Thomas Jordan, on behalf of "the people called Quakers from their yearly Meetings Standing Committee," represents that a belief "that it is our duty to endeavour to keep a Conscience Void of Offence both towards [God] and man" has motivated "divers of the members of our Religious Society to Emancipate their Negroes." He reports, however, that "many so Liberated (in this particular State) have since been taken, and reduced to abject Slavery under Sanction of Several Acts of Assembly." He further laments that this results in (beside other distressing Circumstances) the cruel and Unnatural parting of man and wife, and Parents and Children." The Quakers "conceive it to be inconsistent with the rights of free Citizens and repugnant to the Constitution, for any Law to remain in force which deprives us of the privilege of disposing of what the law declares to be our property in such a manner, as we in Conscience believe to be our duty." They therefore "earnestly intreat and request" that a law be passed "whereby such who are Conscientiously Scrupulous of holding their fellow Creatures in a State of Slavery may have liberty to emancipate them, and that those who are or may be liberated, be protected under Law."
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Repository: North Carolina Department of Archives and History, Raleigh, North Carolina
