tte, while in the prison of Magdeburg, said:

"I know not what disposition has been made of my plantation at Cayenne;
but I hope Madame de La Fayette will take care that the negroes who
cultivate it shall preserve their liberties."

Washington wrote to Robert Morris:

"It will not be conceived, from these observations, that it is my wish
to hold these unhappy people (negroes) in slavery. I can only say that
there is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do to see a
plan adopted for the abolition of it."

Again, he writes to La Fayette:

"The benevolence of your heart, my dear Marquis, is so conspicuous on
all occasions, that I never wonder at any fresh proof of it; but your
late purchase of an estate in the colony of Cayenne, with a view of
emancipating the slaves on it, is a generous and noble proof of your
humanity. Would to God a like spirit might diffuse itself generally into
the people of this country!"

Washington hoped for some plan by which slavery might be legally
abolished. Washington lauded the humanity of La Fayette in purchasing an
estate for the purpose of emancipating the negroes. I will leave it to
gentlemen on the other side to draw the comparison between the chivalry
of the South _then_ and _now_; between the licentious assumption of
thought and utterance permitted _then_, and the course of conviction and
conversion esteemed necessary and equitable _now_, towards hapless
offenders in the footsteps of predecessors so illustrious.

Patrick Henry said:

"Slavery is detested; we feel its fatal effects; we deplore it with all
the pity of humanity. I repeat again, that it would rejoice my very
soul that every one of my fellow beings were emancipated. We ought to
lament and deplore the necessity of holding our fellow men in bondage."

Charles Pinckney, Governor of South Carolina, said:

"I must say that I lament the decision of your Legislature upon the
question of the importation of slaves after March, 1793. I was in hopes
that motives of policy, as well as other good reasons, supported by the
direful effects of slavery which at this moment are presented, would
have operated to produce a total prohibition of the importation of
slaves, whenever the question came to be agitated in any State that
might be interested in the measure."

Such were the sentiments of the most enlightened, the most virtuous men
of our country in its heroic age. George Mason, of Virginia, stigmatized
the slave