the _property_ of individuals consists in _slaves_. The
laws have sanctioned this species of property. Can the laws take away
the property of an individual without his own consent, or without a
_just compensation_? Will those who do not hold slaves agree to be taxed
to make this compensation? Creditors also, who have trusted their
debtors upon the faith of this visible property will be defrauded. If
justice demands the emancipation of the slave, she also, _under these
circumstances_, seems to plead for the owner, and for his creditor. The
claims of nature, it will be said are stronger than those which arise
from social institutions, only. I admit it, but nature also dictates to
us to provide for our _own_ safety, and authorizes all _necessary_
measures for that purpose. And we have shewn that our own security, nay,
our very existence, might be endangered by the hasty adoption of any
measure for the _immediate_ relief of the _whole_ of this unhappy race.
Must we then quit the subject, in despair of the success of any project
for the amendment of their, as well as our own, condition? I think
not.--Strenuously as I feel my mind opposed to a simultaneous
emancipation, for the reasons already mentioned, the abolition of
slavery in the United States, and especially in that state, to which I
am attached by every tie that nature and society form, is _now_ my
_first_, and will probably be my last, expiring wish. But here let me
avoid the imputation of inconsistency, by observing, that the abolition
of slavery may be effected without the _emancipation_ of a single slave;
without depriving any man of the _property_ which he _possesses_, and
without defrauding a creditor who has trusted him on the faith of that
property. The experiment in that mode has already been begun in some of
our sister states. Pennsylvania, under the auspices of the immortal
Franklin,[23] begun the work of gradual abolition of slavery in the year
1780, by enlisting nature herself, on the side of humanity. Connecticut
followed the example four years after.[24] New-York very lately made an
essay which miscarried by a very inconsiderable majority. Mr. Jefferson
informs us, that the committee of revisors, of which he was a member,
had prepared a bill for the emancipation of all slaves born after
passing that act. This is conformable to the Pennsylvania and
Connecticut laws.--Why the measure was not brought forward in the
general assembly I have never heard. Possi