Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/448

 of 1777, so that to Vermont the honor belongs of having been the first American state to abolish and prohibit slavery.

Kentucky was admitted iuto the Union, by act of congress, Feb. 4, 1791, before any constitution had been formed for the state. In 1792, however, a constitution was framed. An article on the subject of slavery provided that the legislature should have no power to pass laws for the emancipation of slaves without the consent of their owners, nor without paying therefor, previous to such emancipation, a full equivalent in money; nor laws to prevent immigrants from bringing with them persons deemed slaves by the laws of any one of the United States, so long as any persons of like age and description should be continued in slavery by the laws of Kentucky. But laws might be passed prohibiting the introduction of slaves for the purpose of sale, and also laws to oblige the owners of slaves to treat them with humanity, to provide them with necessary clothing and provisions, and to abstain from all injuries extending to life or limb; and provision might be made, in case of disobedience to such laws, for the sale of the slave to some other owner, the proceeds to be paid over to the late master. The legislature was also required to pass laws giving to owners of slaves the right of emancipation, saving the rights of creditors, and requiring security that the emancipated slaves should not become a burden to the county.

During the congressional session of 1791, the abolition society of Pennsylvania presented a memorial, calling upon congress to exercise, for the suppression of the slave-trade, those powers which, by the report of the committee of the whole, entered on the journals of the house, congress had been declared to possess. Reënforced by others from the abolition societies of Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Virginia, and from several local societies in Maryland, that memorial was referred to a special committee. As that committee made no report, memorials were presented at the next session from the abolition societies of New Hampshire and Massachusetts, recalling the attention of congress to the subject; but these were suffered to lie upon the table without reference. Afterward a separate petition was presented from Warner Mifflin, a philanthropic Quaker of Delaware, on the general subject of negro slavery, its injustice, and the necessity of its abolition. At the time of its presentation, this document was read and laid upon the table without comment. Two days after, Nov. 26, 1792, Steele, of North Carolina, called attention to it by observing "that, after what had passed at New York, he had hoped the house would have heard no more of that subject. To his surprise, he found the business started anew by a fanatic, who, not content with keeping his jwn conscience, undertook to be the keeper of the consciences of other men, and, in a manner not very decent, had obtruded his opinion on the house." After some complaints vhat such a petition should have been presented, Steele moved that it be returned to the petitioner by the clerk, and that the entry of it be erased from the journal. The petition, it chanced, had been presented by Ames, to whom Mifflin had applied for that purpose, as the Delaware member happened to c absent. Ames hastened to renew the declaration of his