owing:
"The Constitution of the United States, adopted lately with so much
difficulty, has effectually provided against this evil, (by importation)
after a few years. It is much to be lamented that having done so much in
this way, _a provision had not been made for the gradual abolition of
slavery_."--p. 233, 4.

Mr. Tucker, of Virginia, Judge of the Supreme Court of that state, and
professor of law in the University of William and Mary, addressed a
letter to the General Assembly of that state, in 1796, urging the
abolition of slavery; from which the following is an extract. Speaking
of the slaves in Virginia, he says: "Should we not, at the time of the
revolution, have loosed their chains and broken their fetters; or if the
difficulties and dangers of such an experiment prohibited the attempt,
during the convulsions of a revolution, is it not our duty, _to embrace
the first moment_ of constitutional health and vigor to effectuate so
desirable an object, and to remove from us a stigma with which our
enemies will never fail to upbraid us, nor our consciences to reproach
us?"

Mr. Faulkner, in a speech before the Virginia Legislature, Jan. 20,
1832, said--"The idea of a gradual emancipation and removal of the
slaves from this commonwealth, is coeval with the declaration of our
independence from the British yoke. It sprung into existence during the
first session of the General Assembly, subsequent to the formation of
your republican government. When Virginia stood sustained in her
legislation by the pure and philosophic intellect of Pendleton--by the
patriotism of Mason and Lee--by the searching vigor and sagacity of
Wythe, and by the all-embracing, all-comprehensive genius of Thomas
Jefferson! Sir, it was a committee composed of those five illustrious
men, who, in 1777, submitted to the general assembly of this state, then
in session, _a plan for the gradual emancipation of the slaves of this
commonwealth_."

Hon. Benjamin Watkins Leigh, late United States' senator from Virginia,
in his letters to the people of Virginia, in 1832, signed Appomattox, p.
43, says: "I thought, till very lately, that it was known to every body
that during the Revolution, _and for many years after, the abolition of
slavery was a favorite topic with many of our ablest statesmen_, who
entertained, with respect, all the schemes which wisdom or ingenuity
could suggest for accomplishing the object. Mr. Wythe, to the day of his
death, _was for a