New-York Manumission Society: Draft Petition to the New York State Legislature, [after 8 February 1786]
New-York Manumission Society: Draft Petition to the New York State Legislature
[New York, after 8 February 1786]1
That your memorialists being deeply affected by the need Situation of those who, altho free by the Laws of God are held in Slavery by the Laws of
this State, view with Pain & Regret a the additional miseries they ^wh[ich]. those unhappy people^ experience from the Practice which have lately become prevailed to a considerable Extent of exporting them like Cattle and other articles of Commerce to the West Indies and the southern States—
That in the Course of this Inhuman ^commerce^ there have been frequent and very affecting Instances of Husbands ^being^ torn from their wives, wives from their Husbands, Parents from their children, children from their Parents—
That there have also been Instances of manumitted Slaves and other Freemen, whose Colo^u^r exposed them to such outrages, being kidnapped and carried to market in distant Parts—2
That you it is well known that the Condition of Slaves in this State is far more tolerable and easy then in many other countries, and therefore that the Gain arrising from the Sale of them in such Countries, ought not will continue ^consideration alone independent^ of the many abuses attending it, pleads strongly for the prohibiting a commerce so repugnant to Humanity and so inconsistant with the Liberality and Justice which should distinguish a free and enlightened People—
Your memorialists therefore humbly pray that your humble Body will be pleased to take the Premisses into your favorable Consideration and to pass an Act to prevent the ^further^ Exportation of Negroes or Slaves from this State And Yr Memorialists shall ever pray &ca.3
Dft, NNC. Endorsed: “Dr. Memorial to / the Legislature—to / prohibit Exportn. of / negroes / Feb 1786”. C, Minutes, 11 May 1786, NHi: NYMS (EJ: 630).
1. At the 8 Feb. meeting of the NYMS, which JJ did not attend, a committee was appointed to “endeavor to procure an Act of the Legislature to prevent the exportation of any Slaves from this State—” The only two committee members named were AH and Abijah Hammond. C, Minutes, 8 Feb. 1786, NHi: NYSM (EJ: 630).
2. See Richard Lushington to JJ, 22 Feb. 1786, below.
3. At the 11 May meeting of the NYMS, which JJ did not attend, the committee, consisting of John Keese, Leonard Cutting, Abijah Hammond, and John Murray Jr., reported that they had presented the petition signed “by a number of the most respectable Inhabitants of this City” (including JJ) and a draft of a law to the state legislature. It did not pass. The text of the petition as presented was entered into the minutes for 11 May and apart from the excisions is identical to JJ’s draft. C, Minutes, NHi: NYSM (EJ: 630). For more on the NYMS’s efforts to pass legislation, see the editorial note “John Jay, Anti-Slavery, and the New-York Manumission Society,” above.