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[52] the projects of the Sam Houstons, William Walkers, Quitmans, and Slidells of our day, they would have retorted as indignantly as the astonished Syrian to the Hebrew prophet--“Is thy servant a dog, that he should do this thing?” Oh that they had but known and realized that the wrong which to-day is barely tolerated for the moment, is to-morrow cherished, and the next day sustained, eulogized, and propagated!

When Ohio was made a State, in 1803, the residue of the North-West Territory became Indiana Territory, with William Henry Harrison — since President of the United States--as Governor. Its earlier settlements were mainly on the banks of the Ohio and of its northern tributaries, and were principally by emigrants from Virginia, Kentucky, and other Slave States. These emigrants, realizing an urgent need of labor, and being accustomed to supply that need by the employment of slaves, almost unanimously memorialized Congress, through a Convention assembled in 1802, and presided over by their Governor, for a temporary suspension of the sixth article of the Ordinance of ‘87, whereby Slavery was expressly prohibited. Their memorial was referred by the House of Representatives to a Select Committee of three, two of them from the Slave States, with the since famous John Randolph of Roanoke, then a young member, as its chairman. On the 2d of March, 1803, Mr. Randolph made a unanimous report from this Committee, recommending a denial of the prayer of the petitioners, for these reasons:

The rapid population of the State of Ohio sufficiently evinces, in the opinion of your Committee, that the labor of slaves is not necessary to promote the growth and settlement of colonies in that region; that this labor — demonstrably the dearest of any — can only be employed in the cultivation of products more valuable than any known to that quarter of the United States; that the Committee deem it highly dangerous and inexpedient to impair a provision wisely calculated to promote the happiness and prosperity of the North-Western Country, and to give strength and security to that extensive frontier. In the salutary operation of this sagacious and benevolent restraint, it is believed that the inhabitants of Indiana will, at no very distant day, find ample remuneration for a temporary privation of labor, and of emigration.

The session terminated the next day; and the subject was, the next winter, referred to a new committee, whereof Caesar Rodney, of Delaware, was chairman. This committee reported in favor “of a qualified suspension, for a limited time,” of the inhibition aforesaid. But Congress took no action on the report.

The people of Indiana Territory persisted in their seemingly unanimous supplication to be allowed, for a limited period, the use of Slave Labor; and Mr. Garnett, of Virginia, on the 14th of February, 1806, made

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