In considering these questions it will be well to review Virginia's
record with respect to slavery both during the period of her existence
as a colony and her career as a state;
To collate the sentiments of her great sons antagonistic to the
institution;
To show the small number of her citizens holding slaves as compared with
the great company of those who possessed no such interest;
To note the injurious effects upon her prosperity resulting from the
presence of the institution;
To summarize what were considered the almost insuperable difficulties
which embarrassed every plan of emancipation—difficulties that were
augmented and intensified by the bitterness and partizanship with which,
during the three decades immediately preceding the Civil War, the
subject had become invested;
To present the situation with respect to the controversy at the time
Virginia seceded from the Union; and finally,
To consider the effects, if any, upon her position, of President
Lincoln's Proclamations of Emancipation issued subsequent thereto.