1784 was adopted nearly in his original language by the unanimous vote of all the States present, and the first legislative restriction of slavery by the general government was enacted. The evidence is conclusive that the question was not, at that time, sectional, and elicited no acrimony. A striking example is furnished in 1802 in the convention for forming the first constitution of Ohio. On the question of admitting negroes to the right of suffrage the vote stood 17 ayes, 17 nays. (Life of Nathaniel Massie, p. 87.) "This convention was controlled by men from the slave-holding States of Kentucky and Tennessee, yet we find them badly divided on this question one of their own leaders, Charles Willing Byrd, a Virginian of the Virginians, standing steadily for the right of the negro to vote. On the other hand, Messrs. Huntington, of Trimble county, and Mclntosh, of Washington county, scions of New England stock, were with Massie and Worthington against negro suffrage." Thomas Worthington, although opposed to negro suffrage, had emancipated his slaves on leaving Virginia.
The following quotation from an author of accuracy and ability shows that the slavery question had not taken a form entirely sectional even as late as 1824: "One thing is remarkable; East Tennessee had an abolition paper nine or ten years before the advent of Garrison’s paper. As early as 1814 or 1815 an abolition society, perhaps the first in the United States, had been formed in East Tennessee. (See article by S. A. Link, American Historical Magazine, October, 1896, p. 333.)
In April, 1820, the first number of The Emancipator was issued at Jonesboro, by Elihu Embree. After the death of Embree, The Genius of Universal Emancipation was published at Greenville by Benjamin Lundy. This lived until 1824. Lundy induced Garrison to enter the field of editorial effort in behalf of emancipation. * * * (See Article by Rev. E. E. Hoss, entitled "Elihu Embree,
