his doubt; and Bishop Gregoire resented
his passive position by omitting Mr. Jefferson's name from a list of
fourteen Americans, which included Mr. Madison, William Pinkney, Dr.
Benj. Rush, Timothy Dwight, Col. Humphreys, and Joel Barlow, to whom,
with other philanthropists, he dedicated his book.

Washington, Madison, Patrick Henry, George Mason, and nearly all the
public men of Virginia and Maryland of that period were in much the
same state of mind as Jefferson.[10] So was Henry Clay at a later
period.

Mr. Jefferson, in August, 1785, wrote a letter to Dr. Richard Price,
of London, author of a treatise on Liberty, in which very advanced
opinions were taken on the slavery question. Concerning the
prevalence of anti-slavery opinions at that period, he says:
"Southward of the Chesapeake your book will find but few readers
concurring with it in sentiment on the subject of slavery. From the
mouth to the head of the Chesapeake, the bulk of the people will
approve its theory, and it will find a respectable minority, a
minority ready to adopt it in practice; which, for weight and worth of
character, preponderates against the greater number who have not the
courage to divest their families of a property which, however, keeps
their consciences unquiet. Northward of the Chesapeake you may find,
here and there, an opponent to your doctrine, as you find, here and
there, a robber and murderer, but in no greater number. In that part
of America there are but few slaves, and they can easily disincumber
themselves of them; and emancipation is put in such a train that in a
few years there will be no slaves northward of Maryland. In Maryland I
do not find such a disposition to begin the redress of this enormity
as in Virginia. These [the inhabitants of Virginia] have sucked in the
principles of liberty, as it were, with their mothers' milk, and it is
to these I look with anxiety to turn the fate of this question. Be
not, therefore, discouraged. The College of William and Mary in
Williamsburg, since the remodeling of its plan, is the place where
are collected together all the young men of Virginia under preparation
for public life. There they are under the direction (most of them) of
a Mr. George Wythe [Professor of Law from 1779 to 1789], one of the
most virtuous of characters, and whose sentiments on the subject of
slavery are unequivocal. I am satisfied if you could resolve to
address an exhortation to these young men, with all the