General Court were smothered or
vetoed by three successive Governors, under the plea that they had
such instructions from England. In 1772, the Assembly of Virginia
petitioned the throne of England to stop the importation of slaves,
using language as follows: "We are encouraged to look up to the throne
and implore your Majesty's paternal assistance in averting a calamity
of a most alarming nature. The importation of slaves into the colonies
from the coast of Africa hath long been considered as a trade of great
inhumanity, and under its present encouragement, we have much reason
to fear will endanger the very existence of your Majesty's dominions.
Deeply impressed with these sentiments, we most humbly beseech your
Majesty to remove all restraints on your Majesty's Governors of this
colony, which inhibit to their assisting to such laws as might check
so very pernicious a commerce." No notice was taken of the petition by
the crown. This was the principal grievance complained of by Virginia
at the commencement of the revolutionary war.

The limits allowed me forbid my giving even a sketch of legislative
action, of the opinions of great men, of the labors of Samuel Sewall,
George Keith, Samuel Hopkins, William Burling, Ralph Sandiford,
Anthony Benezet, Benjamin Lay, John Woolman, and others, and of the
literature of the subject, from the beginning of the irrepressible
conflict in 1619 down to the period we are considering.[13]

The revolutionary war, and the questions which then arose, turned the
thoughts of men, as never before, to the injustice and impolicy of
slavery. At the first general Congress of the colonies, held at
Philadelphia in 1774, Mr. Jefferson presented an exposition of rights,
in which he says: "The abolition of slavery is the greatest object of
desire in these colonies, when it was unhappily introduced in their
infant state." Among the "articles of association" adopted by that
Congress, October 20, 1774, was this: "That we will neither import,
nor purchase any slave imported, after the first day of December next,
nor will we hire our vessels, nor sell our commodities or manufactures
to those who are concerned in the slave trade."

The first anti-slavery society, in this or any other country, was
formed April 14, 1775, at the Sun Tavern, on Second street, in
Philadelphia. The original members of this society were mostly, and
perhaps all of them, Friends or Quakers. This religious society had,
for any ye