ress. It appears from the proceedings of
the House of Representatives that several petitions of the same purport
from inhabitants of the Territory, accompanied by a letter from William
Henry Harrison, the Governor (afterward President of the United States),
had been under consideration nearly two years earlier. The prayer of
these petitions was for a _suspension_ of the sixth article of the
Ordinance, so as to permit the introduction of slaves into the
Territory. The whole subject was referred to a select committee of seven
members, consisting of representatives from Virginia, Ohio,
Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Kentucky, and New York, and the delegate
from the Indiana Territory.

On the 14th of the ensuing February (1806), this committee made a report
favorable to the prayer of the petitioners, and recommending a
suspension of the prohibitory article for ten years. In their report the
committee, after stating their opinion that a qualified suspension of
the article in question would be beneficial to the people of the Indiana
Territory, proceeded to say:

"The suspension of this article is an object almost universally
desired in that Territory. It appears to your committee to be a
question entirely different from that between slavery and
freedom, inasmuch as it would merely occasion the removal of
persons, already slaves, from one part of the country to
another. The good effects of this suspension, in the present
instance, would be to accelerate the population of that
Territory, hitherto retarded by the operation of that article of
compact; as slaveholders emigrating into the Western country
might then indulge any preference which they might feel for a
settlement in the Indiana Territory, instead of seeking, as they
are now compelled to do, settlements in other States or
countries permitting the introduction of slaves. The condition
of the slaves themselves would be much ameliorated by it, as it
is evident, from experience, that the more they are separated
and diffused the more care and attention are bestowed on them by
their masters, each proprietor having it in his power to
increase their comforts and conveniences in proportion to the
smallness of their numbers."

These were the dispassionate utterances of representatives of every part
of the Union--men contemporary with the origin of the Constitution,
speaking before any sectional divisio