One hundred eighty-four citizens of Gloucester County are convinced "that the difficulty of keeping their slaves in proper subjection is daily increasing, and that it becomes them, with a due regard to their interests, to adopt some efficient means of remedying the evil." They assert that "the principle cause to be assigned for the insubordination existing, at present among the slave population, is the residence of the Free people of colour, who not only add nothing to the effective labour of the County, but are dissolute in their morals, and by their example promote sedition and vice of every kind among the slaves." The petitioners propose that $15,000 be borrowed "to be reimbursed by an annual tax to be levied on the people of the County, with the intent that the sum thus raised should be applied to the removal of the free people of colour." They therefore "avail themselves of this occasion respectfully to suggest the absolute necessity in reference to their interests as slave-owners of adopting such measures ... to check the efforts of the Northern fanaticks who are advocating the propriety of the immediate abolition of slavery in the South, and who by means of pamphlets and other publications of an incendiary character distributed through the Post Office or by their hired emisaries are endeavouring to disseminate their hateful and dangerous principles among our blacks."
Result: Referred to select committee.
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Repository: Library of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia
