expansion, but its speedy extinction. The Constitutional records of the country not only prove this to have been their great purpose and most ardent wish; but their repeated declarations testify, that freedom was National and slavery Sectional, and to yield soon to the spread of universal liberty. This record is worthy to be read, and freshly remembered, by every American citizen; to be taught to every American child, till the sentiment of freedom shall be the ruling sentiment of the nation. Let these declarations have a new record, and a re-hearing on these pages.

Madison, the father of the Constitution-"Thought it wrong to admit in the Constitution the idea that there could be property in man." "I object to the word slave appearing in a Constitution which I trust is to be the charter of freedom to unborn millions; nor would I willingly perpetuate the memory of the fact that slavery ever existed in our country. It is a great evil, and under the Providence of God, I look forward to some scheme of emancipation which shall free us from it. Do not, therefore, let us appear as if we regarded it perpetual, by using in our free Constitution an odious word opposed to every sentiment of liberty."

Jefferson, the great apostle of Democracy, declared"The way I hope, is preparing under the auspices of heaven, for a total emancipation. The hour of emancipation is advancing in the march of time. This enterprise is for the young, for those who can follow it up, and bear it through to its consummation. It shall have all my prayers, and these are the only weapons of an old man. What execrations should the statesman be loaded with, who permitting one half the citizens thus to trample on the rights of the other, transforms the one into despots and the other into enemies, destroying the morals of one part, and the amor patriæ of the other. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secured, when we have removed the only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people, that their liberties are the gift of God. Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; and that justice can not sleep forever. The Almighty has no attribute that can take sides with us in such a contest."

Patrick Henry, the impassioned orator of the Revolution, affirmed - "Slavery is detested; we feel its fatal effects; we deplore it with all the pity of humanity. It would rejoice my very soul that every one of my fellow beings was emancipated. I believe the time will come when an opportunity will be offered to abolish this lamentable evil."

Judge Wilson, of Pennsylvania, said "I consider the power given to this Constitution to prohibit the importation of slaves, as laying the foundation for banishing slavery out of the country. If there was no other lovely feature in the Constitution but this one, it would diffuse a beauty over its whole countenance. In the lapse of a few years, Congress will have power, (by an amendment of the Constitution), to exterminate slavery from within our borders."

John Jay, the first accomplished Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, and who aided in the formation of the Constitution, said: "The word slaves was avoided, probably, on account of the existing toleration of slavery, and its discordancy with the principles of the Revolution, and from a consciousness of its being repugnant to some of the positions in the Declaration of Independence."

Judge Tucker, an able civilian of Virginia, said to the legislature of his State: "Should we not at the time of the Revolution have loosed their chains and broken their fetters? or if the difficulties and dangers of such an experiment prohibited the attempt during the Revolution, is it not our duty to embrace this moment of Constitutional health and vigor, to effect so desirable an object, and to remove from us a stigma with which our enemies will never cease to upbraid us, nor our consciences to reproach us? The right of one man over another, to hold him in slavery, is neither founded in nature nor in sound policy. Slavery is perfectly incompatible with government. Shall we then neglect a duty which every consideration, moral, religious, political or selfish recommends?"

Mr. Parker, of Virginia, in the first Congress held under the present Constitution, said: "He hoped Congress would do all in their power to restore human nature to its inherent privileges, and if possible wipe out the stigma under which America labored. The inconsistency of our principles, with which we are justly charged, should be done away, that we may show by our actions the pure beneficence of the doctrine which we held out to the world in our Declaration of Independence."

Washington, the Father of his country, said: "I never mean, unless some particular circumstances should compel me to it, to possess another slave by purchase, it being among my first desires to see some plan adopted in this country, by which slavery may be abolished by law. Slavery might and ought to be abolished by legislative authority, and so far as my suffrage would go, it shall not be found wanting." He, at his death, freed all his slaves. Washington wrote to Lafayette, when the latter set all his slaves free in Cayenne: "Would to God, a like spirit might diffuse itself generally into the minds of the people of this country. The slaves ought, by degrees, to be set free, and that, too, by legislative authority."

Lafayette, the friend of America, and the co-patriot of Washington, who poured out his wealth like water, and led an army from France, to aid in achieving our independence, said: "I never would have drawn my sword in the cause of America, if I could have conceived that thereby I was founding a land of slavery."

Benjamin Franklin, the patriot, the philosopher and the philanthropist, closed his long and useful life by acting as President of an Abolition Society, formed on the 14th of April, 1775, and re-organized in 1788, when this venerable man accepted the Presidency, Dr. Rush acting as Secretary. These men, and their co-laborers in the cause of emancipation, sent to Congress the following

MEMORIAL:

From a persuasion that equal liberty was originally the portion, and is now the birth-right of all men, and influenced by the strongest ties of humanity, and the principles of our Institutions, your memorialists consider themselves bound to use all justifiable measures to loosen the hands of slavery, and promote a general enjoyment of the blessings of freedom. Under these impressions, they earnestly entreat your serious attention to the subject of slavery; that you will be pleased to countenance the restoration of liberty to those unhappy men, who alone in this land of freedom, are degraded into perpetual bondage, and who, amid the general joy of surrounding freemen, are groaning in servile subjection; that you will devise means for removing this inconsistency from the character of the American people; that you will promote mercy and justice toward this distressed race; and that you will step to the verge of the power vested in you for discouraging every species of traffic in the persons of our fellow-men.

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, President.

PHILADELPHIA, Feb. 3, 1790.

Societies, having the abolition of slavery in view, were formed in a number of other States, including Virginia and Maryland; and in 1794, a General Convention of delgates from all the Abolition Societies in the United States was held in Philadelphia, to consult measures for the overthrow of slavery; and this General Convention met annually for twelve years. To the first Convention, Dr. Rush was a delegate, and Chairman of a Committee to draft an Address to the people of the United States, which contained the following views and condemnation of slavery :

"Many reasons concur in persuading us to abolish domestic slavery in our country.

"It is inconsistent with the safety of the liberties of the United States.

"Freedom and slavery can not long exist together. An unlimited power over the time, labor and posterity of our fellow creatures, necessarily unfits men for discharging the public and private duties of citizens of a Republic.

"It is inconsistent with sound policy, in exposing the States which permit it, to all those evils which insurrections and the most resentful war have introduced into one of the richest islands in the West Indies.

"It is unfriendly to the present exertions of the inhabitants of Europe in favor of liberty. What people will advocate freedom with a zeal proportioned to its blessings, while they view the purest Republic in the world tolerating in its bosom a body of slaves?

"In vain has the tyranny of kings been rejected while we permit in our country a domestic despotism, which involves in its nature most of the vices and miseries that we have endeavored to avoid.

"It is degrading to our rank as men in the scale of being. Let us use our reason and social affections for the purposes for which they were given, or cease to boast a pre-eminence over animals that are unpolluted with our crimes.