Sons of the Fathers: The Virginia Slavery Debates of 1831-1832

In August 1831, Nat Turner led the most successful slave rebellion in Americas history, killing some 60 men, women, and children. This insurrection provided the historical backdrop to the proposal for a gradual emancipation plan. The forces for emancipation, led by Thomas Jeffersons grandson, Thomas Jefferson Randolph, were defeated in the course of the debate as the members of the House of Delegates rejected that it was a necessity to free the slaves. As a result, rift between what is now Virginia and Western Virginia developed, never to heal. Some in the debates believed slaves had the same rights as every human being. Those who balked at emancipation diminished slavery as an evil and came closer to the view that the slaves were mere property. They affirmed that the slave was property and rejected the natural rights grounding of the Founding. In this collection of primary source material-which consists of the speeches made public to the press and the people-the reader will be able to decide just how close the emancipation forces attached themselves to the laws of Nature and Natures God. The reader will also be able to decipher how far many Virginians departed from not only the Declaration of Independence, but the Virginia Declaration of Rights.