rt of Illinois decide (four
to three) that a colored man, held as a slave by a descendant of
an old French family, was free. Jarrot case (2 Gillman), 7 _Ill._, 1.

(22) _St. Clair Papers_, vol. i., pp. 120, 206, and vol. ii, pp.
117-119, 318, 331.

(23) Much valuable information in relation to the legal history
of slavery in the Northwest has been obtained from the manuscript
of "An Unwritten Chapter of Illinois," by ex-U. S. Judge Blodgett,
of Chicago.

(24) State _vs_. Lasselle, 1 _Blatchford_, 60.

(25) Cooley's _Michigan_, pp. 136-7.

(26) For an exhaustive legal history of the slavery restriction
clause of the Ordinance and its effect on slavery in the Northwest
Territory, see Dunn's _Indiana_, pp. 219-260.

(27) _St. Clair Papers_, vol. i., p. 122, note.

(28) _Political Text-Book_, 1860 (McPherson), p. 53.

VI
CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES

The Convention to frame the Constitution met in Philadelphia (1787).
George Washington was its President; it was composed of the leading
statesmen of the new nation, sitting in a delegate capacity, but
in voting on measures the rule of the then Congress was observed,
which was to vote by States.

The majority of the thirteen States were then slave States, and
all, save Massachusetts, still held slaves; and all the coast States
indulged in the African slave trade.

Massachusetts provided for the abolition of slavery in 1780 by
constitutional provision declaring that:

"All men are born _free and equal_, and have certain natural,
essential, and unalienable rights," etc., by which declaration its
highest judicial tribunal struck the shackles at once from every
slave in the Commonwealth.

Connecticut provided in 1784 for freeing her slaves.

New Hampshire did not prohibit slavery by express law, but all
persons born after her Constitution of 1776 were free; and slave
importation was thereafter prohibited.

Pennsylvania, in 1780, by law provided for the gradual emancipation
of slaves within her territory. To her German population and the
Society of Friends the credit is mainly due for this act of justice.
This Society had theretofore (1774) disowned, in its "yearly
Meeting," all its members who trafficked in slaves; and later (1776)
it resolved:

"That the owners of slaves, who refused to execute proper instruments
for giving them their freedom, were to be disowned likewise."

New York adopted gradual emancipation in 1799, but final emancipati