These enactments saved Ohio from the blight and curse of slavery. The slave power, however, early made a strong effort to gain a foothold on the virgin soil of Ohio. At the first session of the Territorial legislature which met, February 4th, 1799, in Cincinnati, petitions were presented by many Virginians, who owned lands in the Virginia Military Bounty District, west of the Scioto river, to settle, with their slaves, on their own lands. These petitions were rejected at once. The legislature believed that the Ordinance of 1787 left them no option whatever, and they did not even entertain the petitions. A second effort was made, when the State Constitution was formed, to introduce and fix slavery upon the soil of Ohio. Presidential power was used then, as now, to give extension to the system. Jefferson was President; and Jeremiah Morrow, Ohio's first representative in Congress, when his duties called him to the seat of government, called on the President, who expressed to him his deep regret that slavery had not been allowed to enter the new State. The reason assigned was, that the extension of slavery over a large area tended to destroy it. A great error, as the history of American slavery mournfully confirms. In the convention met to form the Constitution of Ohio, John W. Brown, from Hamilton county, chairman of the Committee on the Bill of Rights, presented a section declaring that, "No person shall be held in slavery, if a male, after he is thirty-five years of age; and if a female, after twenty-five years of age." This section was defeated by the heroic firmness of Ephraim Cutler, of Marietta. He framed the eighth section, containing the Bill of Rights, in which slavery was forever prohibited, and this section was incorporated into the Constitution. It was the opinion of Mr. Cutler, that the section allowing slavery, in a modified form, originated with President Jefferson; and Browne, in advocating this policy, said"What he had introduced was thought, by the greatest men in the nation, to be, if established in the Constitution, a great step toward the general emancipation of the slaves." Mr. Cutler, in view of the narrow escape freedom had, in this contest with slavery, made in his journal the following record: "Thus an overruling Providence, by His wisdom, makes use of the weak often to defeat the purpose of the great and wise; and to His name be the glory and praise." Let Ohio ever honor and hold in grateful remembrance the services and memories of her first legislators, and those who in her subsequent history, with earnestness and ability, maintained the principles of freedom, which gave her birth, and by which she has risen to unexampled prosperity and greatness. Judge Burnet says - "The delegates who framed the Constitution were, with but few exceptions, the most intelligent men in the counties." Jeremiah Morrow, the first representative in Congress, afterward senator and governor, a man who was ever faithful and honest, and who died, full of years and honors, in 1852; Dunlevy, an early pioneer to Columbia, a man of integrity and liberal education; John Reily, an honored citizen of Butler county; Tiffin and Worthington, from Ross, and Hungtingdon, from Trumbull, all of whom were Governors of the State; Cutler and Putnam, from Washington; and Gatch and Sargeant, from Clermont, were among the honored men who successfully labored, in the construction of the State Constitution and the early legislation of Ohio. Gatch and Sargeant were elected because they were anti-slavery men. They were both Virginians, and both were practical emancipators. General Harrison, the Territorial representative from Ohio, in Congress, in a public letter, written in 1820, when a candidate for Congress in Ohio, in which he was defending himself against the charge of pro-slavery sympathies, refers to his "vener. able friend, Philip Gatch, who was a member of an abolition society in Virginia." It is a debt of gratitude due from the great State of Ohio to honor the memories, and to perpetuate, in her historical annals, the services of those earliest legislators and founders of her fame and greatness; men who ornamented the State by their private virtues and public labors. In this catalogue of able men and upright legislators, who, from the date of the birth of Ohio, through the subsequent thirty years of her legislative history, aided in adjusting and perfecting the system of government, must be named-Jacob Burnet, John McLean, Ethan Allen Brown, Charles Hammond, Benjamin Tappan, John M. Goodenou, John C. Wright, Elisha Whittlesey, Samuel M. Vinton, Joshua Collet, Reuben Hitchcock, Allen Trimble, Duncan McArthur, Reuben Wood, James Cooly, Joseph Vance, and others. The present generation, says the author of the memoir of Judge Hitchcock, know but little of the treasures of knowledge and talent brought to Ohio by her energetic and enterprising pioneers. The present generation is inclined, most erroneously, to arrogate to itself superior abilities, in proportion to its greater facilities. On hearing a remark claiming this superiority, the reply of one of the survivors of that day was-"You are mistaken; I tell you there were giants at the West in those days." Nearly all of those, distinguished in the constitutional and legislative history of Ohio, have passed away, but they have left noble monuments of their wisdom and labors. Thomas Morris was among the ablest and wisest of the legislators of Ohio, and identified during a long period with her legislative history, being a member of the General Assembly for twenty-four years, and connected with the politics of the State for fifty years. CHAPTER VI. His labors and influence as a Legislator-Against Liquor Licenses and Lotteries-Against Prohibiting the Emigration of Colored People to Ohio-Speech on the Rights of Conscience-On Abolishing Imprisonment for Debt-His Faith in the People-The People to elect all Officers Jury Trials before Justices-Internal Improvements-Opposed to the Canal System of Ohio-Prophecy about Railroads-A Ride in a Canoe-A Contrast. In the legislature of Ohio, he was a prominent and active participator. His abilities soon placed him among the first of the distinguished men who from year to year met in the legislative halls. No matter what party was in power, he was chairman of the most important committees, most generally the judiciary, and often appointed on special committees. His influence, in the judgment of cotemporaries, was always equal to any in the legislature. As a legislator, he labored for the equal rights of all, and to conform the action of civil government to the true doctrines of democracy, and the principles of justice and Christian morality. He was opposed to all chartered monopolies, and to all legislation that gave one class civil privileges above another. His entire legislative history is free from selfish ambition, and in general accordance with the fundamental principles of right as revealed in the Bible, the only source of true national prosperity. He believed the traffic in spiritous liquors, as a beverage, was a moral wrong, and on all occasions voted to restrain the evil, by putting the price of license up to the highest possible sum, so as to prohibit it altogether. He warmly enlisted in the great Temperance Enterprise, and gave it his influence and aid, as a legislator and a man, by precept and example. He voted against all lotteries, a species of legislation not then uncommon in the older States. In 1827, a bill was introduced to aid Ohio in her system of canal improvements; the author of the bill affirming - "That it was good policy, while the lotteries of other States were draining specie from Ohio, the bill would have a tendency to bring some back. The city of New York," said he, "would buy ten or fifteen thousand dollars worth of tickets." Mr. Morris, regarding it as immoral, and as compromising the honor of the State, moved its rejection. "I object to it on the score of morality and policy. Suppose the gentleman's speech is printed in New York, what a happy tendency it would have to procure assistance for the construction of our canal. Their opinion of our resources would be greatly increased, when they perceived we had to resort to the pitiful expediency of a lottery, to raise funds to carry on our system of internal improvements. It was encouraging a species of gambling." The bill was rejected by a large majority. An effort was made during this session of legislature, to prohibit by penal legislation, the future immigration of blacks and mulattoes into Ohio. Faithful to the rights of man, he opposed the principles of the bill, as unjust, unconstitutional, and odious. It was rejected. This session also witnessed a strong effort to legislate on the rights of conscience. A bill for the support of common schools contained a clause that "no teacher should teach any sectarian creed, catechism, confession of faith, etc., unless each person entitled to send to said school shall consent to the same; and any teacher violating the provisions of this act shall be fined." Mr. Morris made an able speech against the bill, in which he advocated the great Protestant principle of the |