The examiner. [volume] (Louisville, Ky.) 1847-1849, 1848-07-15
Jehr Wan Is~ren'. l.n., .,..,.

3 GeneseO, n. Y. We make room Cor the open
/ ing Portionof his speech, as 1t relates TO a sub
0 Ject upon which too much light cannot b
thrown.
Felloto Citizens.--A convention of III,
democrats pf this county, having invited m,
to address jou here today, it gives me grea
pleasure to comply with their request. A
j presidential election is about approaching
and the electors OF this State will shortly bt
called upon to discharge the responsible
trust, so far as devolves upon them, of ele
i waiting TO the chef magistracy OF twenty mil
lions Of free people, one Of the citizens o.
this republic. The great question which
now agitates the public mind in connection
with this duty, il whether slavery shall be
extended TO territories of the United States
that are now free. Thomas Jefferson, in
drawing the Declaration OF independence
in &c. and in entsnefsting the expressions
lpractised upon the colonies BY the King OF
Great Britain charges him with having waged
n cruel war against human nature itself, VIC.
lating its most sacred rights Of life and lib
erty, in the persons Of distant people who
never offended him. 'This practical war
fare, (he said,) the opProbium of infdel
powers, is the warfare Of the Christian King
Of Great Britain. Determined to keep a
market where men should be bought and
sold, he has prostimted his negative Tor sup
pressing any legislative attempt to restrain
this execrable traffic" The language thus
employed in regard to the slave trade, was
not stronger than was used at that day by
the same distinguished man, as well as by
George Washington, Patrick Henry, James
Madison, James Monroe, George Mason,
and the other slaveholding patriots Of the
revolution, in speaking Of domestic slavery
itself; with the singleexcePion that the for
eign slave trade was an evil which our fore
fathers had it in their power promptly TO sup
press, and were. Therefore, responsible for the
continuance of it, whilst domestic slavery
was condition forced upon US by the moth
er country, for which we were not response
bic, and which required time, humanity and
philanthropy to amelioiate and extinguish.
Those who declared and established our
independence, like Those patriots who re-
Gently overturned the French monarchy,
knew and felt that the basis Of true freedom
was the equality Of man and to bring about
this happy result consistently with the con-
diion Of the country. they adopted the fol
lowing policy. In regard TO the States
where slavery existed it was left to the wis
dom and humanity Of the State government
TO escape from the evil. The unsettled ter. !
ritory north and west of the Ohio, out Of
which it was contemplated that future States
would be formed, belonged TO Virginia.
This territory was ceded to the United
States Immediately at The close Of the revo
luton. Jefferson was che Of the grsntors
in the deed Of cession; the following year
he introduced an ordinance (cheers) by
which il was declared, that after 1900, slav-
sry, involuntary s-Tsttude, oAo=pt as d
punishment for crime, should never exist in
such territory, or in the States TO be formed
out Of il. Three years afterwards an ord-
nance was past by which slavery was i'm
mediately and for ever prohibited in said ter
ritory.
This ordnance passed the Congress OF the
confederation unanimously, and was sent to
Virginia to be ratified by the Legislature Of
that State; il was so ratified almost unani-
mously. The trainers of the constitution,
at the same time and place, authorised Con-
gress after 1908, to prohibit the foreign slave
trade. This delay Of twenty years in work
OF humanity and Justice was concession
wrung from the patriots Of Virginia and Of
the North, by the obstinacy Of South Caro-
lima and Georgia, which States, by their
delegates in the convention, refused TO come
into the Union unless the concession was
made. The first Congress under the new
constitution, in 1889, to remove all doubt
Of the validity Of the ordinance Of 1887, rati-
fed it by legislative act. Edward Coles,
most estimable and intelligent citizen Of
Philadelphia member of one OF the
strongest and most influential families Of
Virginia, private secretary to Mr.. Madison
during his presidency, and formerly Cover.
nor Of the State Of Illinois--iniorms me that
the ordinance Of 1887 actually emancipaied
large number Of slaves, who, at the time
OF its passage, were found in the territory
now composing the State Of Illinois.
So early as 1876, st. George Tacker,
one of the ablest men in Virginia, publish
ed plan for the abolition of slavery in that
State; and in inlorcing the propriey Of such
abolition, be described slavery as an evil a
thousand times greater than all the others
which Great Britain had subjected us to,
and one from which Virginia must be saved,
or her physical and moral destruction would
be inevitable. This glance at the early
history of our country, and at the action Of
the patriots Of the revolution, satisfied me
that the trainers Of the constitution regarded
slavery as a moral, social, and political
curse; that one great object ofthe revolution
was to escape from it, and that they intend
ed to make, and did make government, in
which Congress should have power to pro-
hibit and abolish slavery in all the terrific
RES Of the United States; and they intended
10 form, and did form Union, into which
no more slave States should ever come, and
the members OF which should, in good faith,
proceed az rapidly as possible to rid them
selves of this whitening blight, and secure
their associates from the reproach and dis
grace which its existence brought upon the
association and its name.
The policy OF the country, from the revo-
luton till recently, with the exception Of
the admission OF Texas, Louisiana and Flor
ida, in all of which, inmy judgment, slav-