try, North and South, the negro volunteered his services for the war, and joined, both in separate companies and in conjunction with the most gallant white spirits of the time, in performing courageous services in the cause of freedom. His valor and ability were displayed on many of the historical fields of the war for independence, where under the leadership of white officers he proved himself, as on other and later fields, a valiant and efficient soldier. In Varnum's brigade of Sullivan's army operating against Newport there was a regiment of New England negroes, and in the battle of Rhode Island, "None behaved better," it has been said, "than the raw troops of Greene's colored regiment, who three times repulsed the furious charges of veteran Hessians."

As at other times, during this stress and trial of the Revolutionary struggle great inducements were offered him to enter into the military organization, and in many instances his manumission followed his enlistment; yet, incredible as it seems, were the fact not borne out by the records, in many cases at the close of the war the negro who had borne himself thus heroically in the forefront of the conflict and whose efforts had been crowned with successful achievement, was relegated to his former state of slavery, falling from the proud position of a conquering soldier to a being whose right to life, family, or property was held dependent on the caprice of his Caucasian possessor.

And yet, words had been spoken, results had been accomplished, relations had been established, which forever changed the view of some thoughtful men as to the relation which the negro race should thereafter bear to the rest of the American people. No contemplative mind could fail to appreciate the glaring inconsistency between the position of a race of slaves and the theory of a government whose corner-stone was based upon the equality of mankind, and of which the proudest claim of distinction was a document embodying

the declaration that all men were alike endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, and that amongst these rights were life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It, therefore, soon became manifest to the discerning minds of the time that in a land dedicated to freedom, equality, and opportunity, the existence of a negro race doomed to perpetual slavery was a monstrous anachronism.

Some faint conception of this idea appears to have penetrated the minds of even those unthinking blacks of postrevolutionary days, and from time to time their petitions were presented to Congress and to the colonial governments calling attention to their unfortunate condition, as well as to the glaring inconsistency of proclaiming in one breath freedom and opportunity to all men and denying these inestimable privileges to the petitioners. But the profitable development of slavery in the Southern colonies and the financial interests of all sections made it necessary carefully to safeguard the continued existence of that institution, and the plaints of the African were steadily ignored. Yet a reading of the discussions of the negro question at the time of the formation of the Constitution discloses the working of the Northern mind upon the subject, and the first marked indication of the modern elevation of thought which has brought about the emancipation of the negro race, and which in time will bring about the solution of the negro problem, is to be found in the adoption of the Ordinance of 1787 by the Continental Congress. This is certainly the primitive landmark of the coming freedom of the race.

It came about in this wise: As a result of the Revolutionary War, the colonies then constituting but the merest

Efforts to

Restrict
Slavery.

territorial fringe upon the Atlantic coast found themselves charged with the responsibility of regulating and governing that vast tract of country which stretched westward from their borders between

the Great Lakes and the Gulf. Conflicting claims existed among the states as to this territory, but eventually patriotism prevailed, and all appear to have been willing to concede to the central government the general supervision and control of this valuable national asset. Accordingly, in the year 1784, the duty of framing an ordinance for the government of this great Western territory was referred to a select committee of the Continental Congress, consisting of Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, Samuel Chase of Maryland, and David Howell of Rhode Island. The plan reported by this committee contemplated the general organization into states of all the territory comprised as above stated.

But the interesting point to be noted here is the provision inserted by the hand of Thomas Jefferson, as follows:

But after the year one thousand eight hundred of the Christian Era there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in any of the said states otherwise than in punishment of crimes whereof the party shall have been convicted to be guilty.

This attempt to secure the adoption of a plain principle of freedom in the undeveloped regions of the Northwest marks the initial effort of enlightened statesmanship to direct the steps of the coming nation into the path so long and so painfully trod by our country leading toward the emancipation, education, uplifting, and final establishment of the African race. For the time and as a whole this provision was rejected, but in 1787 the last Continental Congress framed an ordinance for the government of the Northwestern Territory, embracing that section of the above-mentioned tract northwest of the Ohio River, which measure contained the great provision permanently establishing the principle of freedom in the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. For by this ordinance it was

enacted that neither slavery nor involuntary servitude otherwise than for the punishment of crime should ever exist in this territory so consecrated to be the home of freemen. However, from the Ohio to the Gulf the territory was left open to the exploitation of the enslaved negro.

In this same year the Constitutional Convention was in session, and the existence of the negro in a condition of slavery presented an apparently insuperable obstacle to the formation of a better and more perfect union. It is manifest from an examination of the debates and discussions of that renowned body that there existed upon the part of many of the delegates a desire then and there to free the country from the taint of human slavery and to make the generalities of the Declaration of Independence the expression of living truth.

Roger Sherman, of Connecticut, one of the strong minds. of the Convention, is on record as having stated that the abolition of slavery seemed to be going on in the United States and that the good sense of the several states would probably by degrees bring it to completion. His colleague, Oliver Ellsworth, expressed himself to the effect that slavery in time would not be a speck upon the country, and generally an optimistic spirit seems to have animated the conduct of our forefathers in their dealings with this momentous and perilous question.

But the subject was one of the gravest difficulty, the obstacles were too great to be surmounted, and the Constitution itself bears intrinsic evidence of the compromises necessitated by the existence of the negro race. Neither

the ugly word "negro" nor the still uglier word "slavery" appears in the instrument. The negroes are uniformly referred to as "persons"; slavery is softened into "service" or "labor"; the hideous slave-trade is toned down into "importation of persons"; and so far as the choice of language

could effect the purpose, the existence of the plague-spot in our political structure was carefully concealed.

As the result of the discussion by the delegates, three important provisions bearing upon the negro question were incorporated in the Constitution:

FIRST:-Article I., Section II.

Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several states which may be included within this Union according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three-fifths of all other persons.

This section marks the outcome of the great contest in the Convention over the question as to whether negroes, not being citizens, should be included as a basis for representation in the Congress and in the Electoral College. The manifest unfairness of allowing an enslaved and non-voting negro to count in the representation as the equivalent of a free white man was not overlooked in the Convention, but the necessity for compromise prevailed, and the clause giving to the Southern states a disproportionate weight in the councils of the nation was inserted as a fundamental requirement of the formation of the Constitution, one without which its adoption by the necessary number of states could never have been secured.

SECOND: Article I., Section IX.

The migration or importation of such persons as any of the states now existing shall think proper to admit shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a tax or duty may be imposed on such importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each person.