The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus

by American Anti-Slavery Society

"Whereas, the children of men are by nature equally free, and cannot, without injustice, be either reduced to or HELD in slavery."

In his letter while Minister at Spain, in 1786, he says, speaking of the abolition of slavery: "Till America comes into this measure, her prayers to heaven will be IMPIOUS. I believe God governs the world; and I believe it to be a maxim in his, as in our court, that those who ask for equity ought to do it."

In 1785, the New York Manumission Society was formed. John Jay was chosen its first President, and held the office five years. Alexander Hamilton was its second President, and after holding the office one year, resigned upon his removal to Philadelphia as Secretary of the United States' Treasury. In 1787, the Pennsylvania Abolition Society was formed. Benjamin Franklin, warm from the discussions of the convention that formed the U.S. constitution, was chosen President, and Benjamin Rush Secretary--both signers of the Declaration of Independence. In 1789, the Maryland Abolition Society was formed. Among its officers were Samuel Chase, Judge of the U.S. Supreme Court, and Luther Martin, a member of the convention that formed the U.S. constitution. In 1790, the Connecticut Abolition Society was formed. The first President was Rev. Dr. Stiles, President of Yale College, and the Secretary, Simeon Baldwin, (late Judge Baldwin of New Haven.) In 1791, this Society sent a memorial to Congress, from which the following is an extract:

"From a sober conviction of the unrighteousness of slavery, your petitioners have long beheld, with grief, our fellow men doomed to perpetual bondage, in a country which boasts of her freedom. Your petitioners were led, by motives, we conceive, of general philanthropy, to associate ourselves for the protection and assistance of this unfortunate part of our fellow men; and, though this Society has been lately established, it has now become generally extensive through this state, and, we fully believe, embraces, on this subject, the sentiments of a large majority of its citizens."

The same year the Virginia Abolition Society was formed. This Society, and the Maryland Society, had auxiliaries in different parts of those States. Both societies sent up memorials to Congress. The memorial of the Virginia Society is headed--"The memorial of the Virginia Society, for promoting the Abolition of Slavery," &c. The following is an extract:

"Your memorialists, fully believing that slavery is not only an odious degradation, but an outrageous violation of one of the most essential rights of human nature, and utterly repugnant to the precepts of the gospel," &c.

About the same time a Society was formed in New-Jersey. It had an acting committee of five members in each county in the State. The following is an extract from the preamble to its constitution:

"It is our boast, that we live under a government, wherein life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, are recognized as the universal rights of men. We abhor that inconsistent, illiberal, and interested policy, which withholds those rights from an unfortunate and degraded class of our fellow creatures."

Among other distinguished individuals who were efficient officers of these Abolition Societies, and delegates from their respective state societies, at the annual meetings of the American convention for promoting the abolition of slavery, were Hon. Uriah Tracy, United States' Senator, from Connecticut; Hon. Zephaniah Swift, Chief Justice of the same State; Hon. Cesar A. Rodney, Attorney General of the United States; Hon. James A. Bayard, United States' Senator, from Delaware; Governor Bloomfield, of New-Jersey; Hon. Wm. Rawle, the late venerable head of the Philadelphia bar; Dr. Caspar Wistar, of Philadelphia; Messrs. Foster and Tillinghast, of Rhode Island; Messrs. Ridgely, Buchanan, and Wilkinson, of Maryland; and Messrs. Pleasants, McLean, and Anthony, of Virginia.

In July, 1787, the old Congress passed the celebrated ordinance abolishing slavery in the northwestern territory, and declaring that it should never thereafter exist there. This ordinance was passed while the convention that formed the United States' constitution was in session. At the first session of Congress under the constitution, this ordinance was ratified by a special act. Washington, fresh from the discussions of the convention, in which more than forty days had been spent in adjusting the question of slavery, gave it his approval. The act passed with only one dissenting voice, (that of Mr. Yates, of New York,) the South equally with the North avowing the fitness and expediency of the measure on general considerations, and indicating thus early the line of national policy, to be pursued by the United States' Government on the subject of slavery.