"We, therefore, the Representatives of the extensive District of Darien, in the Colony of Georgia, being now assembled in Congress, by the authority and free choice of the inhabitants of the said District, now freed from their fetters, do _Resolve_, ... To show the world that we are not influenced by any contracted or interested motives, but a general philanthropy for all mankind, of whatever climate, language, or complexion, _we hereby declare our disapprobation and abhorrence of the unnatural practice of Slavery in America_, (however the uncultivated state of our country, _or other specious arguments, may plead for it_,) a practice founded in injustice and cruelty, and highly dangerous to our liberties, (as well as lives,) debasing part of our fellow-creatures below men, and corrupting the virtue and morals of the rest, and is laying the basis of that liberty we contend for (and which we pray the Almighty to continue to the latest posterity) upon a very wrong foundation. We therefore resolve at all times to use our utmost endeavors for the manumission of our slaves in this Colony, upon the most safe and equitable footing for the masters and themselves."[3] [2] American Archives, 4th Series, Vol. I. col. 1038. [3] American Archives, 4th Series, Vol. I. coll. 1135, 1136. Would that such a voice were heard once again from Georgia! The soul of Virginia, at this period, found eloquent utterance through Jefferson, who, by precocious and immortal words, enrolled himself among the earliest Abolitionists of the country. In a paper presented to the Virginia Convention of 1774, in reference to the grievances by which the Colonies were then agitated, he openly avowed, while vindicating American rights, that "the abolition of domestic slavery is the greatest object of desire in those Colonies, _where it was unhappily introduced in their infant state_."[4] And then again in the Declaration of Independence he embodied sentiments, which, when practically applied, will give freedom to every slave throughout the land. "We hold these truths to be self-evident," said the country, speaking by his voice: "that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, _liberty_, and the pursuit of happiness." And again, in the Congress of the Confederation, he brought forward, as early as 1784, a resolution to exclude Slavery from all the territory "ceded or _to be ceded_" by the States to the Federal Government, and including the territory now covered by Tennessee, Mississippi, and Alabama. Lost at first by the failure of the two-thirds vote required, this measure was substantially renewed at a subsequent day by a son of Massachusetts, and in 1787 was finally confirmed, in the Ordinance of the Northwestern Territory, by a unanimous vote of the States, with only a single dissentient among the delegates.