"From a persuasion that equal liberty was originally the portion, and is still the birthright of all men, and influenced by the strong ties of humanity, and the principles of their institutions, your memorialists conceive themselves bound to use all justifiable endeavors to loosen the bands of Slavery, and promote the general enjoyment of the blessings of freedom.

"Under these impressions, they earnestly entreat your serious attention to the subject of Slavery; that you will be pleased to countenance the restoration of liberty to those unhappy men, who, alone in this land of freedom, are degraded into perpetual bondage, and who amidst the general joy of surrounding freemen are groaning in servile subjection; that you will devise means for removing this inconsistency from the character of the American people; that you will promote justice and mercy towards this distressed race, and that you will step to the very verge of the power vested in you for discouraging every species of traffic in the persons of our fellow men.

"BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, President.

"Philadelphia, February 3d, 1790."

Extract from a letter written by Gen. Washington to Lafayette:

'I agree with you cordially in your views in regard to negro Slavery; I have long considered it a most serious evil, both socially and politically, and I should rejoice in any feasible scheme to rid our States of such a burden. The Congress of 1787 adopted an ordinance which prohibits the existence of involuntary servitude in our Northwestern Territory forever. I consider it a wise measure. It met with the approval and assent of nearly every member from the States more immediately interested in slave labor. The prevailing opinion in Virginia is against the spread of Slavery in our new Territories, and I trust we shall have a confederation of Free States."

Washington wrote to Robert Morris, in 1786, as follows:

"I can only say, that there is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do to see a plan adopted for the abolition of it (Slavery); but there is only one proper and effectual mode in which it can be accomplished, and that is by legislative au

thority; and this, so far as my suffrage will go, shall never be wanting."

Mr. Jefferson, in his Notes on Virginia, says:

"The abolition of domestic Slavery is the greatest object of desire in these Colonies, where it was unhappily introduced in their infant state. But previous to the enfranchisement of the slaves, it is necessary to exclude further importations from Africa."

With almost prophetic spirit, Mr. Jefferson, speaking of Slavery, said:

Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free, nor is it less certain that the two races, equally free, cannot live in the same Government. Nature, habit, and opinion have drawn indelible lines of distinction between them. It is still in our power to direct the process of emancipation and deportation peaceably, and in such slow degree as that the evil will wear off insensibly, and their places be pari passu filled up with free white laborers. If, on the contrary, it is left to force itself on, human nature must shudder at the prospects held up."

Mr. Madison, in 1780, said:

"Congress might, for example, respecting the introduction of slaves into the new States to be formed out of the Western Territory, make regulations, such as were beyond their power in relation to the old settled States."

The following members of the Legislature of Virginia, as late as 1832, said. Mr. Moor, of Rockbridge:

"In the first place, I shall confine my remarks to such of those evils as affect the white population exclusively. And even in that point of view I think that Slavery, as it exists among us, may be regarded as the heaviest calamity which has ever befallen any portion of the human race."

Mr. Rives, of Campbell, said:

"On the multiplied and desolating evils of Slavery, he was not

disposed to say much. The curse and deteriorating consequences were within the observation and experience of the members of the House and the people of Virginia, and it did seem to him that there could not be two opinions about it."

Mr. Powell said:

"I can scarcely persuade myself that there is a solitary gentleman in this House who will not readily admit that Slavery is an evil, and that its removal, if practicable, is a consumination most devoutly to be wished. I have not heard, nor do I expect to hear, a voice raised in this hall to the contrary."

Mr. Henry Berry said:

I believe that no cancer on the physical body was ever more certain, steady, and fatal in its progress, than is the cancer on the political body of the State of Virginia. It is eating into her very vitals."

Thomas Marshall, of Virginia, said:

"Wherefore, then, object to Slavery? Because it is ruinous to the whites, retards improvement, roots out an industrious population, banishes the yeomanry of the country, deprives the spinner, the weaver, the smith, the shoemaker, the carpenter of employment and support."

Mr. Bordnax, of Dinwiddie, said:

"That Slavery in Virginia is an evil, it would be idle, and more than idle, for any human being to doubt or deny. It is a mildew which has blighted in its course every region it has touched, from the creation of the world."

Hon. Charles J. Faulkner, of Virginia, in an eloquent speech denouncing Slavery, said:

"Does not the same evil exist? Is it not increasing? Does not every day give it permanency and force? Is it not rising like a heavy and portentous cloud above the horizon, extending its deep and sable volumes athwart the sky, and gathering in its impenetrable folds the active materials of elemental war?"

James McDowell-since Governor of the State of Virginia-said:

"Siz, you may place the slave where you please; you may dry up to your utmost the fountains of his feelings, the springs of his thought; you may close upon his mind every avenue of knowledge, and cloud it over with artificial night; you may yoke him to your labor like an ox which liveth only to work, and worketh only to live; you may put him under any process which, without destroying his value as a slave, will debase and crush him as a rational being; you may do this, and the idea that he was born to be free will survive it all. It is allied to his hope of immortality; it is in the etherial part of his nature, which oppression cannot reach; it is a torch lit up in his soul by the hand of Deity, and never meant to be extinguished by the hand of If gentlemen do not see and feel the evil of Slavery while this Federal Union lasts, they will see and feel it when it is gone. They will see and suffer it then in a magnitude of desolating power, to which the pestilence that walketh at noonday would be a blessing-to which the malaria which is now threatening extermination to the Eternal City,' as the proud one of the Pontiff's and Cæsar's is called, would be as refreshing and as balmy as the first breath of Spring to the chamber of disease."

man.

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CHAPTER XXXIV.

GENERAL OF THE AMERICAN ARMIES.

THE grade of the commanding General of the armies of the American Republic has been varied at different periods. George Washington, who was the first General of the American forces, received his appointment as such June 15th, 1775, from the second Continental Congress, then in session at Philadelphia. He was by that body unanimously proclaimed "Commander-inChief of all the Armies raised and to be raised for the defense of the Colonies." His title was General-the highest grade in an army; and up to the period of the revival of this grade by the XXXIXth Congress, July 25th, 1866, no such officer as that of General had existed within the Union.

On the adoption of the Federal Constitution, the President of the United States became ex-officio Commander-in-Chief of the army and navy of the United States; and unless by this it could be said that the President was the General of all the armies, we have had but two Americans with the full title of General -George Washington and Ulysses S. Grant-and but one General (Grant) since the formation of the Fedcral Union under the Constitution; for it will be remembered that Washington's appointment and services as General were made under the Articles of Confederation, during the colonial period of the country. General, Lieutenant-General, Major-General, and BrigadierGeneral are the ranks and order of ranks of the com