What would have been the attitude of the other states to the amendment
to the constitution so proposed, must, of course, be a matter of
conjecture, but the adoption by Congress, though controlled by the
Republican Party, of the joint resolution providing for an amendment
which should forever prohibit Congress from interfering with slavery in
the states where it existed, and the enactment of the statute organizing
the territories of Dakota, Colorado and Nevada without prohibition as to
slavery, would seem to indicate that the principal provisions of the
amendment proposed by Virginia would have met the approval of the
requisite number of the states.