's protection,
and that that promise should be fulfilled in preference to the
stipulation in the treaty. The State of Virginia, to which nearly
the whole of these slaves belonged, passed a law to forbid the
recovery of debts due to British subjects. They declared, at the
same time, they would repeal the law, if Congress were of opinion
they ought to do it. But, desirous that their citizens should be
discharging their debts, they afterwards permitted British
creditors to prosecute their suits, and to receive their debts in
seven equal and annual payments for reimbursement.[95]

Jefferson's letter here to M. de Meunier on the passage of the
Ordinance of 1787 shows how he either shifted from his position of
regarding emancipation a serious problem to that of agitating against
slavery or that he varied his correspondence to suit the person
addressed.

There were ten States present; six voted unanimously for it,
three against it, and one was divided; and seven votes being
requisite to decide the proposition affirmatively, it was lost.
The voice of a single individual of the State which was divided,
or of one of those which were of the negative, would have
prevented this abominable crime from spreading itself over the
new country. Thus we see the fate of millions unborn hanging on
the tongue of one man, and heaven was silent in that awful
moment! But it is to be hoped it will not always be silent, and
that the friends to the rights of human nature will in the end
prevail.

What a stupendous, what an incomprehensible machine is man! who
can endure toil, famine, stripes, imprisonment, and death itself,
in vindication of his own liberty, and, the next moment, be deaf
to all those motives whose power supported him through his
trial, and inflict on his fellow men a bondage, one hour of which
is fraught with more misery than ages of that which he rose in
rebellion to oppose.[96]

He seemed to regard it later as a problem to be solved only by
miraculous methods.

We must await with patience the workings of an overruling
Providence, and hope that that is preparing the deliverance of
these, our suffering brethren. When the measure of their tears
shall be full, when their groans shall have involved heaven
itself in darkness, doubtless a God of justice will awaken to