pse
the brightness of our national blessings. Our daughters and their
daughters are destined to become, in their turn, the tender fosterers
of helpless infancy, the directors of developing childhood, and the
companions of those citizens, who will occupy the legislative and
executive offices of their country. Can we calmly anticipate the
condition of the Southern States at that period, should no remedy be
devised to arrest the progressive miseries attendant on slavery? Will
the absent father's heart be at peace, when, amid the hurry of public
affairs, his truant thoughts return to the home of his affection,
surrounded by doubtful, if not dangerous, subjects to precarious
authority? Perhaps when deeply engaged in his legislative duties his
heart may quail and his tongue falter with irresistible apprehension
for the peace and safety of objects dearer than life.

"We can only aid the mighty task by ardent outpourings of the spirit
of supplication at the Throne of Grace. We will call upon the God, in
whom we trust, to direct your counsels by His unerring wisdom, guide
you with His effectual spirit. We now conjure you by the sacred
charities of kindred, by the solemn obligations of justice, by every
consideration of domestic affection and patriotic duty, to nerve every
faculty of your minds to the investigation of this important subject,
and let not the united voices of your mothers, wives, daughters and
kindred have sounded in vain in your ears."--Drewry, _The Southampton
Insurrection_, p. 165.

[21] Drewry, _The Southampton Insurrection_, pp. 1-100.

[22] October 18. This memorial circulated in Petersburg and in
adjoining towns and counties is typical:

"The undersigned good citizens of the County of ........ invite the
attention of your honorable body to a subject deemed by them of
primary importance to their present welfare and future security.

"The mistaken humanity of the people of Virginia, and of our
predecessors, has permitted to remain in this Commonwealth a class of
people who are neither freemen nor slaves. The mark set on them by
nature precludes their enjoyment in this country, of the privileges of
the former; and the laws of the land do not allow them to be reduced
to the condition of the latter. Hence they are of necessity degraded,
profligate, vicious, turbulent and discontented.

"More frequent than whites (probably in tenfold proportion) sustained
by the charitable provisions of our laws, they are a