town committee of such township; and every person who shall omit to notify such abandonment as aforesaid, shall be considered as having elected to retain the service of such child, and be liable for its maintenance until the period to which its servitude is limited as aforesaid. "A. Passed at Trenton, Feb. 15, 1804." The public journals of the larger Northern cities began to take a lively interest in the paramount question of the day, which, without doubt, was the slavery question. Gradual emancipation was doing an excellent work in nearly all the Northern States, as may be seen by the census of 1820. When the entire slave population was footed up it showed an increase of 30 per cent. during the previous ten years, but when examined by States it was found to be on the decrease in all the Northern or free States, except Illinois. The slave population of Virginia had increased only 8 per cent.; North Carolina 21 per cent.; South Carolina 31 per cent.; Tennessee 79 per cent.; Mississippi 92 per cent.; and Louisiana 99 per cent. The slave population by States was as follows: CENSUS OF 1820--SLAVE POPULATION. Alabama 41,879 District of Columbia 6,377 Connecticut 97 Delaware 4,509 Georgia 149,654 Illinois 917 Indiana 190 Kentucky 126,732 Louisiana 69,064 Maryland 107,397 Mississippi 32,814 Missouri 10,222 New Jersey 7,557 New York 10,088 North Carolina 205,017 Pennsylvania 211 Rhode Island 48 South Carolina 258,475 Tennessee 80,107 Virginia 425,153 Arkansas Territory 1,617 --------- Aggregate 1,538,125 The anti-slavery sentiment of the Northern States was growing, but no organization with a great leader at its head had yet announced its platform or unfurled its banner in a holy war for the emancipation of the Bondmen of the Free Republic of North America. FOOTNOTES: [1] I have in my possession large numbers of official orders and letters on the suppression of the slave-trade, but the space appropriated to this history precludes their publication. There are, however, some important documents in the appendix to this volume. CHAPTER II. NEGRO TROOPS IN THE WAR OF 1812.