Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/456

CHAPTER XXV.

Political History of Slavery in the United States, from 1800 to 1807.

Slave population in 1800. — Georgia cedes territory — slavery clause. — Territory of Indiana — attempt to introduce Slavery in 1803 — Petition Congress — Com. of H. R. report against it. — Session of 1804, committee report in favor of it, limited to ten years. — No action on report. — Foreign slave-trade prohibited with Orleans Territory, 1804. — South Carolina revives slave-trade; the subject before Congress. — New Jersey provides for gradual extinction of slavery, 1804. — Attempt to gradually abolish slavery in District of Columbia, unsuccessful in Congress. — Renewed attempt to introduce slavery into Territory of Indiana, 1806, unsuccessful. — Legislature of Territory in favor of it, 1807 — Congressional committee report against it. — Jefferson's Message — recommendation to abolish African slave-trade — the subject before Congress — bill reported — the debate — Speeches of members — Act passed 1807, its provisions.

The total population of the United States in 1800, was 5,305,925 persons, of whom 893,041 were slaves. The following table exhibits the number of slaves in each State:

 

CENSUS OF 1800 — SLAVE POPULATION.
District of Columbia	3,244		New Hampshire	8
Connecticut	951		New York	20,343
Delaware	6,153		North Carolina	133,296
Goorgia	59,404		Pennsylvania	1,706
Indiana Territory	135		Rhode Island	381
Kentucky	40,343		South Carolina	146,151
Maryland	105,635		Tennessee	13,584
Mississippi Territory	3,489		Virginia	345,796
New Jersey	12,422		Aggregate, 893,041.

 

Georgia, in 1802, April 2d, ceded the territory lying west of her present limits, now forming the states of Alabama and Mississippi. Among the conditions exacted by her, and accepted by the United States, is the following:

"That the territory thus ceded shall become a state, and be admitted into the Union as soon as it shall contain sixty thousand free inhabitants, or, at an earlier period, if congress shall think it expedient, on the same conditions and restrictions, with the same privileges, and in the same manner, as provided in the ordinance of congress of the 13th day of July, 1787, for the government of the western territory of the United States: which ordinance shall, in all its parts, extend to the territory contained in the present act of cession, the article only excepted which forbids slavery."

When Ohio was made a state in 1802-3, the residue of the territory conveyed by the ordinance of 1787, was called the Indiana Territory, and William Henry Harrison was appointed governor. The new territory made repeated efforts to procure a relaxation in her favor of the restrictive clause of the ordinance of 1787, one of them through the instrumentality of a convention assembled in 1802-3, and presided over by the territorial governor; so he, with