slature of Virginia: "The laws of
impartial Providence may avenge our injustice upon our posterity."
Conforming his conduct to his convictions, Jefferson, in Virginia, and
in the Continental Congress, with the approval of Edmund Pendleton,
branded the slave-trade as piracy; and he fixed in the Declaration of
Independence, as the corner-stone of America: "All men are created
equal, with an unalienable right to liberty." On the first organization
of temporary governments for the continental domain, Jefferson, but for
the default of New Jersey, would, in 1784, have consecrated every part
of that territory to freedom. In the formation of the national
Constitution, Virginia, opposed by a part of New England, vainly
struggled to abolish the slave-trade at once and forever; and when the
ordinance of 1787 was introduced by Nathan Dane without the clause
prohibiting slavery, it was through the favorable disposition of
Virginia and the South that the clause of Jefferson was restored, and
the whole northwestern territory--all the territory that then belonged
to the nation--was reserved for the labor of freemen.

The hope prevailed in Virginia that the abolition of the slave-trade
would bring with it the gradual abolition of slavery; but the
expectation was doomed to disappointment. In supporting incipient
measures for emancipation, Jefferson encountered difficulties greater
than he could overcome, and, after vain wrestlings, the words that
broke from him, "I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is
just, that His justice cannot sleep forever," were words of despair. It
was the desire of Washington's heart that Virginia should remove
slavery by a public act; and as the prospects of a general emancipation
grew more and more dim, he, in utter hopelessness of the action of the
State, did all that he could by bequeathing freedom to his own slaves.
Good and true men had, from the days of 1776, suggested the colonizing
of the negro in the home of his ancestors; but the idea of colonization
was thought to increase the difficulty of emancipation, and, in spite
of strong support, while it accomplished much good for Africa, it
proved impracticable as a remedy at home. Madison, who in early life
disliked slavery so much that he wished "to depend as little as
possible on the labor of slaves;" Madison, who held that where slavery
exists "the republican theory becomes fallacious;" Madison, who in the
last years of his life would not con