Why, Sir, it is simply the old Jeffersonian ordinance, which, when originally adopted for the great Territory of the Northwest, operated upon Slavery already there, and absolutely forbade this wrong from that time forward.
Sumner discusses the historical context of the Jeffersonian ordinance and its implications for slavery.
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Controlled by such a code, employing such representatives, sustained by such agencies, animated by such Furies, and producing such fruits of tears and bitterness, it must be open to question.
They belong to a system so essentially irrational, that all the admitted virtues of many of its agents cannot save it from judgment.
They who strive after it, Ixion-like, embrace a cloud.
Let us at all hazards prevent the extension of Slavery and the increase of the Slave Power.
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