On the same day in June, 1776, that the Committee was appointed to draft the Declaration of Independence, Congress resolved that "A Committee be appointed to prepare and digest the form of a Confederation to be entered into between the Colonies." The work of this Committee was the Articles of Confederation, which were presented in November, 1777, for ratification by the States. These Articles contained no anti-slavery sentiments, and we are only concerned with them in noting the unexpected and most important results which came up before the ratification was completed. Several of the States claimed a right to the territory west of the Alleghanies to the Mississippi under their original charter. Their claims were conflicting, and Maryland refused to ratify the Articles of Confederation until the land-claiming States should relinquish all their rights to Congress. For a number of years these States were obdurate, but Maryland held out resolutely and bravely, and finally, by her firm action and the magnanimity of New York and Virginia, the question was settled by the cession of the disputed lands to Congress. The acquisition of the Northwest Territory is one of the great turning points in American history, for we shall see that the subsequent development of this territory was of no less importance than the saving of the Union from annihilation by the slave power. Thomas Jefferson was the most urgent against slavery of all the founders of the nation. His statesmanship foresaw the evils negro slavery would bring upon the nation's social and political development, and his nature was stirred by the great moral wrong. Long before the Declaration of Independence he worked untiringly in Virginia to bring about a sentiment against the slave trade, and his efforts met with success. His fierce denunciation of England's part in the slave trade was stricken from the Declaration, but he did not give up the fight, although the material interests of the South thwarted his plans for the moment. When, by the unforeseen results attendant upon the ratification of the Articles of Confederation, that imperial domain reaching from Pennsylvania to the Mississippi and from the Ohio to the Lakes became national territory, Jefferson, with the prescience of a mighty genius, saw an opportunity to deal a death blow to slavery. This magnificent public domain, subsequently to be divided into the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan, was given to the nation on condition that it should be cut up into States, to be admitted when they had a certain population, and that the land should be sold to pay the debts of the United States. Throughout this vast region there were very few people, and there had been no social, political or economical development, and so the only opposition which could come in Congress to any measure for the future government of the Territory would be from the original States. No sooner had the cession been fully made than Jefferson