The Nation Continues to Grapple with the Slavery Issue

The Nation Continues to Grapple with the Slavery Issue

In 1804 a provision was inserted into the act organizing the Territory of Orleans, that no slaves should be carried thither, except from some part of the United States, by citizens removing into the Territory as actual settlers, this permission not to extend to negroes introduced into the United States since 1798.

The object of this provision was to guard against the effects of an act recently adopted by the legislature of South Carolina for reviving the slave-trade after a cessation of it, as to that State, for fifteen years, and of six years as to the whole Union.

This was a consequence of the vast increase and profitableness of cotton culture, made so by Whitney's cotton-gin.
On Feb. 15, 1804, the legislature of New Jersey, by an almost unanimous vote, passed an act to abolish slavery in that State by securing freedom to all persons born there after July 4 next ensuing, the children of slave parents to become free, masculine at twenty-five years of age, feminine at twenty-one.