The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1917-05-16
the authority of the Plymouth Rock

The statute establishing perpetual
slavery was adopted by Massachu-
sets, Dec. 1641.
The slave ship DESIRE sailed
from Marblehead, Mass, and was
the first to sail from any English
colony in America to capture Afri-
cans.
The first state to legislate in ia
vor of the slave trade was Massa-.
chusetts.
The first state to urge fugitive
slave law was Massachusetts,.
The last state to legislate against
the slave trade was Massachusetts.
The last slave ship to sail from
the United States was the Nightin-
gale from Massachusetts, in 1861.
She secured a cargo of 900 Africans,
and was captured by the Saratoga
under Captain Guthrie, April 81,
1861, after Fort Sumter had been
fired on.
Massachusetts sold, but never
freed her slaves.
"The Cradle of Liberty" in Bos-
ton, Faneuil Hall, was built by
Peter Fanueil, it's owner, from slave
trade money.
Girard College, in Philadelphia,
was built by Stephen Girard with
money made by African slaves on a
Louisiana plantation.
The WANDERER was sent to
Georgia in 1853 or 1859 by the New
York Yacht Club with a cargo OF
slaves. It landed first at Savannah
and then at Brunswick, and the
slaves were sold.
There were five slave markets in
the United States, not one built by
Southern shareholders. -.
Southern planters never, if it could
be avoided, allowed their slaves to
be sold at public outcry. 1t only
happened when a man died without
will-then members of the family
tried to buy the slaves in, by famil-
les.
The Southern planter has been ac-
cused of cruelty to his slaves.
Let it be remembered, that no
Southern man ever owned slave
ship. No Southern man ever COM
manded slave ship. And a South
ern man ever went to Africa for
slaves.
tuberculosis was unknown among
the negroes until htey were emancl-
pated, yet its ravages among them
are now appalling. The slave very
seldom committed crime, but the
penitentiaries are now crowded with
them. Many slaves were members
of the church, and their fidelity to
their masters was unexcelled.
Gen. Armstrong, a Northern man
said: "While slavery in the South
was called the sum of villlanles, 1t
became the greatest missionary en-
terprise of the century"
When the slaves were emancl-
pated, we turned the mover to the
North an orderly, fairly industrious
race, practically without disease or
crime, mad the North felt they were
worthy of social and political equal
ity, and so legislated.
This brief retrospect may suffice
to show, that the North was respon,,
sible for the system Of slavery, and
that the question of right or wrong
of the institution of slavery, was in
no wise involved in the earlier Sec
tional controversies. They were es-
sentially struggles for sectional
equality or ascendancy-for the
maintenance or the restriction OF
the balance of power or equipoise
beween North and South, which was
early recognized as a cardinal prln-
ciple in our Federal system:
We regard the legal right OF the
respective States, to withdraw from
the Union, as no longer a practical
auestion-it having been settled by
the arbitrament of the sword. But
as abstract question, the world has
reached the conclusion that the
States had the legal power to secede.
The moral right, however, was not
determined by the result Of the Civil
War, and, that is the question
which we shall proceed to discuss.
The legislaure of Massachusetts,,
at the session of 1844-5 followed by
other New England States, resolved
that they were not bound to recog-
nize the annexation OF Texas as
obligatory on them. In 1S45, the
Joint standing committee on FEEDER
al relations said: "When Massa-
chusetts is asked to violate the fun
damental provisions of that Const-
tuition, as we'll as her own, she un-
hesitatingly throws herself back on
her rights, as an independent State.
She cannot forget that she had an
independent existence and a const!-
tuition, before the Union was formed.
Her Constitution secured to every
one of her citizens, the right OF
trial by jury and the privilege OF
the of habeas corpus, whenever
their liberty was at stake. These
essential elements of independence,
she has never bartered away. She
will not suffer them to be wrested
from her, by any power on EARTH"
Horatio Seymour, on October 8,
1880, in a public address in New
York City thus spoke:
"The first threat of disunion was
uttered on the floor of Congress ,by
Josiah Quincy, one Of the most able
and distinguished sons of Massachu-
setts. At an early day Mr.. Hamil-
ton with all his distrust of the Con-
stitution, sent word to the citizens