"I, Charles Moorman, from mature consideration and the conviction of my own mind, being fully persuaded that freedom is the natural right of all mankind, and that no law, moral or divine, has given me a right to or property in the persons of any of my fellow-creatures, and being desirous to fulfil the injunction of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, by doing to others as I would be done by—do therefore declare that having under my care twenty-eight slaves, (naming them), I do for myself, my heirs, executors and administrators, hereby release unto them the said slaves all my rights, interest, claims or pretensions of claims whatsoever to their persons or any estate they may acquire, &c."[[149]]
Extracts from deeds of Robert Carter, of Westmoreland County, each dated the 1st day of January, 1793:
"Whereas the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia did in the year seventeen hundred and eighty-two enact a law entitled 'An Act to Authorize the Manumission of Slaves,' know all men by these presents that I, Robert Carter, of Nomony Hall, in the County of Westmoreland, do under the said act for myself, my heirs, executors and administrators, emancipate and forever set free from slavery the following slaves." (Here follow the names of the slaves, twenty-seven in number.)[[150]]
And on the same day a similar deed emancipating thirty slaves.[[151]]
Extract from deed of Francis Preston, of Washington County, dated the 20th day of September, 1793:
"Whereas my negro man, John (alias) John Broady, claims a promise of freedom from his former master, General William Campbell, for his faithful attendance on him at all times, and more particularly while he was in the army in the last war, and I who claim the said negro, in right of my wife, daughter of said General William Campbell, feeling a desire to emancipate the said negro man John as well for the fulfilment of the above mentioned promise as the gratification of being instrumental of promoting a participation of liberty to a fellow-creature, who by nature is entitled thereto, do by these presents, for myself, my heirs, executors and administrators, fully emancipate and make free, to all intents and purposes, the said negro man John (alias) John Brody from me and my heirs forever."[[152]]
Extract from the will of Richard Randolph, Jr., admitted to record in Clerk's Office of Prince Edward County, April 8th, 1797:
"In the first place—to make retribution as far as I am able to an unfortunate race of bondsmen over whom my ancestors have usurped and exercised the most lawless and monstrous tyranny, and in whom my countrymen by their iniquitous laws in contradiction of their own Declaration of Rights ... have vested me with absolute property; ... to exculpate myself to those who may perchance think or hear of me after death from the black crime which otherwise would be imputed to me of voluntarily holding the above mentioned miserable beings in the same state of abject slavery in which I found them on receiving my patrimony at lawful age; to impress my children with just horror at a crime so enormous and indelible, and to adjure them in the last words of a fond father never to participate in it ... I do declare that it is my will and desire, nay, most anxious wish, that my negroes, all of them, be liberated, and I do declare them by this writing free and emancipated to all intents and purposes whatsoever."[[153]]
Extract from the will of George Washington, dated July 9th, 1799, recorded in the Clerk's Office of Fairfax County:
"Upon the decease of my wife, it is my will and desire that all the slaves whom I hold in my own right shall receive their freedom. To emancipate them during her life would, though earnestly wished by me, be attended with such insuperable difficulties on account of their intermixture by marriage with the dower negroes as to excite the most painful sensations, if not disagreeable consequences to the latter, while both descriptions are in the occupancy of the same proprietor; it not being in my power under the tenure by which the dower negroes are held to manumit them."