ven thousand slaves were voluntarily
emancipated by their masters. Judge Tucker's "Dissertation on Slavery,"
p. 72. In 1787, Maryland passed an act legalizing manumission. Mr.
Dorsey, of Maryland, in a speech in Congress, December 27th, 1826,
speaking of manumissions under that act, said, that "_The progress of
emancipation was astonishing_, the State became crowded with a free
black population."

The celebrated William Pinkney, in a speech before the Maryland House of
Delegates, in 1789, on the emancipation of slaves, said, "Sir, by the
eternal principles of natural justice, _no master in the state has a
right to hold his slave in bondage for a single hour_.... I would as
soon believe the incoherent tale of a schoolboy, who should tell me he
had been frightened by a ghost, as that the grant of this permission (to
emancipate) ought in any degree to alarm us. Are we apprehensive that
these men will become more dangerous by becoming freemen? Are we
alarmed, lest by being admitted into the enjoyment of civil rights, they
will be inspired with a deadly enmity against the rights of others?
Strange, unaccountable paradox! How much more rational would it be, to
argue that the natural enemy of the privileges of a freeman, is he who
is robbed of them himself! Dishonorable to the species is the idea that
they would ever prove injurious to our interests--released from the
shackles of slavery, by the justice of government and the bounty of
individuals--the want of fidelity and attachment would be next to
impossible."

Hon. James Campbell, in an address before the Pennsylvania Society of
the Cincinnati, July 4, 1787, said, "Our separation from Great Britain
has extended the empire of humanity. The time _is not far distant_ when
our sister states, in imitation of our example, _shall turn their
vassals into freemen_." The Convention that formed the United States'
Constitution being then in session, attended at the delivery of this
oration with General Washington at their head.

A Baltimore paper of September 8th, 1780, contains the following notice
of Major General Gates: "A few days ago passed through this town the
Hon. General Gates and lady. The General, previous to leaving Virginia,
summoned his numerous family of slaves about him, and amidst their tears
of affection and gratitude, gave them their FREEDOM."

In 1791 the university of William and Mary, in Virginia, conferred upon
Granville Sharpe the degree of Doctor of Laws. S