They stood not alone. The convictions and earnest aspirations of the country were with them. At the North these were broad and general. At the South they found fervid utterance from slaveholders. By early and precocious efforts for "total emancipation," the author of the Declaration of Independence placed himself foremost among the Abolitionists of the land. In language now familiar to all, and which can never die, he perpetually denounced Slavery. He exposed its pernicious influence upon master as well as slave, declared that the love of justice and the love of country pleaded equally for the slave, and that "the abolition of domestic slavery was the greatest object of desire." He believed that "the sacred side was gaining daily recruits," and confidently looked to the young for the accomplishment of this good work.[133] In fitful sympathy with Jefferson was another honored son of Virginia, the Orator of Liberty, Patrick Henry, who, while confessing that he was a master of slaves, said: "I will not, I cannot justify it. However culpable my conduct, I will so far pay my devoir to Virtue as to own the excellence and rectitude of her precepts, and lament my want of conformity to them."[134] At this very period, in the Legislature of Maryland, on a bill for the relief of oppressed slaves, a young man, afterwards by consummate learning and forensic powers acknowledged head of the American bar, William Pinkney, in a speech of earnest, truthful eloquence,--better for his memory than even his professional fame,--branded Slavery as "iniquitous and most dishonorable," "founded in a disgraceful traffic," "its continuance as shameful as its origin"; and he openly declared, that "by the eternal principles of natural justice, no master in the State has a right to hold his slave in bondage for a single hour."[135] [133] Notes on Virginia, Query XVIII.: Writings, Vol. VIII. pp. 403, 404. Summary View of the Rights of British America: American Archives, 4th Ser. Vol. I. col 696; Writings, Vol. I. p. 135. Letter to Dr. Price, August 7, 1785: Writings, Vol. I. p. 377. [134] Letter to Robert Pleasants, January 18, 1779: Goodloe's Southern Platform, p. 79. [135] Speeches in the House of Delegates of Maryland in 1788 and 1789: Wheaton's Life of Pinkney, p. 11; American Museum for 1789, Vol. VI. p. 75.