in Virginia, Kosciuszko could not help noticing that 40 percent of the population was black, and in Richmond the percentage was even higher. Southern plantation owners cowered at the notion of arming slaves, and Jefferson, a slave owner who claimed to be opposed to slavery, straddled the fence as a politician, saying, “Slaves are by the laws excluded from the Militia,” especially when it came to carrying a gun.7 However, he encouraged the military to use blacks as laborers. Kosciuszko could not understand how the author of the Declaration of Independence was able to sacrifice his views on
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