The mayor and other officials of the city of Petersburg bring to the legislature several recommendations to control the growth of the free black population and regulate their freedom of movement, and to curb the growth of the slave population and even perhaps eliminate the pernicious influence their presence has on the white population's ability to enjoy peace and security. The first measure the concerned citizens offer the legislature is one that aims at "repealing or at least suspending the operations of the laws authorizing the emancipation of slaves." Second, they recommend "restricting the residence of blacks, if practicable, to the Counties or places in which they were born or liberated." Third they recommend that measures be taken to restrict "the residence of black people in the towns, at and below the falls of the rivers." The result would be the "diminishing" of the free population and "after a given period they would soon be replaced by a white population from other states and other Countries and consequently increase our relative numbers with the blacks, and add much to the security of our eastern frontier." Finally, the last recommendation offered by the good citizens of Petersburg is to place the state of Virginia, via its legislature, at the center of a purchasing scheme that would eventually eliminate the slave population. They recommend that a tax of one half of one percent be levied to create a fund upon which the state would draw to buy slaves, in a ratio of one male to two females, from individual owners and ship them out of state. Should taxation not be feasible or acceptable, a lottery could be created for that purpose. The desire of the concerned citizens to thus control, reduce, and even eliminate black people living among them is based on their understanding that the laws of human nature and the prevalent ideas of the time are powerful incentives to the oppressed population to lay claim to their right to liberty. Indeed, they say, "with such a population so formidable, placed as they are in a state of imperfect freedom, beneath the character and dignity of free white men, we can calculate nothing on their friendships; on the contrary we may reasonably presume that they will perpetually progress in the rational spirit of liberty." To prove their point, the good citizens of Petersburg quote Jefferson, "whose physical, moral and political researches are ungrafted on a profound elevation of mind devoted to the happiness of man." Jefferson poses and answers the question: "And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm bases, a conviction in the minds of the people that their liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath?" Indeed, says Jefferson, "I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever—that considering numbers, nature and natural means only a revolution of the wheel of fortune or exchange of situation is among possible events." Whatever Jefferson's deep meaning in such musings the people of Petersburg interpret them as sounding the alarm about what might happen in a slave society where the numbers of white to black has risen out of proportion. Do we want to be, they say, the next Santo Domingo?
Result: Referred.
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Repository: Library of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia
