Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 9.djvu/280

256 and their opinions and acts come down to us like the voice of departed experience to those just entering upon the stage of life. Thomas Jefferson was a great man— towering, like Saul, above his fellows for sagacity and judgment—born and bred in Virginia, and a slaveholder all his life. On the 19th of April, 1784, he moved in the Congress of the Confederation that slavery be prohibited in all the territory of the United States north of the 31st parallel of north latitude. Now slavery would have been either a benefit or an injury to that country. Jefferson must have determined that it would be an injury, and no man was ever more competent to decide such a question. On the 13th of July, 1787, the Congress of the Confederation voted unanimously to exclude slavery from the Northwest Territory. Massachusetts and South Carolina stood together in favor of that measure. South Carolina, exasperated by sectional strife, would no doubt at this time condemn that vote, but I appeal from Philip drunk to Philip sober. I appeal from South Carolina of nullification to the South Carolina of the Revolution. I argue from this vote in 1787, that it was then the deliberate judgment of the whole United States in Congress assembled, that slavery would be an injury to the Northwest Territory, and therefore it was excluded. North Carolina in 1786 declared the introduction of slaves into that State "of evil consequences and highly impolitic," and imposed a duty of five pounds per head thereon. Virginia, in 1778, passed an act prohibiting the further introduction of slaves, and in 1782, removed all restrictions to emancipation. Maryland followed her example. Gradually these States were preparing to get rid of slaves, when abolitionism from the North, with a foolish zeal which has characterized it from that time to this, wounded their pride and awakened their jealousy, and then the movement went backwards, and slavery was forever enthroned in the heart and interests of Southern society. I cite these facts simply to show, that before the slave question was dragged into the political arena, the judgment of all parts of the country was against the advantages of slavery.