2-PART LESSON

I recalled that Adam Smith made a skeptical remark about a proclamation in the American colonies that set the slaves free. I thought it was Virginia and once again, my memory was faulty:

The late resolution of the Quakers in Pennsylvania to set at liberty all their negro slaves,*15 may satisfy us that their number cannot be very great. Had they made any considerable part of their property, such a resolution could never have been agreed to.

*15. [Raynal, Histoire philosophique (Amsterdam ed.), tom. vi., pp. 368-388.]

The second lesson here is the healthy skepticism of Smith, something that seems to be lost on almost all the movement conservatives except when it comes to advancing their agenda.