The disposition to emancipate was strongest in Virginia. In 1778, when Jefferson introduced a bill into the Assembly to stop the further importation of slaves either by land or sea--a fine of one thousand pounds to be imposed upon any transgressor--it was passed without opposition and temporarily decreased the evil, but the time was not ripe for so philanthropic an innovation, and the bill was repealed by a later Assembly. Many of the younger men, however, were imbued with a realization of the evil, especially those who at William and Mary’s College, had come under the influence of George Wythe, and it was to these that many looked for the ultimate righting of the wrong. Adumbrations of a future catastrophe broke upon Jefferson, but in that period of patriotism, his almost prophetic vision saw not the dim, distant conflict as one arising out of the inherent differences of North and South, though this came to sadden his declining years, but rather as one of race against race: “Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever; that considering numbers, nature, and natural means only, a revolution of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation is among possible events.” The hope of eradicating negro slavery before it took a too vital hold upon the needs and institutions of his land stirred his patriotic and spiritual zeal; throughout a long life he took a vigorous stand against its growth. In 1784, when Virginia gave to the United States her portion of the Northwest Territory, it was Jefferson, assisted by Chase and Howell, who drafted and ardently advocated the ordinance that “after the year 1800 there should be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in any of the said States, otherwise than in punishment of crime.” This was defeated, but led to the Ordinance of 1787 which forever excluded slavery from the territory northwest of the Ohio River.