_. Three years after the cession, the Virginia delegation in
Congress _proposed_ the passage of an ordinance which should abolish
slavery, in that territory, and declare that it should never thereafter
exist there. All the members of Congress from Virginia and Maryland
voted for this ordinance. Suppose some member of Congress had during the
passage of the ordinance introduced the following resolution: "Resolved,
That when the northwest territory was ceded by Virginia to the United
States, domestic slavery existed in that State, including the ceded
territory, and as it still continues in that State, it could not be
abolished within the territory without a violation of that good faith,
which was implied in the cession and in the acceptance of the
territory." What would have been the indignant response of Grayson,
Griffin, Madison, and the Lees, in the Congress of '87, to such a
resolution, and of Carrington, Chairman of the Committee, who reported
the ratification of the ordinance in the Congress of '89, and of Page
and Parker, who with every other member of the Virginia delegation
supported it!

But to enumerate all the absurdities into which the thirty-six Senators
have plunged themselves, would be to make a quarto inventory. We decline
the task; and in conclusion, merely add that Mr. Clay, in presenting
this resolution, and each of the thirty-six Senators who voted for it,
entered on the records of the Senate, and proclaimed to the world, a
most unworthy accusation against the MILLIONS of American citizens who
have during nearly half a century petitioned the national legislature to
abolish slavery in the District of Columbia,--charging them either with
the ignorance or the impiety of praying the nation to violate its
"PLIGHTED FAITH." The resolution virtually indicts at the bar of public
opinion, and brands with odium, all the Manumission Societies, the
_first_ petitioners for the abolition of slavery in the District, and
for a long time the only ones, petitioning from year to year through
evil report and good report, still petitioning, by individual societies
and in their national conventions.

But as if it were not enough to table the charge against such men as
Benjamin Rush, William Rawle, John Sergeant, Robert Vaux, Cadwallader
Colden, and Peter A. Jay,--to whom we may add Rufus King, James
Hillhouse, William Pinkney, Thomas Addis Emmett, Daniel D. Tompkins, De
Witt Clinton, James Kent, and Daniel Webster, besides