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[39] remained for some years thereafter, unceded to the Union by North Carolina and Georgia. This entire territory, ceded and to be ceded, was divided prospectively by the Ordinance into embryo States, to which names were given; each of them to receive, in due time, a temporary or territorial government, and ultimately to be admitted into the Confederation of States upon the express assent of two-thirds of the preceding States; but both their temporary and their permanent governments were to be established on these fundamental conditions:
1. That they shall forever remain a part of the United States of America.

2. That, in their persons, property, and territory, they shall be subject to the government of the United States, in Congress assembled, and to the Articles of Confederation, in all those cases in which the original States shall be so subject.

3. That they shall be subject to pay a part of the Federal debts, contracted or to be contracted; to be apportioned on them by Congress, according to the same common rule and measure by which apportionments thereof shall be made on the other States.

4. That their respective governments shall be in republican forms, and shall admit no person to be a citizen who holds an hereditary title.

5. That after the year 1800 of the Christian era, there shall be neither Slavery nor involuntary servitude in any of the said States, otherwise than in punishment of crimes, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted to have been personally guilty.

The Ordinance concluded as follows:

That all the preceding articles shall be formed into a charter of compact; shall be duly executed by the President of the United States, in Congress assembled, under his hand and the seal of the United States; shall be promulgated, and shall stand as fundamental conditions between the thirteen original States and those newly described, unalterable but by the joint consent of the United States, in Congress assembled, and of the particular State within which such alteration is proposed to be made.

On the 19th of April, Congress took up this plan for consideration and action, and Mr. Spaight of N. C. moved that the fifth proposition above quoted, prohibiting Slavery after the year 1800, be stricken out of the Ordinance; and Mr. Read of S. C. seconded the motion. The question was put in this form: “Shall the words moved to be stricken out stand?” and on this question the Ays and Noes were required and taken, with the following result:

N. Hamp Mr. Foster ay, Ay.
  Mr. Blanchard ay,
Massachu Mr. Gerry ay, Ay.
  Mr. Partridge ay,
R. Island Mr. Ellery ay, Ay.
  Mr. Howell ay,
Connect Mr. Sherman ay, Ay.
  Mr. Wadsworth ay,
New York Mr. De Witt ay, Ay.
  Mr. Paine ay,
N. Jersey Mr. Dick ay, No vote.1
Pennsyl Mr. Mifflin ay, Ay.
  Mr. Montgomery ay,
  Mr. Hand ay,
Maryland Mr. Henry no, No.
  Mr. Stone no,
Virginia Mr. Jefferson ay, No.
  Mr. Hardy no,
  Mr. Mercer no,
N. Carolina Mr. Williamson ay, Divided.
  Mr. Spaight no,
S. Carolina Mr. Read no, No.
  Mr. Beresford no,

The votes of members were sixteen for Mr. Jefferson's interdiction of Slavery to seven against it, and the States stood recorded six for it to three against it. But the Articles of Confederation required an affirmative vote of a majority of all the States to sustain a proposition; and thus the restriction failed through the absence of a member from New Jersey, rendering the vote of that State null for

1 By the Articles of Confederation, two or more delegates were required to be present to cast the vote of a State. New Jersey, therefore, failed to vote.

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