GLC06610: St. George Tucker A Dissertation on slavery with a proposal for the gradual abolition of it..., 1796.: Page #8
Original title: GLC06610_00008.jpg

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justice of our cause; (b) and implored the God of Battles to aid our exertions in its defence, should we not have stood more self convicted than the contrite publican! Should we not have left our gift upon the altar, that we might be first reconciled to our brethrn whom we held in bondage? Should we not have loosed their chains, and broken their fetters? Or if the difficulties and dangers of such an experiment prohibited the attempt during the convultions of a revolution, is it not our duty to embrace the first moment of constitutional health and vigour, 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 repreoach us? To form a just estimate of this obligation, to demonstrate the incomepatability of a state of slavery with principles of our government, and of that revolution upon which it is founded, and to elucidate the practicability of its total, though gradual, abolition, it will be proper to consider the nature of slavery, its properties, attendants, and consequences in general; its rife, progress, and present
(b) The American standard at the commencement of those hostilities which terminated in the revolution, had these words upon it - AN APPEAL TO HEAVEN! B2