"The history of the times and the debates in the Convention which framed the Constitution, show that the whole subject of slavery was much considered by them, and perplexed them in the extreme, and that those provisions which relate to it were earnestly considered by the State Conventions which adopted it. Incipient legislation providing for emancipation had already been adopted by some of the States. Massachusetts had declared that slavery was extinguished by her Bill of Rights. The African slave trade had already been legislated against in many of the States, including Virginia, Maryland, and North Carolina, the largest slaveholding States. The public mind was unquestionably tending toward emancipation. This feeling displayed itself in the South as well as in the North. Some of the present slaveholding States thought that the power to abolish, not only the African slave trade, but slavery in the States, ought to be given to the Federal Government; and that the Constitution did not take this shape, was made one of the most prominent objections to it by LUTHER MARTIN, a distinguished member of the Convention from Maryland; and Mr. MASON, of Virginia, was not far behind him in his emancipation principles. Mr. MADISON sympathized to a great extent. Anti-slavery feelings were extensively indulged in by many members of the Convention, both from the slaveholding and the non-slaveholding States." Mr. MADISON'S testimony is important here. He was a member of the old Congress in New York, until the assembling of the Constitutional Convention, and took his seat as a member of that body. The History of the Ordinance of 1787, by Hon. EDWARD COLES, contains the following statement, as made to him by Mr. MADISON: "The old Congress held its sessions, in 1787, in New York, while at the same time the Convention which framed the Constitution of the United States held its sessions in Philadelphia. Many individuals were members of both bodies, and thus were enabled to know what was passing in each--both sitting with closed doors and in secret sessions. The distracting question of slavery was agitating and retarding the labors of both, and led to conferences of intercommunications of the members." I quote this testimony now, to show that Conferences were held between the members of Congress and the Federal Convention, upon the subject of slavery. I shall quote farther from it on another point, after turning for a moment to the proceedings of Congress.