Page:The landmark of freedom.djvu/48

Rh men was Washington surrounded, while from his own Virginia came the voice of Patrick Henry, amidst confessions that he was a master of slaves, crying "I will not, I cannot justify it. However culpable my conduct, I will so far pay my devoir to virtue as to own the excellence and rectitude of her precepts and lament my want of conformity to them." Such words as these, fitly coming from our leaders, belong to the true glories of the country:—

The earliest Congress under the Constitution adopted the ordinance of freedom for the North-western Territory, and thus ratified the prohibition of slavery in all the existing; Territories of the Union. In the list of those who sanctioned this act were men fresh from the labors of the Convention, and therefore familiar with its policy. But there is another voice which bears testimony in the same direction. Among the petitions presented to the First Congress was one from the Abolition Society of Pennsylvania, signed by Benjamin Franklin, as President. This venerable votary of freedom, who throughout a long life had splendidly served his country at home and abroad—who, as statesman and philosopher, had won the admiration of mankind—who had ravished the lightning from the skies and the sceptre from the tyrant—whose name,