THOMAS JEFFERSON.

I see in the papers, that there is a plan of gradual abolition of slavery in the district of Columbia. I would be doubly happy of it, for the measure in itself, and because a sense of American pride makes me recoil at the observations of the diplomatists, and other foreigners, who gladly improve the unfortunate existing circumstances into a general objection to our republican, and (saving that deplorable evil) our matchless system.

THOMAS JEFFERSON.

The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions; the most unremitting despotism on the one part and degrading submissions on the other. Our children see this and learn to imitate it; for man is an imitative animal. This quality is the germ of all education in him. From his cradle to his grave he is learning to do what he sees others do. If a parent could find no motive either in his philanthropy or his self-love, for restraining the intemperance of passion towards his slave, it should always be a sufficient one that his child is present. But generally it is not sufficient. The parent storms, the child looks on, catches the lineaments of wrath, puts on the same airs in the circle of smaller slaves, gives loose to his worst passions, and thus nursed, educated, and daily exercised in tyranny, cannot but be stamped by it with odious peculiarities. The man must be a prodigy who can retain his manners and morals undepraved by such circumstances. And with what execration should the statesman be loaded, who permitting one half the citizens thus to trample on the rights of the other, transforms those into despots, and these into enemies, destroys the morals of the one part, and the amor patriæ of the other. For if the slave can have a country in this world, it must be any other in preference to that in which he is born to live and labor for another: in which he must lock up the faculties of his nature, contribute as far as depends on his individual endeavors to the evanishment of the human race, or entail his own miserable condition on the endless generations proceeding from him. With the morals of the people, their industry also is destroyed. For in a warm climate no man will labor for himself who can make another labor for him. This is so true, that of the proprietors of slaves, a very small proportion indeed are ever seen to labor. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep for ever; that considering numbers, nature, and natural means only, a revolution of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation, is among possible events: that it may become probable by supernatural interference! The Almighty has no attribute which can take side with us in such a contest.

What an incomprehensible machine is man! Who can endure toil, famine, stripes, imprisonment, and death itself, in vindication of his own liberty, and the next moment be deaf to all those motives whose

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power supported him through his trial, and inflict on his fellow men a bondage, one hour of which is fraught with more misery than ages of that which he rose in rebellion to oppose. But we must wait with patience the workings of an overruling Providence, and hope that that is preparing the deliverence of these our suffering brethren. When the measure of their tears shall be full-when their tears shall have involved heaven itself in darkness-doubtless a God of justice will awaken to their distress, and by diffusing a light and liberality among their oppressors, or at length by his exterminating thunder manifest his attention to things of this world, and that they are not left to the guidance of blind fatality.-Notes on Virginia.

I am very sensible of the honor you propose to me, of becoming a member of the society for the abolition of the slave-trade. You know that nobody wishes more ardently to see an abolition, not only of the trade but of the condition of slavery; and certainly nobody will be more willing to encounter every sacrifice for that object. But the influence and information of the friends to this proposition in France will be far above the need of my association.-Letter to M. Warville, Paris, February, 1788.

DEAR SIR,-Your favor of July 31st was duly received, and was read with peculiar pleasure. The sentiments breathed through the whole, do honor to both the head and heart of the writer. Mine, on the subject of the slavery of negroes, have long since been in possession of the public, and time has only served to give them stronger root. The love of justice and the love of country plead equally the cause of these people; and it is a moral reproach to us that they should have pleaded it so long in vain, and should have produced not a single effort,-nay, I fear, not much serious willingness to relieve them and ourselves from our present condition of moral and political reprobation. It is an encouraging observation, that no good measure was ever proposed which, if duly pursued, failed to prevail in the end. We have proof of this in the history of the endeavors in the British Parliament to suppress that very trade which brought this evil on us. And you will be supported by the religious precept, "be not weary in well doing." That your success may be as speedy and complete, as it will be honorable and immortal consolation to yourself, I shall as fervently and sincerely pray as I assure you of my great friendship and respect. -Letter to Edward Cole, Esq., August 25, 1814.

PREAMBLE TO THE PENNSYLVANIA ACT, 1780. We conceive that it is our duty, and we rejoice that it is in our power, to extend a portion of that freedom to others which has been extended to us, and relieve from that state of thraldom, to which we ourselves were tyrannically doomed, and from which we have now every prospect of being delivered. It is not for us to inquire why, in in the creation of mankind, the inhabitants of the different parts of the earth were distinguished by a difference of features and complexion. It is sufficient to know, that all are the work of an Almighty hand.

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.

We find in the distribution of the human species, that the most fertile, as well as the most barren parts of the earth are inhabited by men of different complexions from ours, and from each other; from whence, we may reasonably, as well as religiously infer, that He, who placed them in their various situations, hath extended equally his care and protection to all, and that it becometh not us to counteract his mercies. We esteem it a peculiar blessing, granted to us, that we are this day enabled to add one more step to universal civilization, by removing, as much as possible, the sorrows of those who have lived in undeserved bondage, and from which, by the assumed authority of the kings of Great Britain, no effectual legal relief could be obtained. Weaned by a long course of experience from those narrow prejudices and partialities we had imbibed, we find our hearts enlarged with kindness and benevolence towards men of all conditions and nations; and we conceive ourselves, at this particular period, extraordinarily called upon by the blessing which we have received, to manifest the sincerity of our professions, and to give a substantial proof of our gratitude.

And whereas, the condition of those persons who have heretofore been denominated negro and mulatto slaves, has been attended with circumstances which not only deprived them of the common blessing they were by nature entitled to, but has cast them into the deepest afflictions, by an unnatural separation and sale of husband and wife from each other, and from their children; an injury, the greatness of which, can only be conceived by supposing that we were in the same unhappy case. In justice, therefore, to persons so unhappily circumstanced, and who, having no prospect before them, wherein they may rest their sorrows and their hopes, have no reasonable inducement to render the service to society which they otherwise might, and also, in grateful commemoration of our own happy deliverance from that state of unconditional submission, to which we were doomed by the tyranny of Britain. Be it enacted, That no child hereafter born shall be a slave, &c.

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.

UBI LIBERTAS, IBI PATRIA

Where Liberty dwells, there is my country.

Two other societies were also established in Philadelphia about this period, founded on the principles of the most refined humanity; one "for alleviating the miseries of public prisons," and the other, "for promoting the abolition of slavery, the relief of free negroes unlawfully held in bondage, and the improvement of the condition of the African race."-Of each of these, Dr. Franklin was president. He had as early as the year 1772, strongly expressed his abhorrence of the traffic in slaves, as appears by his letter of the 22d August, in that year, to Mr. Anthony Benezet, inserted in the first part of his Private Correspondence. According to Stuber's account, Dr. Franklin's name, as president of the Abolition Society, was signed to the memorial presented to the House of Representatives of the United States, on the 12th of February, 1789, praying them to exert the full extent of power vested in

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them by the Constitution, in discouraging the traffic of the human species. This was his last public act.-Memoirs by Wm. Temple Franklin.

To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States:

From a persuasion that equal liberty was originally the portion, and is still the birthright of all men, and influenced by the strong ties of humanity and the principles of their institution, your memorialists conceive themselves bound to use all justifiable endeavors to loosen the bands of slavery, and promote a general enjoyment of the blessings of freedom. Under these impressions, they earnestly entreat your serious attention to the subject of slavery; that you will be pleased to countenance the restoration of liberty to those unhappy men, who alone in this land of freedom, are degraded into perpetual bondage, and who amidst the general joy of surrounding freemen, are groaning in servile subjection that you will devise means for removing this inconsistency from the character of the American people-that you will promote mercy and justice toward this distressed race-and that you will step to the very verge of the power vested in you for discouraging every species of traffic in the persons of our fellow men.

Philadelphia, Feb. 3, 1790.

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, President. [Federal Gazette, 1790.]

BENJAMIN RUSH.

The [cruel] master's wealth cannot make him happy.—The sufferings of a single hour in the world of misery, for which he is preparing himself will over balance all the pleasures he ever enjoyed in this lifeand for every act of unnecessary severity he inflicts on his slaves, he shall suffer tenfold in the world to come.

His unkind behaviour is upon record against him. The gentle spirits in heaven, whose happiness consists in expressions of gratitude and love, will have no fellowship with him. His soul must be melted with pity, or he can never escape the punishment which awaits the hard-hearted, equally with the impenitent, in the regions of misery.— Paradise of Negro Slaves.

About the year 1775, I read a short essay with which I was much pleased, in one of Bradford's papers, against the slavery of the Africans in our country, and which, I was informed, was written by Thomas Paine. This excited my curiosity to be better acquainted with him. We met soon afterwards at Mr. Aitkens' bookstore, where I did homage to his principles and his pen on the subject of the enslaved Africans. He told me it was the first piece he had ever published here.I possess one of his letters written to me from France upon the subject of the aboliton of the slave-trade.-Letter to Cheetham, July 17, 1809.

ANTHONY BENEZET.

I can with truth and sincerity declare, that I have found amongst the negroes as great variety of talents, as among a like number of whites; and I am bold to assert, that the notion entertained by some

that the blacks are inferior in their capacities, is a vulgar prejudice founded on the pride or ignorance of their lordly masters, who have kept their slaves at such a distance as to be unable to form a right judgment of them.

PATRICK HENRY.

Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God!—I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!

HANOVER, January 18, 1773.

DEAR SIR,-I take this opportunity to acknowledge the receipt of Anthony Benezet's book against the slave-trade: I thank you for it. It is not a little surprising, that the professors of Christianity, whose chief excellence consists in softening the human heart; in cherishing and improving its finer feelings, should encourage a practice so totally repugnant to the first impressions of right and wrong. What adds to the wonder is, that this abominable practice has been introduced in the most enlightened ages. Times, that seem to have pretensions to boast of high improvements in the arts and sciences, and refined morality, have brought into general use, and guarded by many laws, a species of violence and tyranny, which our more rude and barbarous, but more honest ancestors, detested. Is it not amazing, that at a time, when the rights of humanity are defined and understood with precision, in a country, above all others, fond of liberty, that in such an age, and in such a country, we find men professing a religion the most humane, mild, gentle and generous, adopting a principle as repugnant to humanity, as it is inconsistent with the Bible, and destructive to liberty? Every thinking, honest man rejects it in speculation how few in practice from conscientious motives!

Would any one believe that I am master of slaves, of my own purchase! I am drawn along by the general inconvenience of living here without them. I will not, I cannot justify it. However culpable my conduct, I will so far pay my devoir to virtue, as to own the excellence and rectitude of her precepts, and lament my want of conformity to them.

I believe a time will come, when an opportunity will be offered to abolish, this lamentable evil. Every thing we can do is to improve it, if it happens in our day; if not, let us transmit to our descendants, together with our slaves, a pity for their unhappy lot, and our abhorrence for slavery. If we cannot reduce this wished for reformation to practice, let us treat the unhappy victims with lenity. It is the furthermost advance we can make towards justice, it is a debt we owe to the purity of our religion, to show that it is at variance with that law, which warrants slavery. I know not where to stop. I could say many things on the subject; a serious view of which gives a gloomy perspective to future times!-Letter to Robert Pleasants.

I repeat it again, that it would rejoice my very soul that every one