Over the President, on this new occasion, floated the national flag, with its stripes of red and white, its stars on a field of blue. As his patriot eye rested upon the glowing ensign, what currents must have rushed swiftly through his soul! In the early days of the Revolution, in those darkest hours about Boston, after the Battle of Bunker Hill, and before the Declaration of Independence, the thirteen stripes had been first unfurled by him, as the emblem of Union among the Colonies for the sake of Freedom. By him, at that time, they had been named the Union Flag. Trial, struggle, and war were now ended, and the Union, which they first heralded, was unalterably established. To every beholder these memories must have been full of pride and consolation. But, looking back upon the scene, there is one circumstance which, more than all its other associations, fills the soul,--more even than the suggestions of Union, which I prize so much. AT THIS MOMENT, WHEN WASHINGTON TOOK HIS FIRST OATH TO SUPPORT THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES, THE NATIONAL ENSIGN, NOWHERE WITHIN THE NATIONAL TERRITORY, COVERED A SINGLE SLAVE. Then, indeed, was Slavery Sectional, and Freedom National. On the sea an execrable piracy, the trade in slaves, to the national scandal, was still tolerated under the national flag. In the States, as a sectional institution, beneath the shelter of local laws, Slavery unhappily found a home. But in the only territories at this time belonging to the nation, the broad region of the Northwest, it was already made impossible, by the Ordinance of Freedom, even before the adoption of the Constitution. The District of Columbia, with its Fatal Dowry, was not yet acquired. The government thus organized was Antislavery in character. Washington was a slaveholder, but it would be unjust to his memory not to say that he was an Abolitionist also. His opinions do not admit of question. Only a short time before the formation of the National Constitution, he declared, by letter, that it was "among his first wishes to see some plan adopted by which Slavery in this country might be abolished by law";[127] and again, in another letter, that, in support of any legislative measure for the abolition of Slavery, his suffrage should "never be wanting";[128] and still further, in conversation with a distinguished European Abolitionist, a travelling propagandist of Freedom, Brissot de Warville, recently welcomed to Mount Vernon, he openly announced, that, to promote this object in Virginia, "he desired the formation of a SOCIETY, and that he would second it."[129] By this authentic testimony he takes his place with the early patrons of Abolition Societies. [127] Letter to John F. Mercer, September 9, 1786: Writings, ed. Sparks, Vol. IX. p. 159, note. [128] Letter to Robert Morris, April 12, 1786: Writings, ed. Sparks, Vol. IX. p. 159. [129] Brissot de Warville, New Travels in the United States, 2d ed., Vol. I. pp. 246, 247.