In July, 1787, the old Congress passed the celebrated ordinance abolishing slavery in the northwestern territory, and declaring that it should never thereafter exist there.  This ordinance was passed while the convention that formed the United States’ constitution was in session.  At the first session of Congress under the constitution, this ordinance was ratified by a special act.  Washington, fresh from the discussions of the convention, in which more than forty days had been spent in adjusting the question of slavery, gave it his approval.  The act passed with only one dissenting voice, (that of Mr. Yates, of New York,) the South equally with the North avowing the fitness and expediency of the measure on general considerations, and indicating thus early the line of national policy, to be pursued by the United States’ Government on the subject of slavery.

In the debates in the North Carolina Convention, Mr. Iredell, afterward a Judge of the United States’ Supreme Court, said, “When the entire abolition of slavery takes place, it will be an event which must be pleasing to every generous mind and every friend of human nature.”  Mr. Galloway said, “I wish to see this abominable trade put an end to.  I apprehend the clause (touching the slave trade) means to bring forward manumission.”  Luther Martin, of Maryland, a member of the convention that formed the United States’ Constitution, said, “We ought to authorize the General Government to make such regulations as shall be thought most advantageous for the gradual abolition of slavery, and the emancipation of the slaves which are already in the States.”  Judge Wilson, of Pennsylvania, one of the framers of the constitution, said, in the Pennsylvania convention of ’87, [Deb.  Pa.  Con. p. 303, 156:] “I consider this (the clause relative to the slave trade) as laying the foundation for banishing slavery out of this country.  It will produce the same kind of gradual change which was produced in Pennsylvania; the new States which are to be formed will be under the control of Congress in this particular, and slaves will never be introduced among them.  It presents us with the pleasing prospect that the rights of mankind will be acknowledged and established throughout the Union.  Yet the lapse of a few years, and Congress will have power to exterminate slavery within our borders.”  In the Virginia convention of ’87, Mr. Mason, author of the Virginia constitution, said, “The augmentation of slaves weakens the States, and such a trade is diabolical in itself, and disgraceful to mankind.  As much as I value a union of all the States, I would not admit the Southern States, (i.e., South Carolina and Georgia,) into the union, unless they agree to a discontinuance of this disgraceful trade.”  Mr. Tyler opposed with great power the clause prohibiting the abolition of the slave trade till 1808, and said, “My earnest desire is, that it shall be handed down to