And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God?
That they are not to be violated but with his wrath?
Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever."[16] In the course of the same work, however, he deprecated abolition unless it were to be accompanied with deportation: "Why not retain and incorporate the blacks into the state...?
Deep rooted prejudices entertained by the whites, ten thousand recollections by the blacks of the injuries they have sustained, new provocations, the real distinctions which nature has made, and many other circumstances, will divide us into parties and produce convulsions which will probably never end but in the extermination of the one or the other race ...

This unfortunate difference of colour, and perhaps of faculty, is a powerful obstacle to the emancipation of these people.

Many of their advocates while they wish to vindicate the liberty of human nature are anxious also to preserve its dignity and beauty.

Some of these, embarrassed by the question 'What further is to be done with them ?' join themselves in opposition with those who are actuated by sordid avarice only.

Among the Romans, emancipation required but one effort.