Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 9).djvu/151

 longer the vassals of England, were at liberty to pursue an independent course of policy. The subject of negro slavery engaged their attention at an early period; but, unhappily for the new government, their territory was overspread with an unfortunate race, who, by education, habits, and resentment of former injuries, were the enemies rather than the members of the social compact. In this state of affairs, an immediate emancipation would have tolerated a free communication of hostile feelings amongst a people whose antipathies were as universal as their colour. In 1780, the State of Pennsylvania, although then occupied in the struggle for independence, passed an act for gradual manumission. Subsequently the whole country, north of Virginia, consisting of eight States, has either effected the total extinction of slavery, or obtained the very near prospect of it. In 1787, a law was passed, prohibiting slave-keeping in the vast tract of country north of the Ohio, and east of the Mississippi.[67] By these means the United States have, in thirty-eight years, almost produced a total liberation of negroes, over half their jurisdiction,—a progress vastly more rapid than England made in the introduction of a similar system of release, in her dependencies. It is unnecessary to enter here on the spirit and tendency of British domination in every quarter of the globe. If the contrast between the policy of the governments of the United {121} States and England is not sufficient to restrain antijacobin tongues within the bounds of decorum, the common interest of their faction may, perhaps, be a stronger inducement to silence, as the subject affords a most striking example of popular representation operating as a most admirable corrective of