Few, William, 1748-1828 to Edward Telfair re: condemning the import of Black enslaved people into Georgia
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Gilder Lehrman Collection #: GLC04842.05 Author/Creator: Few, William, 1748-1828 Place Written: New York Type: Autograph letter signed Date: 1804/06/30 Pagination: 3 p. : address : ; + engraving Height: 26.7 cm, Width: 20.1 cm Order a Copy
Written as former delegate from Georgia to the current Governor, condemning the importation of Black enslaved people into Georgia as a ploy to increase the state's congressional representation. Portion of embossed tax stamp on bottom of paper. Few writes in part: "Is there one person of understanding & reflection among you who will not admit that every confederation of justice, humanity, and safety, forbids that any more Negroes should be brought into your state, and yet it is well known that the avarice of your citizens, and the rage for acquiring that property has broke through all legal restrictions, and in violation of law and every principle of policy and expediency they are carrying on that diabolical and injurious traffic, and hastening those evils in their nature most dreadful, which seems to demand every exertion to retard or prevent it. Trust not on your Eastern friends for aid, if you do not enforce righteous measures for your own safety; they will laugh at your calamity and seek for profit by your misfortunes. Already they begin to resist that principle in the Constitution which admits the Negroes of the Southern States to increase the number of Representatives in the Congress of the United States. A motion has been brought forward in the Legislature of Massachusetts to instruct their Members of the Senate... to move for an amendment... so as to apportion the number of Representatives according to the number of free men in the United States."
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