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 simple abolition, considering the objection to color as founded in prejudice.  By degrees, all projects of the kind were abandoned.  Mr. Jefferson retained his opinion, and now we have these projects revived.”

Governor Barbour, of Virginia, in his speech in the U.S.  Senate, on the Missouri question, Jan. 1820, said:—­“We are asked why has Virginia changed her policy in reference to slavery?  That the sentiments of our most distinguished men, for thirty years entirely corresponded with the course which the friends of the restriction (of slavery in Missouri) now advocated; and that the Virginia delegation, one of whom was the late President of the United States, voted for the restriction, (of slavery) in the northwestern territory, and that Mr. Jefferson has delineated a gloomy picture of the baneful