The Daily state journal. [volume] (Alexandria, Va.) 1868-1874, 1872-11-25
MONDAY EvE'G, NOV. %. 1872.
THE EARLY ANTI-SLAFERY SENTI-
MENT OF VIRGINIA.
SENTI-

IN paper feaa rev Gays ago before
the Cincinnati Literary Club, Mr.. William
F. Poole, librarian Of the Boston library,
gave some very interesting facts relative
to the anti.slayery sentiment of the found
els Of the Republic, much Of which is new
and will prove valuable hereafter to the
historian. Among the early statesmen of
the country there was an almost universal
feeling antagonistic to tho institution.
Scarcely any one defended it asright PEI SC,
and not few worked zealously for its ex
tinction. Strangely enough, too, this senti-
ment was more widespread in the Southern
than in the Northern States. The latter
took the lead in the first controversy
against slavery, and in 1927 out of 1870
abolition societies in the United States, LOG
were in the slaveholding States, and but
iour in New England and New York. Bal
timore, lately the centre of pro-slavery
sentiment, was in 1871 the headquarters Of
seven powerful abolition societies. The
general feeling of the people then
seemed to sustain them, and in the year
above mentioned George Buchanan, NJ. D.,
delivered a Fourth Of July Grafton in Bal
timorc, OH tho moral and political evils
Of slavery, in which he took the most adj
yaneed ground against it.
Among other things he said: I" To the
eternal infamy of our country this act of
injustice will be handed down to posterity
written in the blood of African innocence.
If your forefathers have been degenerate
enough to introduce slavery into your coun-
try you ought to have the virtue of extir-
pating it, This Grafton was published in
pamphlet form, and dedicated by the author
to Thomas Jefferson. Itproduced no angry
comment, but seems to have met with
cordial reception. a....
1t is generally known that Mr.. Jefferson
was inaexibly opposed to slavery. The idea
prohibiting slavery in the Western Terri
tories originated with him, and at the first
General Congress of the colonies, held at
Philadelphia in l774, Mr.. Jefferson present.
cd an exposition of rights. in which he says:
The abolition of slavery is the greatest
object Of desire in these colonies" Though
doubling, with him, the ability Of the AZ
rican to succeed as freeman, still it ap-
pears that Washington, Madison, Patrick
Henry, George Mason, and nearly all the
public men of Virginia and Maryland of
that period were in much the same state of
mind as Jefferson. One Of the principal
grievances complained of by Virginia at the
outbreak of the Revolutionary war was the
failure of tho mother country to suppress
the slave trade. So general was the feeling
against the Importation of slaves that law
was passed by Congress in 1904, without
debate, making the use of men and vessels
in the slave trade penal offence. In 1854
the Anti-Slavery Society of Philadelphia
chose Benjamin Franklin for its President.
The New York Society selected John Jay,
who was succeeded by Alexander Hamil-
ton. Societies were formed in Maryland,
Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Jersey,
and Virginia but, strange enough, none
in Massachusetts,. 1t will be news to
many, also, to learn that Massachusetts
never abolished slavery. There was no
action Of the State Legislature, no
proclamation Of the Governor, but it
was settled in 1888 TINT there was no
slavery there by the decision of the SUI
preme Court, it being incompatible with
the declaration Of rights" How or by
what act particularly" says Chief Justice
Shaw, "slavery was abolished in Massa-
chusetts it IS not now easy to determine"
From 1894 to 1899 petitions poured into
Congress from the various States on the
slavery question. In that Of Virginia oe-
ours the following language:
Your memorialists, fully aware that righteous.
Hess exalteth nation and that slavery is not
only an odous degradation, but an outrageous
violation of one OF the most essential rights of
human nature, and utterly repugnant to The pre-
consistent with true policy and tbs inalienabo
rights of men should eubsist In SO enlightened an
age, and among people protesting that all man
Kind are by nature equally entitled TO freedom.
But there was lamentable reaction in
this sentiment, and gradually the anti
slavery sentiment Of the Southern States
died out, leaving the North alone to COM
bat il.