[10] Coles placed his plantation for sale in December, 1809, despite the collapsed real estate market during the depression of 1807, and began to plan for a move to the Northwest Territory (where slavery had been at least technically abolished in 1787).

His grandfather John had been one of the petitioners requesting for Richmond to be recognized as a new town, and he continued to develop the family's business and social ties through marriage to the youngest daughter of Quaker merchant Isaac Winston.

However, Isaac Coles, perhaps inappropriately acting out his earlier military career dreams, beat up Maryland representative Roger Nelson and, after a critical Congressional report concerning the incident, was forced to submit his resignation on December 29, 1809.

[23] Coles also spent considerable time in Philadelphia receiving medical treatment from Dr. Physick, among others, as well as began a long friendship with Nicholas Biddle, who became controversial as a banker and anti-slavery advocate.

[26][27] Coles wrote letters to President Madison and to relatives expressing dissatisfaction with the high land prices in Ohio, then with squatters, real estate speculators and fraudulent businessmen as he travelled further west into the Indiana (and what became the Illinois) Territory.

[31] In 1814 Coles wrote a letter to his Albemarle County neighbor Thomas Jefferson, asking the former President to again embark on a campaign of emancipation and publicly work for an end to slavery in Virginia.

The fear of appearing presumptuous distresses me, and would deter me from venturing thus to call your attention to a subject of such magnitude, and so beset with difficulties, as that of a general emancipation of the Slaves of Virginia, had I not the highest opinion of your goodness and liberality, in not only excusing me for the liberty I take, but in justly appreciating my motives in doing so.

This difficult task could be less exceptionably, and more successfully performed by the revered Fathers of all our political and social blessings, than by any succeeding statesmen; and would seem to come with peculiar propriety and force from those whose valor wisdom and virtue have done so much in meliorating the condition of mankind.

And it is a duty, as I conceive, that devolves particularly on you, from your known philosophical and enlarged view of subjects, and from the principles you have professed and practiced through a long and useful life, preeminently distinguished, as well by being foremost in establishing on the broadest basis the rights of man, and the liberty and independence of your Country, as in being throughout honored with the most important trusts by your fellow-citizens, whose confidence and love you have carried with you into the shades of old age and retirement.

In the calm of this retirement you might, most beneficially to society, and with much addition to your own fame, avail yourself of that love and confidence to put into complete practice those hallowed principles contained in that renowned Declaration, of which you were the immortal author, and on which we bottomed our right to resist oppression, and establish our freedom and independence.

I hope that the fear of failing, at this time, will have no influence in preventing you from employing your pen to eradicate this most degrading feature of British Colonial policy, which is still permitted to exist, notwithstanding its repugnance as well to the principles of our revolution as to our free Institutions.

Permit me then, my dear Sir, again to intreat you to exert your great powers of mind and influence, and to employ some of your present leisure, in devising a mode to liberate one half of our Fellowbeings from an ignominious bondage to the other; either by making an immediate attempt to put in train a plan to commence this goodly work, or to leave human Nature the invaluable Testament—which you are so capable of doing—how best to establish its rights: So that the weight of your opinion may be on the side of emancipation when that question shall be agitated, and that it will be sooner or later is most certain—That it may be soon is my most ardent prayer—that it will be rests with you.

Your favorable reception of sentiments not generally avowed if felt by our Countrymen, but which have ever been so inseparably interwoven with my opinions and feelings as to become as it were the rudder that shapes my course even against a strong tide of interest and of local partialities, could not but be in the highest degree gratifying to me.

It is with them, therefore, I am persuaded, that the subject of emancipation must originate; for they are the only persons who have it in their power effectually to arouse and enlighten the public sentiment, which in matters of this kind ought not to be expected to lead but to be led; nor ought it to be wondered at that there should prevail a degree of apathy with the general mass of mankind, where a mere passive principle of right has to contend against the weighty influence of habit and interest.

On such a question there will always exist in society a kind of vis inertia, to arouse and overcome which require a strong impulse, which can only be given by those who have acquired a great weight of character, and on whom there devolves in this case a most solemn obligation.

Doctor Franklin, to whom, by the way, Pennsylvania owes her early riddance of the evils of Slavery, was as actively and as usefully employed on as arduous duties after he had past your age as he had ever been at any period of his life.

Coles worked with Baptist John Mason Peck, Methodist Peter Cartwright, Quaker James Lemen, and publisher Hooper Warren to successfully oppose a faction that wanted to legitimize slavery in the new territory's constitution.

Madison sent him a package containing a pedometer, and a note, "As you are about to assume new motives to walk in a straight path, and with measured steps, I wish you to accept the little article enclosed, as a type of the course I am sure you will pursue, and as a token of the affection I have so long cherished for you.

"[54] Coles’ inaugural address included a clear call for the end of slavery in Illinois and revision of the Black Code, as well as advocated internal improvements (especially a canal link to the Great Lakes) and aid to agriculture and education.

[55] Slavery was a very important topic at the time, because that first state constitution only permitted current practices using slave labor in the salines (salt evaporation factories) through 1825.

Coles’ bold call for an end to slavery stiffened their resolve and led to a rancorous legislative effort which began with the Shaw-Hansen Affair (concerning whether to seat a pro-slavery candidate backed by voters who came from Missouri, or his anti-slavery opponent).

[56][57] Governor Edward Coles led the opposition to a bill approving a referendum to hold another constitutional convention, recognizing it as a dishonest attempt to more clearly legalize slavery in the state.

The aristocratic, awkward Virginian and his allies then dispelled a plethora of false economic arguments spread by slavery proponents, while in the aftermath of the Panic of 1819 keeping secret their printing help from much-reviled Philadelphians (Nicholas Biddle and Roberts Vaux).

After Turner's execution, Coles wrote Thomas Jefferson Randolph urging emancipation and colonization to prevent further disasters, stressing that slavery restricted Virginia's economic development.

He was recognized as one of the few remaining men with close personal knowledge of both Madison and Jefferson, and burnished their reputations as champions of the republican ideals that had also motivated Coles during his entire life.

Coles was surprised when Madison failed to do so, only later learning that lawyer Robert Taylor had persuaded the former President to leave emancipation instructions for his widow, whose father had gone bankrupt after freeing his slaves many years earlier.

[75] While devastated by his younger son's death fighting for the Confederates, Coles lived to see slavery abolished through President Lincoln's issuing the Emancipation Proclamation as well as ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment.

Edward Coles Jr. became a prominent lawyer in Philadelphia, and a long-time vestry member of Christ Church, which still displays a plaque honoring his service on the south wall inside the nave.

His daughter Mary Coles (who never married) and Caroline Sanford founded the Church Training school for Deaconesses in Philadelphia in 1891, and served as its president as well as a faculty member.

[76] The school generally graduated 7 to 10 pupils per year (the highest number in residence was 30 in 1912-13), which were in great demand and served not only in hospitals and parishes in Pennsylvania, but throughout the United States and missions abroad.