To the Citizens of Ross County

Made at the convention in Ohio in 1802 when they were voting to make it a free of slave state.

Fellow citizens:

It is a melancholy reflection that in the most momentous crises that perhaps will occur in our days, that we find men possessing a boldness so contaminated as to wish to introduce negro slavery with all its horrid train of evils into our new State, a species of wickedness that human nature on a bare reflection cannot recoil.

In what light the difference states from New Hampshire to Georgia considered this species of traffic, may be well understood by taking a review of their code of laws, prohibiting the importation of negroes from any part of the known world into their respective states. I ask in the name of common sense where is the difference in importing a Negro from Guinea or from Virginia or elsewhere within the United States to this State, for the more countries that encourage this kind of traffic, the bands of oppression are strengthened thereby, and yet behold the ruddy flushy upstarts Messrs. Wills and Macan of yesterday's growth wishing to affront all the fine feelings of humanity, all the philanthropy of civilized societies and all the respect due to a Republican government by wishing to impose upon all the disgrace that corrupt nature with all the serpentine cunning the bottomless pit can invent.

What says all Europe on this subject? Why keep the evil out of our kingdoms but curse our colonies abroad with this inhuman practice. They will serve our purposes if our colonies rebel, by promising them great things; they will turn against the owners of the soil on our behalf. Witness the Revolutionary War with Great Britain. Also witness the enlightened State of the wretched people in Virginia and the Carolinas, how they are forming combinations to seek that liberty the God of Heaven has interwoven in their very natures, an inherent principle that they are the born, which the hands of the injustice and oppression withholds.

And where is the man who will not risk his life for his liberty? Was not this the principle for which you fought in the Revolutionary War? Fie! Oh Fie! For shame Messrs. Wills and Mecan. Hide your deformed faces like the Owl in the Fable. What right have we to deprive a man of his right on account of his color? Must we do wrong because nations have done so before us? Will the evil of our ancestors be a precedent for a more enlightened age to govern their conduct by? Or, must we improve in wickedness or in virtue? Let the evil of others teach us salutory lessons to do better.

But, fellow citizens, the test of our virtue as a State now lies at stake. All Europe ere this are appraised of the erection of a new state in United America and upon what principles this structure will take place, and, has not the United States opened a large door to see if they can find a sufficiency of inhabitants selected from all the rest of the states who will be more virtuous than any other of her sisters?

But, behold! Our upstarts, prone to iniquity, wishing to fix a poisonous dose to the very heart of our state before she is brought to birth, that will inevitably produce a lingering constitution consuming the vital flame of liberty to all generations, and, when once introduced ask for a remedy to remove the evil -- I say ask for a remedy. Take a trip to the Carolinas, especially, take a trip to Virginia; ask some of the Slave Holders their fears and they will tell you their determination to part with their negroes and remove to the new State. Ask for what? They will tell you our lives are in jeopardy, because of our slaves. And, yet these upstarts boldly wish to hatch a vapour in the very midst of a free and promising happy people. Have we not enemies enough on our frontiers -- I mean the Indians? Introduce slavery, we create another in our bosoms. And, will not the Indians, after finding out our bosom enemies, hold out baits, and, will not the negroes soon make a common cause with the Indians, to our great annoyance? Let the cooler reflections determine, shall we lay a foundation so pregnant with every destructive evil to our present and future happiness? OH! humanity, blush for the wretches so lost to all sensibility, complete political reprobates.

Fellow citizens: Let the remote situation of our country from our sister states impress deeply on your minds our safety; Indians on our frontiers, Negroes on our bosoms, are now become our enemies; France, England and Spain join in the coalition, and, then let us weep for the effusion of human blood. Messrs. Will & Macan are both noted Feds. and Negroe slavery is the bait by which they mean to catch Republicans. Republicans vote for such Negro Feds.? No! Never, never, stain, never contaminate the veins of Republican principles with such black corrupted stuff. Tell it not in the streets of Chillicothe, for fear it should be published in the gazettes of freedom. Republicans, consider your dignity, as men and citizens. If you vote for these men they will laugh at your instability; they will mock at your principles; they will divide your councils to destroy your influence. Be firm. Be united. Stand to the pillars of freedom. Hold up the political ark of your freedom. Resist the heralds of slavery, and they will flee you -- their voices already cry aloud for the judgments of Heaven.

John Hutt, Westmoreland Co., Virginia moved to Chillicothe, Ohio, in 1801. Was born in Westmoreland Co., Virginia on the plantation adjoining General George Washington, September 5th, 1763. His father, Gerard Hutt, moved from England in 1760 and bought that plantation. All of his children were born there. John joined the Continental Army when a boy of 15 and saw the surrender of Lord Cornwallis.

A grant of land was given to Daniel Hutt in 1654, in Westmoreland Co., Virginia.

I saw in the paper they sent me an extract saying one of the finest speeches made in the Convention was made by John Hutt, an Ex-Virginian and ExSlave Holder. I wrote and asked them to send it to me which they did. I have a printed copy of it in a scrap book. So this will be interesting to you. It said it turned the tide for a free state.

The above information received from Mrs. Fannie Swayne, Springfield, Missouri, September 13, 1916, by C.W. Robinson. [Heraldic Art of a Few of Our Families: The Genealogies and Armorial Bearings of Thirteen of our Progenitors Including The Royal Order of the Golden Horseshoe, Mrs. Edwin F. Abels. 1961. ]