Creating the United States

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Thomas Jefferson unsuccessfully argued that a black slave should be free because his grandmother had been a white woman and “under the law of nature, all men are born free.” Samuel Howell v. Netherland, April 20, 1770, was one of two legal suits for freedom by Virginia slaves of mixed race in which Jefferson acted as attorney for the plaintiffs in their freedom suits.
Thomas Jefferson unsuccessfully argued that a black slave should be free because his grandmother had been a white woman and “under the law of nature, all men are born free.” <em>Samuel Howell v. Netherland</em>, April 20, 1770, was one of two legal suits for freedom by Virginia slaves of mixed race in which Jefferson acted as attorney for the plaintiffs in their freedom suits.