Barnabas Coffin, clerk for the yearly meeting of Friends, reports that Quakers "desire not to weary your attention by repeated solicitation" but the General Assembly's response to "our former applications ... encourages us again to take the liberty of addressing you on the interesting and important subject of Slavery." Avowing that they do not favor "an immediate emancipation," they do believe, however, "that every Principle of Justice, and humanity, calls for the gradual extension of the inestimable blessing of Liberty to the unhappy, and long-injured African race in our Land, as far, and as fully, as may be consistent, with the Peace, and conservation of the State." They therefore "earnestly desire that some wiser Provision may take place in such as to extend the Privileges, and immunities of freedom to those who have been, or may, hereafter be liberated by those who are conscientiously scrupulous of Perpetuating their Slavery."
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Repository: North Carolina Department of Archives and History, Raleigh, North Carolina
