"Day after day multitudes thronged the Capitol to hear the speeches. The Assembly in its zeal for the discussion set aside all prudential considerations, such as the possible effect of incendiary utterances that might make the slave believe his lot one of injustice and cruelty, and so give him the excuse of a revolt, or might encourage further aggressions by Northern Abolitionists."[[58]]
LEADERS OF THE MOVEMENT
Thomas Jefferson Randolph, Mr. Jefferson's grandson; Thomas Marshall, son of the Chief Justice; James McDowell, afterward Congressman and Governor; Charles J. Faulkner, afterward Congressman and Minister to France, and William Ballard Preston, afterward Congressman and Secretary of the Navy in President Taylor's Cabinet, were among the leaders of the anti-slavery men, and some idea may be formed of the character of their speeches from the extracts hereinafter cited.
The principal discussion revolved around the report of a committee which declared "that it is inexpedient for the present Legislature to make any legislative enactment for the abolition of slavery," to which Mr. Preston moved the substitution of the word "expedient" for "inexpedient," and Mr. Bryce moved, as a substitute for both, that the commonwealth should provide for the immediate removal of the negroes now free and those who may hereafter become free "believing that this will absorb all of our present means." By a vote of 58 to 73 Mr. Preston's amendment was defeated,[[59]] and Mr. Bryce's substitute adopted by a vote of 65 to 58.[[60]] In line with this declaration, the House thereupon passed a bill which provided by a comprehensive and continuous system for the deportation and colonization of the free negroes of the commonwealth, and such as thereafter might become free. The measure carried an appropriation of Thirty-five Thousand Dollars for the first year (1832) and Ninety Thousand Dollars for the year 1833 and was adopted by a vote of 79 to 41.[[61]] In urging its passage, William H. Broadnax insisted that many owners "would manumit their slaves if means for their removal were furnished by the state, but who could not if the additional burden of removal were placed upon them."[[62]] This bill, so fraught with far-reaching consequences, was subsequently defeated in the Senate by one vote.
PLANS PROPOSED
Several plans for the gradual emancipation and deportation of the slaves were brought forward and discussed, but all failed of enactment. Thomas R. Dew declares that, "no enlarged, wise or practical plan of operations was proposed by the Abolitionists."[[63]] And Mr. Ballagh says, that "will was not wanting but method unhappily was."[[64]]
THE EFFECTS OF FAILURE
The failure of this General Assembly to adopt any plan of emancipation or any comprehensive scheme for the deportation of the free negroes already in the state had a disastrous effect upon the attitude of thousands of Virginians towards slavery. Despairing of relief from either of these sources and yet facing the peril of which the Nat Turner Insurrection was the warning sign, her lawmakers sought in repressive legislation to nullify the dangers of slave insurrection. Many accepted the institution as permanent and busied themselves marshalling arguments in vindication of its rightfulness and in refuting with growing bitterness the assaults of its opponents.
ABOLITIONISTS AND PRO-SLAVERY MEN
But in addition to the Southampton Massacre, and the failure of the Legislature to enact any effective legislation, the contemporary rise of the Abolitionists in the North came as an even more powerful factor to embarrass the efforts of the Virginia emancipators. Unlike the anti-slavery men of former years, this new school not only attacked the institution of slavery but the morality of slaveholders and their sympathizers. In their fierce arraignment, not only were the humane and considerate linked in infamy with the cruel and intolerant, but the whole population of the slave-owning states, their civilization and their morals were the object of unrelenting and incessant assaults. Thus thousands sincerely desiring the abolition of slavery were driven to silence or into the ranks of its apologists in the widespread and indignant determination of Virginians to resent these libels upon their character and defeat these attempts to excite servile insurrections.