Skip to Content

Chapter 2

Codifying Slavery

Painting of enslaved persons being traded

The Growing Independent Nation

The inhabitants of the ceded territory shall be incorporated in the Union of the United States and admitted [with] . . . rights, advantages and immunities of citizens.
Several of our fellow citizens have been massacred, some dwelling houses burnt and others pillaged.
Be it enacted . . . [that] it shall not be lawful to import or bring into the United States . . . any negro, mulatto, or person of colour, with intent to hold, sell, or dispose of [them] . . . as a slave.
Let the first of January, the day of the abolition of the slave trade . . . be set apart in every year, as a day of publick thanksgiving. . . . Let the history of the sufferings . . . and of . . . deliverance . . . descend . . . to the remotest generations.