The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-07-17
EIGHT GOVERNORS OF ALABAMA
1874-19O1
No. 43-Administratio of Governor Cobb
The Freedmans Relief Association
1874-1901

The Declaration of independence was,
nrst, a proclamation of the advent upon
the age of an advanced science of civil
of the application of that science to their
own respective examples by the 10 British
American colonies. necessarily leading to
their political sovereignty, respectively.
incidentally. the document became an
agreement of concerted action between the
states created by 1t. for the one specific
purpose of maintaining themselves in the
new position of the Inhabitants. as against
all claims of the mother country upon
| their allegiance. incidentally, the docu-
ment enumerated several active cases al
legged to justify its enactment. Among
the provoking causes, as presented in the
original draft of Mr.. jefferson. was the
Kings traffic with the colonies in African
slaves.
With this incident the negro became a
disturbing factor in American government.
The item of complaint against King
George was omitted from the signed and
published immortal document. The I'M
portation of yet larger numbers of At
ricans was encouraged. The navigating
states, that is the northern states, offered
them by ship cargoes for sale in the ports
of the agricultural states. the southern
states, and there they were eagerly pur-
chased for tobacco and rice planters and
upon their labor the agricultural states
pidly outstripped the navigating states
in wealth.
1t would appear difficult to dlssociate
the negro question as an element of pre-
destined participation in the government
of the United States.
When the navigating and the agricul-
tural states met in convention to form a
compact of union between themselves at
Philadelphia, four years after the treaty
of Paris, the convention had finished its
work and the constitution was in the
hands of the committee on form" Thus
completed the draft of the organic law
among other things, made the President
elective for a term of seven years and
not re-eligible to the office 1t required a
two-thirds vote of Congress to enact laws
governing navigation interests. and as an
offset placed in Congress entire control
of the institution OF slavery.
The convention now recalled the COM
pleted draft of the constitution from the
committee on form and revised it. The
revision, among other changes, forbade
Congress from interfering with the slave
trade on the seas or between the states,
for 20 years, and provided for the return
of fugitive slaves that escaped from one
state to another. Because of the revision
George Mason of Virginia refused to sign
the perfected document.
1t was many years before the imported
generation of African savages became
tanned to adopt the life of steady labor
ers on the plantations Elkanah Watson.
youth of 19 years, undertook at the out
break of the revolutionary war to drive
a sulky from Prividen, r. l., to Charles
ton and on into Georgia. He relates that
on the road along the coast in South Car
olina, IA nude negro men sprang from the
swamp before his horse. He fired upon
them and all ran back into the Urush.
About that time wealthy gentleman from
England by way of Massachusetts, Mr..
Collins, bought a large area of land on
the North Carolina bays, near Edenton.
He settled there many imported Africans
They were put to work cutting a canal. Ir.
the early hours of night they would
gather together and sing their native
songs, all very doleful airs, a simple
monotonous whining. But the music ex-
cited them beyond restraint. They would
join hands, and still singing, march into
the bay, facing eastward and bound home
to Africa Several were drowned thus
from time to time, so that the singing had
to be broken up by authority.
BY gradual approaches, beginning with
the protective tariff of 1916, supported in
the enactment by John C. Calhoun and
his following, the Clay American system
of 1888. The American system was intend
finally abandoned by the Compromise
of 1888 The American system was intend
ed by the inventor to create in the north
a measure of prosperity by artificial
means, corresponding TO the wealth of the
south created by ehattel slavery, the
unassimilating African being considered
as an invention.
Coeval with the fall of the American
system, designed for the relief of New
England in special, the New England
Anti-Slavery society was founded. III
,,oorc tl,iS orOa tipp summarized