y by England, but
partly, also, by the North. Believing, as I do, that this war was
produced by slavery, we should still remember by whom the slaves were
imported here.

Nor should we forget how zealously, from first to last, Virginia,
Maryland, and Delaware, in framing the Federal Constitution, sustained
by Washington, Franklin, and Hamilton, and by New York, Pennsylvania,
and New Jersey, opposed the continuance, even for a day, of the African
slave trade, and how they were overborne by the unfortunate coalition of
the Eastern States with Georgia and the Carolinas, legalizing the
execrable traffic for twenty years, and how fearfully the predictions of
those great prophet statesmen, George Mason, of Virginia, and Luther
Martin, of Maryland, have been fulfilled, that this fatal measure, by
the force of its moral influence in favor of slavery, and by the rapid
importation of negroes here, would menace the peace and safety of the
Union.

Indeed, when the Constitution was framed, Virginia, Maryland, and
Delaware, not only opposed the African slave trade, but interdicted the
interstate slave trade. All these States then regarded slavery as a
great evil, destined soon to disappear, and the failure to adopt gradual
emancipation arose, mainly, from the fact, that the majority could not
agree as to the practical details of the measure. In Virginia,
Washington, Jefferson, George Mason, Madison and Monroe, Marshall and
St. George Tucker, were all gradual emancipationists. Even as late as
1830, the measure failed, only by a single vote in the Virginia State
Convention; and this year, Western Virginia has voted for manumission
with great unanimity. Let us then, as a nation, do our full duty on this
question to all loyal citizens; and the border States, acting by compact
with the Federal Government, will surely adopt the system of gradual
emancipation and colonization. The failure of any State to adopt the
measure immediately, although greatly to be deplored, is no indication
as to what their course will be when the rebellion shall have been
suppressed, and Congress acted definitely on the subject.

As the North, next to England, was mainly responsible for forcing
slavery upon the South, honor demands that the whole nation, as an act
of justice, and as a measure that would greatly exalt the character of
the country, should bear any loss that may arise to loyal citizens from
a change of system in any State. Indeed, under all the ci