The clog that has stayed the march of her people, the incubus that has weighed down her enterprise, strangled her commerce, kept sealed her exhaustless fountains of mineral wealth, and paralyzed her arts, manufactures and improvement, is NEGRO SLAVERY.
Tappan identifies slavery as the primary obstacle to Virginia's economic progress and development.
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But what a commentary on slavery and slaveholders is afforded by the gross ignorance prevailing in the old States of South Carolina, Virginia, and North Carolina!
Or the People--for they will be THE PEOPLE--may resolve to be free, and you and all you hold dear may be sacrificed in the contest.
You have lamentable experience, that such is not the case where slaveholders bear rule.
In a community so unenlightened as yours, it is a matter of course, that the arts and sciences must languish, and the industry and enterprise of the country be oppressed by a general torpor.