It was
true that the percentage of slaves in the total population had been
very rapidly decreasing in the North and not in the South, and that the
gradual abolition of slavery was proceeding in the North alone, and that
with increasing rapidity. But there was no positive evidence that the
South was bulwarked in favor of slavery; there was no certainty but that
the South would in its turn and in due time come to the point which the
North had already reached, and begin its own abolition of slavery. The
language of Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Henry, and Mason, in regard
to the evils or the wickedness of the system of slavery, was too strong
to be heard with patience in the South of after years; and in this
section it seems to have been true, that those who thought at all upon
the subject hoped sincerely for the gradual abolition of slavery in
the South. The hope, indeed, was rather a sentiment than a purpose, but
there seems to have been no good reason, before 1793, why the sentiment
should not finally develop into a purpose.
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