On February 12 the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, of which Benjamin Franklin was president, presented a memorial, not on the abolition merely of the slave trade but of slavery in general. This declared:
- From a persuasion that equal liberty was originally the portion and is still the birthright of all men, and influenced by the strong ties of humanity and the principles of their institution, your memorialists conceive themselves bound to use all justifiable endeavors to loosen the bands of slavery and promote a general enjoyment of the blessings of freedom. Under these impressions they earnestly entreat your serious attention to the subject of slavery; that you will be pleased to countenance the restoration of liberty to those unhappy men who alone in this land of freedom are degraded into perpetual bondage, and who, amid the general joy of surrounding freedom, are groaning in servile subjection; that you will devise means for removing this inconsistency from the character of the American people; that you will promote mercy and justice toward this distressed race, and that you will step to the very verge of the power vested in you for discouraging every species of traffic in the persons of our fellowmen.
In the debate which ensued the leading speakers for commitment were: John Page [Va.], James Madison [Va.], Thomas Scott [Pa.], and Elbridge Gerry [Mass.]; those against commitment were Thomas T. Tucker [S. C.], Aedamus Burke [S. C.], William L. Smith [S. C.], James Jackson [Ga.], and Abraham Baldwin [Ga.]. ...
