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.40But not even Brodnax’ ever-so-gradual plan for colonizing free blacks and initiat-ing a modest program of gradual emancipation once the state’s ability to colonizefree blacks had been demonstrated met the approval of eastern defenders of slavery.The Tidewater’s Robert Powell doubted that there existed “a solitary gentleman inthis house who will not readily admit that slavery is an evil, and that its removal, ifpracticable would be a consummation most devoutly to be wished,” but the Spot-sylvania delegate deemed legislative action in support of emancipation ill-advised.41Finally, on January , Goochland’s Archibald Bryce moved that the House ofDelegates hear the long-awaited report of the special committee.Brodnax, reportingfor the committee, announced that it had concluded that “it is inexpedient for thepresent legislature to make any legislative enactment for the abolition of slavery”—inexpedient, apparently, to advance even an emancipation plan as cautious as Brodnax’own.42 In the end, the eastern-dominated committee presented a report that didnothing but suggest the maintenance of the status quo regarding slavery.In a coordi-nated move, after Brodnax’ announcement, Bryce off ered a preamble to the commit-tee report calling for the immediate colonization of free blacks, including recentlymanumitted slaves, as a fi rst step toward the eventual adoption of a plan of gradualemancipation.Virginia must move, the preamble suggested, step by step toward thefi nal abolition of slavery as soon as public opinion would allow, but it could take nodirect action against slavery at the present time.43Almost immediately, western delegate William B.Preston, nephew of Governor Floydand an advocate of gradual emancipation, off ered an amendment to the committeereport that called for dropping the word inexpedient from the report and replacing itwith the word expedient.Preston’s motion would have changed the report to call forthe gradual abolition of slavery in Virginia and guaranteed that the Virginia’s debateover slavery would continue for a while longer.44 In response to Preston’s provocativeamendment, conservative William H.Roane, grandson of Patrick Henry and son ofprominent Jeff ersonian jurist Spencer Roane, defended slavery openly, arguing that“free white people, free blacks, and slave blacks cannot and ought not constitute one372T H E U P P E R S O U T H R E S P O N D Sand the same society.” Thus Roane urged the removal of free blacks in an eff ort tostabilize the ratio of free blacks to slaves and whites in the Old Dominion.Trying toestablish a racial justifi cation for slavery, Roane denied that “the fl at-nosed, wooly-headed black native of the deserts of Africa is equal to the straight haired whiteman of Europe,” and asserted that “slavery as much a correlative of liberty as cold isof heat.” “History,” Roane concluded, “taught me that the torch of liberty has everburnt brightest when surrounded by the dark and fi lthy, yet nutritious atmosphere ofslavery.” 45 Southside delegate Alexander Knox joined Roane in denying that slaverywas an evil.Instead, echoing an argument heard often in the cotton South, Knoxinsisted that slavery was an “indispensable requisite” in the struggle to preserve “arepublican government.” 46John Thompson Brown off ered a more moderate defense of slavery, maintaining thatit was a “far greater evil to abolish slavery” than to tolerate it.A native of Lynchburg inthe western Piedmont, Brown had fi rst moved west to Clarksburg in the trans-Allegheny and represented Harrison County in the legislature as a democratic reformeron state constitutional issues.In , however, Brown moved east to Petersburg andmarried into a prominent family.Once Brown was established in Petersburg, his poli-tics took a conservative turn.Based on his experience in Clarksburg, however, Brownclaimed to understand western Virginia’s desire for a “cordon sanitaire” to protect theregion from the expansion of slavery.But, Brown argued, the “fi xed and unalterablelaws of nature” protected lands west of the Blue Ridge better than “legislative art”could.Though hardly an advocate for slavery in the abstract, Brown advanced a briefpaternalist defense of slavery in Virginia.Through the protection off ered by Christianmasters, Brown argued, slaves in the Old Dominion were better off than “four-fi fthsof the human family” and “happier than they would be in any other situation.They arehappier than their fathers were, and might be happier still if incendiary fanatics wouldlet them alone.” Brown favored controlling the infl uence of slavery by encouraging the“drain of slaves” to the lower South, and predicted that the cotton states would soonfacilitate the departure of slaves from Virginia by repealing any laws restricting theimportation of slaves from other states.47 Even ardent Southside conservative WilliamGoode conceded that time would move slavery further south.“The labor of the slavelike everything else.will meet the most eff ectual demand,” Goode maintained, add-ing that it “was the operation of this principle that slavery was banished from theNorthern States” and “will be the cure of slavery here
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