Of actual slaveholders there were not enough to influence public
sentiment greatly. But the people of Southern extraction,
although neither slave holders nor desiring to become such, had
no strong moral convictions on the subject. Indeed, they were
likely to feel that the anti-slavery restriction imposed an
unfortunate impediment in the way of immigration from the South.
Hence the persistent demand of citizens of Indiana and Illinois
for a relaxation of the drastic prohibition of slavery in the
Ordinance of 1787. In 1796 Congress was petitioned from Kaskaskia
to extend relief; in 1799 the territorial Legislature was urged
to bring about a repeal; in 1802 an Indiana territorial
convention at Vincennes memorialized Congress in behalf of a
suspension of the proviso for a period of ten years. Not only
were violations of the law winked at, but both Indiana and
Illinois deliberately built up a system of indenture which
partook strongly of the characteristics of slavery. After much
controversy, Indiana, in 1816, framed a state constitution which
reiterated the language of the Northwest Ordinance, but without
invalidating titles to existing slave property; while Illinois
was admitted to the Union in 1818 with seven or eight hundred
slaves upon her soil, and with a constitution which continued the
old system of indenture with slight modification.
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