slave had been taken by her master to France and brought back; Judge Matthews, of the Supreme Court of Louisiana, decided that "residence for one moment" under the laws of France emancipated her.

6. EMINENT STATESMEN, THEMSELVES SLAVEHOLDERS, HAVE CONCEDED THIS POWER. Washington, in a letter to Robert Morris, April 12, 1786, says: "There is not a man living, who wishes more sincerely than I do, to see a plan adopted for the abolition of slavery; but there is only one proper and effectual mode by which it can be accomplished, and that is by legislative authority." In a letter to Lafayette, May 10, 1786, he says: "It (the abolition of slavery) certainly might, and assuredly ought to be effected, and that too by legislative authority." In a letter to John Fenton Mercer, Sept. 9, 1786, he says: "It is among my first wishes to see some plan adopted by which slavery in this country may be abolished by law." In a letter to Sir John Sinclair, he says: "There are in Pennsylvania, laws for the gradual abolition of slavery, which neither Maryland nor Virginia have at present, but which nothing is more certain than that they must have, and at a period not remote." Jefferson, speaking of movements in the Virginia Legislature in 1777, for the passage of a law emancipating the slaves, says: "The principles of the amendment were agreed on, that is to say, the freedom of all born after a certain day; but it was found that the public mind would not bear the proposition, yet the day is not far distant when it must bear and adopt it."--Jefferson's Memoirs, v. i. p. 35. It is well known that Jefferson, Pendleton, Mason, Wythe and Lee, while acting as a committee of the Virginia House of Delegates to revise the State Laws, prepared a plan for the gradual emancipation of the slaves by law. These men were the great lights of Virginia. Mason, the author of the Virginia Constitution; Pendleton, the President of the memorable Virginia Convention in 1787, and President of the Virginia Court of Appeals; Wythe was the Blackstone of the Virginia bench, for a quarter of a century Chancellor of the State, the professor of law in the University of William and Mary, and the preceptor of Jefferson, Madison, and Chief Justice Marshall. He was the author of the celebrated remonstrance to the English House of Commons on the subject of the stamp act. As to Jefferson, his name is his biography.

Every slaveholding member of Congress from the States of Maryland, Virginia, North and South Carolina, and Georgia, voted for the celebrated ordinance of 1787, which abolished the slavery then existing in the Northwest Territory. Patrick Henry, in his well known letter to Robert Pleasants, of Virginia, January 18, 1773, says: "I believe a time will come when an opportunity will be offered to abolish this lamentable evil." William Pinkney, of Maryland, advocated the abolition of slavery by law, in the legislature of that State, in 1789. Luther Martin urged the same measure both in the Federal Convention, and in his report to the Legislature of Maryland. In 1796, St. George Tucker, of Virginia, professor of law in the University of William and Mary, and Judge of the General Court, published a dissertation on slavery, urging the abolition of slavery by law.

John Jay, while New-York was yet a slave State, and himself in law a slaveholder, said in a letter from Spain, in 1786, "An excellent law might be made out of the Pennsylvania one, for the gradual abolition of slavery. Were I in your legislature, I would present a bill for the purpose, and I would never cease moving it till it became a law, or I ceased to be a member."

Governor Tompkins, in a message to the Legislature of New-York, January 8, 1812, said: "To devise the means for the gradual and ultimate extermination from amongst us of slavery, is a work worthy the representatives of a polished and enlightened nation."

The Virginia Legislature asserted this power in 1832. At the close of a month's debate, the following proceedings were had. I extract from an editorial article in the Richmond Whig, Jan. 26, 1832.

"The report of the Select Committee, adverse to legislation on the subject of Abolition, was in these words: Resolved, as the opinion of this Committee, that it is INEXPEDIENT FOR THE PRESENT, to make any legislative enactments for the abolition of slavery." This Report Mr. Preston moved to reverse, and thus to declare that it was expedient, now to make legislative enactments for the abolition of slavery. This was meeting the question in its strongest form. It demanded action, and immediate action. On this proposition the vote was 58 to 73. Many of the most decided friends of abolition voted against the amendment, because they thought public opinion not sufficiently prepared for it, and that it might prejudice the cause to move too rapidly. The vote on Mr. Witcher's motion to postpone the whole subject indefinitely, indicates the true state of opinion in the House. That was the test question, and was so intended and proclaimed by its mover. That motion was negatived, 71 to 60; showing a majority of 11, who by that vote, declared their belief that at the proper time, and in the proper mode, Virginia ought to commence a system of gradual abolition.

7. THE CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES HAVE ASSERTED THIS POWER. The ordinance of '87, declaring that there should be "neither slavery nor involuntary servitude," in the North Western Territory, abolished the slavery then existing there. The Sup. Court of Mississippi, [Harvey vs. Decker, Walker's Mi. Reps. 36,] declared that the ordinance of '87 emancipated the slaves then held there. In this decision the question is argued ably and at great length. The Supreme Court of La. made the same decision in the case of Forsyth vs. Nash, 4 Martin's La. Reps. 385. The same doctrine was laid down by Judge Porter, (late United States Senator from La.,) in his decision at the March term of the La. Supreme Court, 1830, Merry vs. Chexnaider, 20 Martin's Reps. 699.

That the ordinance abolished the slavery then existing there is also shown by the fact, that persons holding slaves in the territory petitioned for the repeal of the article abolishing slavery, assigning that as a reason. "The petition of the citizens of Randolph and St. Clair counties in the Illinois country, stating that they were in possession of slaves, and praying the repeal of that act (the 6th article of the ordinance of '87) and the passage of a law legalizing slavery there." [Am. State papers, Public Lands, v. 1. p. 69.] Congress passed this ordinance before the United States' Constitution was adopted, when it derived all its authority from the articles of Confederation, which conferred powers of legislation far more restricted than those committed to Congress over the District and Territories by the United States' Constitution. Now, we ask, how does the Constitution abridge the powers which Congress possessed under the articles of confederation?

The abolition of the slave trade by Congress, in 1808, is another illustration of the competency of legislative power to abolish slavery. The African slave trade has become such a mere technic, in common parlance, that the fact of its being proper slavery is overlooked. The buying and selling, the transportation, and the horrors of the middle passage, were mere incidents of the slavery in which the victims were held. Let things be called by their own names. When Congress abolished the African slave trade, it abolished SLAVERY--supreme slavery--power frantic with license, trampling a whole hemisphere scathed with its fires, and running down with blood. True, Congress did not, in the abolition of the slave trade, abolish all the slavery within its jurisdiction, but it did abolish all the slavery in one part of its jurisdiction. What has rifled it of power to abolish slavery in another part of its jurisdiction, especially in that part where it has "exclusive legislation in