of compact to stand as unalterable constitutions both before and after the sale of any part of the vacant land; but that a new ordinance should supersede it after three years, simply because a