free, because a decided majority of the States have not the ties of sympathy and fellow-feeling for those whose interest would be affected by their emancipation.  The majority of Congress is to the North, and the slaves are to the South.  In this situation, I see a great deal of the property of the people of Virginia in jeopardy, and their peace and tranquillity gone away.  I repeat it again, that it would rejoice my very soul, that every one of my fellow-beings was emancipated.  As we ought with gratitude to admire that decree of Heaven, which has numbered us among the free, we ought to lament and deplore the necessity of holding our fellow-men in bondage.  But is it practicable by any human means, to liberate them, without producing the most dreadful and ruinous consequences?  We ought to possess them in the manner we have inherited them from our ancestors, as their manumission is incompatible with the felicity of the country.  But we ought to soften, as much as possible, the rigor of their unhappy fate.  I know that in a variety of particular instances, the legislature, listening to complaints, have admitted their emancipation.  Let me not dwell on this subject.  I will only add, that this, as well as every other property of the people of Virginia, is in jeopardy, and put in the hands of those who have no similarity of situation with us.  This is a local matter, and I can see no propriety in subjecting it to Congress.

Have we not a right to say, hear our propositions?  Why, sir, your slaves have a right to make their humble requests.—­Those who are in the meanest occupations of human life, have a right to complain.

Gov.  Randolph said, that honorable gentleman, and some others, have insisted that the abolition of slavery will result from it, and at the same time have complained, that it encourages its continuation.  The inconsistency proves in some degree, the futility of their arguments.  But if it be not conclusive, to satisfy the committee that there is no danger of enfranchisement taking place, I beg leave to refer them to the paper itself.  I hope that there is none here, who, considering the subject in the calm light of philosophy, will advance an objection dishonorable to Virginia; that at the moment they are securing the rights of their citizens, an objection is started that there is a spark of hope, that those unfortunate men now held in bondage, may, by the operation of the general government, be made free.  But if any gentleman be terrified by this apprehension, let him read the system.  I ask, and I will ask again and again, till I be answered (not by declamation) where is the part that has a tendency to the abolition of slavery?  Is it the clause which says, that “the migration or importation of such persons as any of the States now existing, shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by Congress prior to the year 1808?” This is an exception from the power of regulating commerce, and the restriction