ritory, which constitutes the District of Columbia, with
reservations on the subject of slavery. We answer, that none were
expressed;[A] and that if there had been, Congress would not, and in
view of the language of the Constitution, could not, have accepted the
cessions. You may then say, that they would not have ceded the
territory, had it occurred to them, that Congress would have cleared it
of slavery; and that, this being the fact, Congress could not thus clear
it, without being guilty of bad faith, and of an ungenerous and
unjustifiable surprise on those States. There are several reasons for
believing, that those States, not only did not, at the period in
question, cherish a dread of the abolition of slavery; but that the
public sentiment within them was decidedly in favor of its speedy
abolition. At that period, their most distinguished statesmen were
trumpet-tongued against slavery. At that period, there was both a
Virginia and a Maryland society "for promoting the abolition of
slavery;" and, it was then, that, with the entire consent of Virginia
and Maryland, effectual measures were adopted to preclude slavery from
that large territory, which has since given Ohio and several other
States to the Union. On this subject, as on that of the inter-state
slave trade, we misinterpret Virginia and Maryland, by not considering,
how unlike was their temper in relation to slavery, amidst the decays
and dying throes of that institution half a century ago, to what it is
now, when slavery is not only revivified, but has become the predominant
interest and giant power of the nation. We forget, that our whole
country was, at that time, smitten with love for the holy cause of
impartial and universal liberty. To judge correctly of the view, which
our Revolutionary fathers took of oppression, we must go back and stand
by their side, in their struggles against it,--we must survey them
through the medium of the anti-slavery sentiment of their own times, and
not impute to them the pro-slavery spirit so rampant in ours.

[Footnote A: There is a proviso in the Act of Virginia. It was on this,
that three years ago, in the Senate of the United States, Benjamin
Watkins Leigh built his argument against the constitutional power of
Congress to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia. I well remember
that you then denied the soundness of his argument. This superfluous
proviso virtually forbids Congress to pass laws, which shall "affect the