ern colonies
probably contributed also to lessen the numbers imported into this: for
some years immediately preceding the revolution, the importation of
slaves into Virginia might almost be considered as at an end; and
probably would have been entirely so, if the ingenuity of the merchant
had not found out the means of evading the heavy duty, by pretended
sales, at which the slaves were bought in by some friend, at a quarter
of their real value.

Tedious and unentertaining as this detail may appear to all others, a
citizen of Virginia will feel some satisfaction at reading so clear a
vindication of his country, from the opprobrium, but too lavishly
bestowed upon her of fostering slavery in her bosom, whilst she boasts a
sacred regard to the liberty of her citizens, and of mankind in general.
The acrimony of such censures must abate, at least in the breasts of the
candid, upon an impartial review of the subject here brought before
them; and if in addition to what we have already advanced, they consider
the difficulties attendant on any plan for the abolition of slavery, in
a country where so large a proportion of the inhabitants are slaves; and
where a still larger proportion of the cultivators of the earth are of
that description of men, they will probably feel emotions of sympathy
and compassion, both for the slave and for his master, succeed to those
hasty prejudices, which even the best dispositions are not exempt from
contracting, upon subjects where there is a deficiency of information.

We are next to consider the condition of slaves in Virginia, or the
legal consequences attendant on a state of slavery in this commonwealth;
and here it is not my intention to notice those laws, which consider
slaves, merely as _property_, and have from time to time been enacted to
regulate the disposition of them, _as such_; for these will be more
properly considered elsewhere: my intention at present is therefore to
take a view of such laws, only, as regard slaves, as a distinct class of
_persons_, whose rights, if indeed they possess any, are reduced to a
much narrower compass, than those, of which we have been speaking
before.

Civil rights, we may remember, are reducible to three primary heads; the
right of personal security; the right of personal liberty; and the right
of private property. In a state of slavery the two last are wholly
abolished, the person of the slave being at the absolute disposal of his
master; and prop