In 1791, the university of William and Mary, in Virginia, conferred upon Granville Sharpe the degree of Doctor of Laws.  Sharpe was at that time the acknowledged head of British abolitionists.  His indefatigable exertions, prosecuted for years in the case of Somerset, procured that memorable decision in the Court of King’s Bench, which settled the principle that no slave could be held in England.  He was most uncompromising in his opposition to slavery, and for twenty years previous he had spoken, written, and accomplished more against it than any man living.

In the “Memoirs of the Revolutionary War in the Southern Department,” by Gen. Lee, of Va., Commandant of the Partizan Legion, is the following:  “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.”—­pp. 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 broken their fetters?  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 House of Delegates, 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.  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.”