entirely covered with it?

If that ordinance did not keep it out of Illinois, what was it that made
the difference between Illinois and Missouri? They lie side by side, the
Mississippi River only dividing them, while their early settlements were
within the same latitude. Between 1810 and 1820 the number of slaves in
Missouri increased 7211, while in Illinois in the same ten years they
decreased 51. This appears by the census returns. During nearly all of
that ten years both were Territories, not States. During this time the
ordinance forbade slavery to go into Illinois, and nothing forbade it to
go into Missouri. It did go into Missouri, and did not go into Illinois.
That is the fact. Can any one doubt as to the reason of it? But he says
Illinois came into the Union as a slave State. Silence, perhaps, would
be the best answer to this flat contradiction of the known history of the
country. What are the facts upon which this bold assertion is based? When
we first acquired the country, as far back as 1787, there were some slaves
within it held by the French inhabitants of Kaskaskia. The territorial
legislation admitted a few negroes from the slave States as indentured
servants. One year after the adoption of the first State constitution,
the whole number of them was--what do you think? Just one hundred and
seventeen, while the aggregate free population was 55,094,--about four
hundred and seventy to one. Upon this state of facts the people framed
their constitution prohibiting the further introduction of slavery, with
a sort of guaranty to the owners of the few indentured servants, giving
freedom to their children to be born thereafter, and making no mention
whatever of any supposed slave for life. Out of this small matter the
Judge manufactures his argument that Illinois came into the Union as a
slave State. Let the facts be the answer to the argument.

The principles of the Nebraska Bill, he says, expelled slavery from
Illinois. The principle of that bill first planted it here--that is, it
first came because there was no law to prevent it, first came before we
owned the country; and finding it here, and having the Ordinance of '87 to
prevent its increasing, our people struggled along, and finally got rid of
it as best they could.

But the principle of the Nebraska Bill abolished slavery in several of the
old States. Well, it is true that several of the old States, in the last
quarter of the last century, did adopt system