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The soul of Virginia, during this period, found also fervid utterance through Jefferson, who by precocious and immortal words, has enrolled himself among the earliest Abolitionists of the country. In his Address to the Virginia Convention of 1774, he openly avowed, while vindicating the rights of British America, that "the abolition of domestic slavery is the greatest object of desire in these Colonies, where it was unhappily introduced in their infant state." And then again, in the Declaration of Independence, he embodied sentiments, which, when practically applied, will give freedom to every slave throughout the land. "We hold these truths to be self-evident," says our country, speaking by the voice of Jefferson, "that all men are created equal—that they are endowed with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." And again, in the Congress of the Confederation, he brought forward, as early as 1784, a resolution to exclude from all the territory "ceded or to