A noble cause
"Your late purchase of an estate in the colony of Cayenne, with a view to emancipating the slaves on it, is a generous and noble proof of your humanity. Would to God a like spirit would diffuse itself generally into the minds of the people of this country; but I despair of seeing it."
- George Washington (letter to Marquis de Lafayette, 10 May 1786)
Reference: Washington's Maxims, 159.