mportance, not only to our moral
character and domestic peace, but even to our political salvation; and
being persuaded that the accomplishment of so momentous and desirable an
undertaking will in great measure depend upon the early adoption of some
plan for that purpose, with diffidence submits to the consideration of
his countrymen his ideas on a subject of such consequence. He flatters
himself that the plan he ventures to suggest, is liable to fewer
objections than most others that have been submitted to the
consideration of the public, as it will be attended with a gradual
change of condition in the blacks, and cannot possibly affect the
interest either of =creditors=, or any other description of persons of
the =present generation=: and posterity he makes no doubt will feel
themselves relieved from a perilous and grievous burden by the timely
adoption of a plan, whose operation may be felt by them, before they are
borne down by a weight which threatens destruction to our happiness both
public and private._

====>The following ADDITIONAL NOTES have been received from the Author
since the body of this work was printed off.

_In page 20, after the word =arms=, in line 5, read this note:_

This was the case under the laws of the state; but the Act of 2. Cong.
c. 33. for establishing an uniform militia throughout the United States,
seems to have excluded all but free white men from bearing arms in the
militia.

_To the word =slave=, page 47, line 14, add the following note:_

It may not be improper here to note, that the first congress of the
United States, at their third session, Dec. 1793, passed an act to
prohibit the carrying on the slave trade from the United States to any
foreign place or country; the provisions of which seem well calculated
to restrain the citizens of united America from embarking in so infamous
a traffick.

ON THE STATE OF SLAVERY IN VIRGINIA.

In the preceding Enquiry[1] into the absolute rights of the citizens of
united America, we must not be understood as if those rights were
equally and universally the privilege of all the inhabitants of the
United States, or even of all those, who may challenge this land of
freedom as their native country. Among the blessings which the Almighty
hath showered down on these states, there is a large portion of the
bitterest draught that ever flowed from the cup of affliction. Whilst
America hath been the land of promise to Europeans, and