At the Fourth of July celebrations toasts such as "The total abolition of slavery" were not uncommon.

[Footnote: _Knoxville Gazette_, July 17, 1795, etc.

See also issue Jan.

28, 1792.] It was this feeling which prevented any manifestation of surprise at Blount's apparent acquiescence in a section of the ordinance for the government of the Territory which prohibited slavery.
Dulness of the Public Conscience about Slavery.
Nevertheless, though slaves were not numerous, they were far from uncommon, and the moral conscience of the community was not really roused upon the subject.

It was hardly possible that it should be roused, for no civilized people who owned African slaves had as yet abolished slavery, and it was too much to hope that the path toward abolition would be pointed out by poor frontiersmen engaged in a life and death struggle with hostile savages.