History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 | Page 7

1800--SLAVE POPULATION.
District of Columbia 3,244 Connecticut 951 Delaware 6,153 Georgia 59,404 Indiana Territory 135 Kentucky 40,343 Maryland 105,635 Mississippi Territory 3,489 New Jersey 12,422 New Hampshire 8 New York 20,343 North Carolina 133,296 Pennsylvania 1,706 Rhode Island 381 South Carolina 146,151 Tennessee 13,584 Virginia 345,796 ------- Aggregate 893,041
On the 2d of January, 1800, a number of Colored citizens of the city and county of Philadelphia presented a memorial to Congress, through the delegate from that city, Mr. Waln, calling attention to the slave-trade to the coast of Guinea. The memorial charged that the slave-trade was clandestinely carried on from various ports of the United States contrary to law; that under this wicked practice free Colored men were often seized and sold as slaves; and that the fugitive-slave law of 1793 subjected them to great inconvenience and severe persecutions. The memorialists did not request Congress to transcend their authority respecting the slave-trade, nor to emancipate the slaves, but only to prepare the way, so that, at an early period, the oppressed might go free.
Upon a motion by Mr. Waln for the reference of the memorial to the Committee on the Slave-trade, Rutledge, Harper, Lee, Randolph, and other Southern members, made speeches against such a reference. They maintained that the petition requested Congress to take action on a question over which they had no control. Waln, Thacher, Smilie, Dana, and Gallatin contended that there were portions of the petition that came within the jurisdiction of the Constitution, and, therefore, ought to be received and acted upon. Mr. Rutledge demanded the yeas and nays; but in such a spirit as put Mr. Waln on his guard, so he withdrew his motion, and submitted another one by which such parts of the memorial as came within the jurisdiction of Congress should be referred. Mr. Rutledge raised a point of order on the motion of the gentleman from Pennsylvania that a "part" of the memorial could not be referred, but was promptly overruled. Mr. Gray, of Virginia, moved to amend by adding a declaratory clause that the portions of the memorial, not referred, inviting Congress to exercise authority not delegated, "have a tendency to create disquiet and jealousy, and ought, therefore, to receive the pointed disapprobation of this House." After some discussion, it was finally agreed to strike out the last clause and insert the following: "ought therefore to receive no encouragement or countenance from this House." The call of the roll resulted in the adoption of the amendment, with but one vote in the negative by Mr. Thacher, of Maine, an uncompromising enemy of slavery. The committee to whom the memorial was referred brought in a bill during the session prohibiting American ships from supplying slaves from the United States to foreign markets.
On the 2d of April, 1802, Georgia ceded the territory lying west of her present limits, now embracing the States of Alabama and Mississippi. Among the conditions she exacted was the following:
"That the territory thus ceded shall become a State, and be admitted into the Union as soon as it shall contain sixty thousand free inhabitants, or at an earlier period, if Congress shall think it expedient, on the same conditions and restrictions, with the same privileges, and in the same manner, as provided in the ordinance of Congress of the 13th day of July, 1787, for the government of the western territory of the United States: which ordinance shall, in all its parts, extend to the territory contained in the present act of cession, the article only excepted which forbids slavery."
The demand was acceded to, and, as the world knows, Alabama and Mississippi became the most cruel slave States in the United States.
Ohio adopted a State constitution in 1802-3, and the residue of the territory not included in the State as it is now, was designated as Indiana Territory. William Henry Harrison was appointed governor. One of the earliest moves of the government of the new territory was to secure a modification of the ordinance of 1787 by which slavery or involuntary servitude was prohibited in the territory northwest of the Ohio River. It was ordered by a convention presided over by Gen. Harrison in 1802-3, that a memorial be sent to Congress urging a restriction of the ordinance of 1787. It was referred to a select committee, with John Randolph as chairman. On the 2d of March, 1803, he made a report by the unanimous request of his committee, and the portion referring to slavery was as follows:
"The rapid population of the State of Ohio sufficiently evinces, in the opinion of your committee, that the labor of slaves is not necessary to promote the growth and settlement of colonies in that region. That this labor--demonstrably the dearest of any--can only be employed in the cultivation of products more valuable than