nationalizing element in them which was not in the others, and which made the former homogeneous with one another and heterogeneous to the rest. And that element which differenced the south from the rest of the union so greatly that it was, from a time long before either she or the north had become conscious of it, impelling her irresistibly towards an independent nationality of her own, all of us natives know was the constructive and plastic principle of her slave industrial and property system. It is not the purpose of the foregoing expatiation to prove to you such a familiar and well-known fact as that slavery parted north and south and caused the brothers' war. Its purpose is to arouse you to consider nationalization, and have you see how it acts according to a will of its own and not of man, and now and then works out most stupendous results contrary to all that mortals deem probabilities. You ought to recognize that the forces which produced the Confederate States were just as all-powerful and opposeless as those which produced the United States; that in fact they were exactly the same in kind, that is, the forces of nationalization. To have you see that even at the time of making the federal constitution the south had grown into a pro-slavery section and was far on the road towards independence, it is necessary to correct the prevalent opinion that there was then below Mason and Dixon's line a very widespread and influential hostility to slavery. The manumission of his slaves by Washington, the fearless and outspoken opposition to the institution by Jefferson and some other prominent persons, and certain facts indicating unfavorable sentiment, have been too hastily accepted by even historians as demonstrations that the opinion is true. Here are the facts which prove it to be utterly untrue. In 1784, three years before our epochal convention assembled, Jefferson, as chairman of an appropriate committee consisting besides himself of Chase of Maryland and Howell of Rhode Island, reported to congress a plan for the temporary government of the West Territory. This region contained not only all the territory that was subsequently covered by the famous ordinance of 1787, but such a vast deal more that it was proposed to make seventeen States out of the whole. Consider this provision of the report, the suggestion and work of Jefferson: "That after the year 1800 of the christian era there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in any of said States, otherwise than in punishment of crimes whereof the party shall have been convicted to have been personally guilty."