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Jefferson Argues to Free Slaves (12)

Reports of Cases Determined in the General Court of Virginia. . . . Charlottesville, Virginia: F. Carr, 1829. Law Library, Library of Congress (12)
[Digital ID# us00012 — us0012_1]

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Jefferson Argues to Free Slaves (12)
Jefferson Argues to Free Slaves (12)
Jefferson Argues to Free Slaves (12.1)
Jefferson Argues to Free Slaves (12.1)

Jefferson Argues to Free Slaves 

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.