o adopted an address "To the citizens of the United
States," which was drawn up by Dr. Benjamin Rush.[30]

Similar societies were formed in London and Paris, with whom these
societies were in constant correspondence. Pennsylvania passed an act
of gradual emancipation in 1780, and Rhode Island and Connecticut in
1784. A similar act, making all children born thereafter free, did not
pass the Legislature of New York till 1799. In the meantime these
societies were pouring in their memorials to State Legislatures and
Congress, holding meetings, distributing documents, and rousing public
sentiment to the enormities of the slave system.

The Connecticut petitioners say: "From a sober conviction of the
unrighteousness of slavery, your petitioners have long beheld with
grief our fellow-men doomed to perpetual bondage in a country which
boasts of her freedom. Your petitioners are fully of opinion that calm
reflection will at last convince the world that the whole system of
American slavery is unjust in its nature, impolitic in its principles,
and in its consequences ruinous to the industry and enterprise of the
citizens of these states."

The Virginia Society, petitioning Congress, says: "Your memorialists,
fully aware that righteousness exalteth a nation, and that slavery is
not only an odious degradation, but an outrageous violation of one of
the most essential rights of human nature, and utterly repugnant to
the precepts of the gospel, which breathes 'peace on earth and good
will to men,' lament that a practice so inconsistent with true policy
and the inalienable rights of men should subsist in so enlightened an
age, and among a people professing that all mankind are, by nature,
equally entitled to freedom."

The Pennsylvania Society memorialized Congress thus: "The memorial
respectfully showeth: That from a regard for the happiness of mankind,
an association was formed several years since in this state, by a
number of her citizens of various religious denominations, for
promoting the abolition of slavery, and for the relief of those
unlawfully held in bondage. A just and acute conception of the true
principles of liberty, as it spread through the land, produced
accessories to their numbers, many friends to their cause, and a
legislative co-operation with their views, which, by the blessing of
Divine Providence, have been successfully directed to the relieving
from bondage a large number of their fellow-creatures of the Af