rom Kaskaskia to
Congress, praying that the anti-slavery article in the Ordinance of 1787
might be either repealed or so altered as to permit the introduction of
slaves from the original states or elsewhere into the country of Illinois,
that a law might be enacted permitting the introduction of such slaves as
servants for life, and that it might be declared for what period the
children of such servants should serve the masters of their parents. This
petition was signed by four men, including some of the largest landowners
in Illinois, but as the petition, while purporting to come from Illinois
alone, concerned the entire Northwest Territory, as there was no
indication that the four petitioners represented Illinois sentiment, and
as the congressional committee was informed that many of the inhabitants
of the territory did not desire the proposed change, the prayer of the
petition was denied.(494)

In 1800, two hundred and sixty-eight inhabitants of Illinois, chiefly
French, petitioned Congress to repeal the anti-slavery provision of the
Ordinance, stating that many of the inhabitants were crossing the
Mississippi with their slaves. The petition was not considered.(495) A
similar request, presented late in 1802, was twice reported upon by
committees, one report (Randolph's) declaring that the growth of Ohio
proved that a lack of slavery would not seriously retard settlement, while
the other was in favor of suspending the anti-slavery article for ten
years, the male descendants of immigrating slaves to be free at the age of
twenty-five years, and the females at twenty-one.(496) In 1805 a majority
of the members of the respective houses of the Indiana legislature
petitioned for the repeal of the anti-slavery article, and this petition
was closely followed by a memorial from Illinois expressing the hope that
the general government would not pass unnoticed the act of the last
legislature authorizing the importation of slaves into the territory. It
violated the Ordinance, the memorialists declared, and although they
desired slavery they professed themselves to be law-abiding.(497) A
committee report on the petition and memorial recommended that permission
to import slaves into Indiana (then including Illinois) for ten years be
granted, in order that the evil effects of slavery might be mitigated by
its dispersion, but no legislation resulted from the report,(498) and the
next year petitioning was resumed. The legislature sent r