'In connexion with this subject, your memorialists beg leave to mention, that by an act of the Virginia Legislature, passed in 1805, emancipated slaves forfeit their freedom by remaining for a longer period than twelve months, within the limits of the Commonwealth. This law, odious and unjust as it may at first view appear, and hard as it may seem to bear upon the liberated negro, was doubtless dictated by sound policy, and _its repeal would be regarded by none with more unfeigned regret, than by the friends of African Colonization_. It has restrained many masters from giving freedom to their slaves, and has thereby contributed to check the growth of an evil _already too great and formidable_.' * * 'Under the influence of a policy, already referred to, _and justified by the necessity from which it sprung_, the laws of Virginia have prohibited emancipation within the limits of the State, but on condition of the early removal of the individual emancipated.' * * 'While hundreds, perhaps we might say thousands, of the free colored people, are seeking a passage to Liberia; hundreds who hold slaves, would willingly set them at liberty, were the means of their removal provided. And till those means are provided, the liberation of the slave would neither be a blessing to himself, nor the public. His liberty under any circumstances may be a debt due, in the abstract, to the claims of human nature; but when applied to him individually, it would be a calamity. We cannot conceive of a more deplorable state of society, than what our slaveholding states would present, with their black population afloat, without a home, without the means of subsistence, and without those self-relying habits, which might lead them to obtain an independent livelihood. _It is not therefore incumbent upon those who hold slaves, to set them at liberty, till some means are provided for their removal, or at least for their subsistence._ They owe it neither to themselves, to their country, nor the unfortunate beings around them.' * * * 'Those slaves still in my possession, I cannot conscientiously emancipate, unless they shall be removed by the Society to Liberia.'--[Idem, vol. v. pp. 20, 53, 89, 177.]