The government thus organized was Anti-slavery in character. Washington
was a slave-holder, but it would be unjust to his memory not to say that
he was an Abolitionist also. His opinions do not admit of question.
* * * * *
By the side of Washington, as, standing beneath the national flag, he
swore to support the Constitution, were illustrious men, whose lives
and recorded words now rise in judgment. There was John Adams, the
Vice-President, great vindicator and final negotiator of our national
independence, whose soul, flaming with Freedom, broke forth in the early
declaration, that "consenting to Slavery is a sacrilegious breach of
trust," and whose immitigable hostility to this wrong is immortal in his
descendants. There was also a companion in arms and attached friend,
of beautiful genius, the yet youthful and "incomparable" Hamilton,--fit
companion in early glories and fame with that darling of English
history, Sir Philip Sidney, to whom the latter epithet has been
reserved,--who, as member of the Abolition Society of New York, had
recently united in a solemn petition for those who, though "free by the
laws of God; are held in Slavery by the laws of this State.
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