The age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1897-1902, 1897-12-12

north latitude, and which consequently
would not have been covered by Jeffer-
sons prohibition, would have been saw
for freedom, for freedom by 1922 would
have had eighteen states, as compared
with six for slavery, and would have
given the law to the cuntry.
I'VE are accustomed" said Webster,
in speaking of the act of the confedera-
ton congress shutting slavery out from
Ohio Indiana and Illinois and the states
north of them, Ito praise the laWgiYers
of antiquity. We help to perpstuate the
fame of Solon and Lycurgus. But 1
doubt whether one single law of any
laWgfVer, ancient or modern, has pro-
ducSd effects CT more distinct, marked
and lasting character than the ordinance
of 1887. : 1t fixed forever the charac-
ter of the population in the vast regions
northwest of Ohio by excluding from
them involuntary servitude. 1t impress
ed en- the soil itself, while yet a wilder
ness, an incapacity TO sustain any other
than freemen. 1t laid the interdsct
against personal sarvitude, in original
compact, n7t cnly deeper than all local
law, but deeper also than all local con-
situations" The Jefferson restriction,
however, would have brought conse-
quences vastly more important and b, n
eficent. The ordinance. of 1884 would
have done after 1900 for all the morgan
lied Iterritety east of The Mississippi
(the United States domain did not extend
to the west of the Mississippi at that
time) what the ordinance of 1887 did i'm
mediately for the territory north of the
Ohio. sconfinsd slaveru to a narrow strip
of six or seven states along the Atlantic
rendered its Political influence insdgn'f-
cant and have thus condemned it to
gradual and peaceful ext.ngu samsnt.
If the jefferson interdict of 1884 lad
been sanctioned by one more s. ate in the
congress the Southern abolitoniSts of
whom CaSsius M. Clay was a conspic-
uous and courageous representative and
of whom he IS the only prom nent sur
vivor, would never haNe existed. A
large majority of the Southern aboli-
tion'sts of the militant order resided in
Kentucky and Tennessee, and beth of
these Stesss. under' the exclusion propo-
sJton of 1884 would have been free nine
years before Clay was born. In the
earlier days there were aboltionists in
Virginia. thu CaroInas ard all the other
original slave g.alsss Washington, JEFF
ferson, Madison, and George Macon were
among the Virginia representatives OF
THIS class. AS late as 1880 the Virginia
Legislature had a resolution bsfore 1t
providing for emancipation. But tire
abolition sentiment in thu slave states
IN the latter years of the last century
and the first third of the present one
favored gradual abolition, usually in
volving compensation, and often in
c.GIIlng colonization.
Their arose a revulsion agant slavery
agitation which made abolition talk dam
gerous in many communities of the
north. 1t was, of course. douby peril
Gus all over the South. L. was at this
time that Cassius NJ Clay and the
ether heroic spirits who assailed slavery
in it's own Businesses went to the front.
The South acted with boldness and en-
ergy, as it usually did in the old days
Wnsn lis interests were menacei. In
1885 the postmaster at Charleston made
a bonfire of a lot of anti-slavsry news
papers and documents which he had
taken from the mails, and Amos Ken
DALI the postmaster general, meekly said
to him in a letter: Il cannot sanot on
and will not condemn the steps you have
taken" In a subsequent lsl.er, however,
Kendall did virtually give this lawless-
ness his sanetion. The Southern legis-
latures made three demands-that con-
gress pass an act ferbidding the carry
ing of anti-slavery documents through
the mail, a proposition which President
Jackson Endorsed in his annual message;
that the legislatures of the free states
pass laws making the publication of
anti-slavery literature a misdemeanor,
and thaat free s., ates deliver any of theit-
citizens Indicted in slave states for cir
culalting anti-slavery literature to agents
of the slaves states for trail in their
courts. Neither congress nor the free
ties, however agreed to these de-
mands In 1886 the gag rule was pass
ed in the house, through which anti
slavery petitions were tabled and kill
ed without being referred CT printed.
1t was this regulation, in the various
shapes which it took, which included the
memorable nine years' contest wagad by
John Quincy Adams for the right of
petitions in which he was successful in
1S45, when the rule was repcindsd.
These attacks on free speech and free
prsss put into the field for the first
time party avowedly hostile to slavery.
This party, which had no distinctive
name at first, but which Ultimately was
called the Liberal party, nominated
James G. B,rney for president in 1910
and 1874. Its successor, the Free Soil
party, had ex-President Van Buren, for
its candidate in 1S4S and John p Hale in
1852. The Free Sellers and all the other
ty which took the republican rame. and
which nominated Fremont in 1856 snd
Lincoln in 1860 The purpose of the Free
Soil panty, and of the Republic3n party,
until slavery was abolished, was to keep
slavery out of the territories. Casslus
M. Clay was one of the pioneers in the
Free Soil ans Republican paths. He
was-in sympathy with the Liberal par
ty also, and joined 1t in 1S45, but in 1910
and 1874 he thought he could nit slavery
harder by remaining in the Wing parity
and working for its candidates than he
could by entering a minor organization.
He was disappointed and anger i in 1874
by the surrender to slavery of his great
klnsman, Henry Cl1y the Wing cand'-
date in that year. in the laater's letters
ON the Texas annexation question but
he supported the ticket Through the can
vsss.
CHARLES NJ HARVEY.
n n