dangerous to our Liberties (as well as
lives) but a determination to use our utmost efforts for the
manumission of our slaves in this colony upon the most safe and
equitable footing for the masters and themselves."]

During the war of the Revolution following the Declaration of
Independence, the half a million of slaves, nearly all of them in the
Southern States, were found to be not only a source of weakness, but,
through the incitements of British emissaries, a standing menace of
peril to the Slaveholders. Thus it was that the South was overrun by
hostile British armies, while in the North-comparatively free of this
element of weakness--disaster after disaster met them. At last,
however, in 1782, came the recognition of our Independence, and peace,
followed by the evacuation of New York at the close of 1783.

The lessons of the war, touching Slavery, had not been lost upon our
statesmen. Early in 1784 Virginia ceded to the United States her claims
of jurisdiction and otherwise over the vast territory north-west of the
Ohio; and upon its acceptance, Jefferson, as chairman of a Select
Committee appointed at his instance to consider a plan of government
therefor, reported to the ninth Continental Congress an Ordinance to
govern the territory ceded already, or to be ceded, by individual States
to the United States, extending from the 31st to the 47th degree of
north latitude, which provided as "fundamental conditions between the
thirteen original States and those newly described" as embryo States
thereafter--to be carved out of such territory ceded or to be ceded to
the United States, not only that "they shall forever remain a part of
the United States of America," but also that "after the year 1800 of the
Christian era, there shall be neither Slavery nor involuntary servitude
in any of the said States"--and that those fundamental conditions were
"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."

But now a signal misfortune befell. Upon a motion to strike out the
clause prohibiting Slavery, six States: New Hampshire, Massachusetts,
Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York and Pennsylvania, voted to retain
the prohibitive clause, while three States, Maryland, Virginia and South
Carolina, voted not to retain it. The vote of North Carolina was
equally divided; and while one of the Delegates fr