on all hands, that the
right to be free_ CAN NEVER BE ALIENATED--still less is it practicable
for one generation to mortgage the privileges of another."

Extract from the Pennsylvania act for the Abolition of Slavery, passed
March 1, 1780: * * * "We conceive that it is our duty, and we
rejoice that it is in our power, to extend a portion of that freedom to
others which has been extended to us. Weaned by a long course of
experience from those narrow prejudices and partialities we have
imbibed, we find our hearts enlarged with kindness and benevolence
towards men of all conditions and nations: * * * Therefore be it
enacted, that no child born hereafter be a slave," &c.

Jefferson, in his Notes on Virginia, written just before the close of
the Revolutionary War, says: "I think a change already perceptible since
the origin of the present revolution. The spirit of the master is
abating, that of the slave is rising from the dust, his condition
mollifying, _the way I hope preparing under the auspices of heaven_, FOR
A TOTAL EMANCIPATION, and that this is disposed, in the order of events,
to be with the consent of the masters, rather than by their
extirpation."

In a letter to Dr. Price, of London, who had just published a pamphlet
in favor of the abolition of slavery, Mr. Jefferson, then Minister at
Paris, (August 7, 1785,) says: "From the mouth to the head of the
Chesapeake, _the bulk of the people will approve of your pamphlet in
theory_, and it will find a respectable minority ready to _adopt it in
practice_--a minority which, for weight and worth of character,
_preponderates against the greater number_." Speaking of Virginia, he
says: "This is the next state to which we may turn our eyes for the
interesting spectacle of justice in conflict with avarice and
oppression,--a conflict in which THE SACRED SIDE IS GAINING DAILY
RECRUITS. Be not, therefore discouraged--what you have written will do a
_great deal of good_; and could you still trouble yourself with our
welfare, no man is more able to give aid to the laboring side. The
College of William and Mary, in Williamsburg, since the remodelling of
its plan, is the place where are collected together all the young men of
Virginia, under preparation for public life. They are there under the
direction (most of them) of a Mr. Wythe, one of the most virtuous of
characters, and _whose sentiments on the subject of slavery are
unequivocal_. I am satisfied, if you could res