"Deeply impressed with these sentiments, we most humbly beseech your majesty to remove all those restraints on your majesty's governors of this colony, which inhibit their assenting to such laws as might check so very pernicious a commerce." Journals of the House of Burgesses, p. 131; quoted in Tucker, Dissertation on Slavery (repr. 1861), p. 43.
1773, Feb. 26. Pennsylvania: Additional £10 Duty Act.
"An Act for making perpetual the act ... [of 1761] ... and laying an additional duty on the said slaves." Dallas, Laws, I. 671; Acts of Assembly (ed. 1782), p. 149.
1774, March, June. Massachusetts: Bills to Prohibit Importation.
Two bills designed to prohibit the importation of slaves fail of the governor's assent. First bill: General Court Records, XXX. 248, 264; Mass. Archives, Domestic Relations, 1643–1774, IX. 457. Second bill: General Court Records, XXX. 308, 322.
1774, June. Rhode Island: Importation Restricted.
"An Act prohibiting the importation of Negroes into this Colony."
"Whereas, the inhabitants of America are generally engaged in the preservation of their own rights and liberties, among which, that of personal freedom must be considered as the greatest; as those who are desirous of enjoying all the advantages of liberty themselves, should be willing to extend personal liberty to others;—
"Therefore, be it enacted ... that for the future, no negro or mulatto slave shall be brought into this colony; and in case any slave shall hereafter be brought in, he or she shall be, and are hereby, rendered immediately free, so far as respects personal freedom, and the enjoyment of private property, in the same manner as the native Indians."