ir dinner, consisting of a
few scraps and lean bones, is eaten in the burning sun. They have
no time to go to a shade and be refreshed such easement is reserved
for the horses"!--Speech of Hon. P. P. Doddridge in House of
Delegates, 1829.)

All this, you will say, comes too late; the curse is upon you, the evil
in the vitals of your state, the desolation widening day by day. No, it
is not too late. There are elements in the Virginian character capable
of meeting the danger, extreme as it is, and turning it aside. Could you
but forget for a time partisan contest and unprofitable political
speculations, you might successfully meet the dangerous exigencies of
your state with those efficient remedies which the spirit of the age
suggests; you might, and that too without pecuniary loss, relinquish your
claims to human beings as slaves, and employ them as free laborers, under
such restraint and supervision as their present degraded condition may
render necessary. In the language of one of your own citizens, "it is
useless for you to attempt to linger on the skirts of the age which is
departed. The action of existing causes and principles is steady and
progressive. It cannot be retarded, unless you would blow out all the
moral lights around you; and if you refuse to keep up with it, you will
be towed in the wake, whether you will or not."--(Speech in Virginia
legislature, 1832.)

The late noble example of the eloquent statesman of Roanoke, the
manumission of his slaves, speaks volumes to his political friends. In
the last hour of existence, when his soul was struggling from his broken
tenement, his latest effort was the confirmation of this generous act of
a former period. Light rest the turf upon him beneath his own
patrimonial oaks! The prayers of many hearts made happy by his
benevolence shall linger over his grave and bless it.

Gentlemen, in concluding these letters, let me once more assure you that
I entertain towards you and your political friends none other than kindly
feelings. If I have spoken at all with apparent harshness, it has been
of principles rather than of men. But I deprecate no censure. Conscious
of the honest and patriotic motives which have prompted their avowal, I
cheerfully leave my sentiments to their fate. Despised and contemned as
they may be, I believe they cannot be gainsaid. Sustained by the truth
as it exists in Nature and Revelation, sanctioned by the prevail