The history of legislation, in the Colony of Virginia, records _twenty-three_ Acts, imposing duties on the importation of slaves, with the avowed design of suppressing the trade. “In 1772, most of the duties, previously imposed, were re-enacted, and the Assembly transmitted, at the same time, a petition to the Throne, of which the following are extracts:-- “‘We are encouraged to look up to the Throne, and _implore_ your Majesty’s paternal assistance, in averting a calamity of a most alarming nature.... The importation of slaves into the Colonies from the coast of Africa, hath long been considered a trade of _great inhumanity_, and under its present encouragement, we have too much reason to fear, will endanger the very existence of your Majesty’s American dominions. Deeply impressed with these sentiments, we most _humbly beseech_ your Majesty _to remove all those restraints_ on your Majesty’s Governors of this Colony, which prohibit such laws as might check so very pernicious a commerce.’ “The _first_ Assembly which met in Virginia, after the adoption of her Constitution, prohibited the traffic; and ‘_the inhuman use of the royal prerogative_’ against the action of the Colony upon this subject, is enumerated in the _first_ clause of the first Virginia Constitution, _as a reason of the separation from the mother country_.”[5] [Footnote 5: Professor Dew.] Such was the _common_ feeling of the Southern Colonies, though more decidedly manifested in Virginia. They never invited, they never tempted the slave trade, except by a silent acquiescence for a season, in what was imposed upon them by the cupidity of foreigners, and the mandates of authority, before the public conscience of mankind had begun to remonstrate; and the moment they opened their eyes to its domestic results among themselves, they set their faces, and employed all their lawful powers, against it. “Federal America interdicted the slave trade from her ports _thirteen_ years before Great Britain; she made it punishable as a crime _seven_ years before, she fixed _four_ years sooner the period of non-importation--which period was earlier than that determined upon by Great Britain for her Colonies.”[6] [Footnote 6: Walsh’s Appeal.]