Virginia Convention in 1787, and President of the Virginia Court of Appeals; Wythe was the Blackstone of the Virginia bench, for a quarter of a century Chancellor of the State, the professor of law in the University of William and Mary, and the preceptor of Jefferson, Madison, and Chief Justice Marshall.  He was the author of the celebrated remonstrance to the English House of Commons on the subject of the stamp act.  As to Jefferson, his name is his biography.

Every slaveholding member of Congress from the States of Maryland, Virginia, North and South Carolina, and Georgia, voted for the celebrated ordinance of 1787, which abolished the slavery then existing in the Northwest Territory.  Patrick Henry, in his well known letter to Robert Pleasants, of Virginia, January 18, 1773, says:  “I believe a time will come when an opportunity will be offered to abolish this lamentable evil.”  William Pinkney, of Maryland, advocated the abolition of slavery by law, in the legislature of that State, in 1789.  Luther Martin urged the same measure both in the Federal Convention, and in his report to the Legislature of Maryland.  In 1796, St. George Tucker, of Virginia, professor of law in the University of William and Mary, and Judge of the General Court, published a dissertation on slavery, urging the abolition of slavery by law.

John Jay, while New-York was yet a slave State, and himself in law a slaveholder, said in a letter from Spain, in 1786, “An excellent law might be made out of the Pennsylvania one, for the gradual abolition of slavery.  Were I in your legislature, I would present a bill for the purpose, and I would never cease moving it till it became a law, or I ceased to be a member.”

Governor Tompkins, in a message to the Legislature of New-York, January 8, 1812, said:  “To devise the means for the gradual and ultimate extermination from amongst us of slavery, is a work worthy the representatives of a polished and enlightened nation.”

The Virginia Legislature asserted this power in 1832.  At the close of a month’s debate, the following proceedings were had.  I extract from an editorial article in the Richmond Whig, Jan. 26, 1832.

“The report of the Select Committee, adverse to legislation on the subject of Abolition, was in these words:  Resolved, as the opinion of this Committee, that it is INEXPEDIENT FOR THE PRESENT, to make any legislative enactments for the abolition of slavery.”  This Report Mr. Preston moved to reverse, and thus to declare that it was expedient, now to make legislative enactments for the abolition of slavery.  This was meeting the question in its strongest form.  It demanded action, and immediate action.  On this proposition the vote was 58 to 73.  Many of the most decided friends of abolition voted against the amendment, because they thought public opinion not sufficiently prepared for it, and that it might prejudice the cause to move