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Produced by Bryan Ness, Richard J. Shiffer and the Online | |
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This | |
file was produced from scans of public domain works at the | |
University of Michigan's Making of America collection.) | |
[Transcriber's Note: Every effort has been made to replicate this text | |
as faithfully as possible, including obsolete and variant spellings | |
and other inconsistencies. Text that has been changed to correct an | |
obvious error is noted at the end of this ebook.] | |
Anti-Slavery Opinions | |
BEFORE THE YEAR 1800 | |
READ BEFORE THE CINCINNATI LITERARY CLUB, NOVEMBER 16, 1872 | |
BY WILLIAM FREDERICK POOLE | |
Librarian of the Public Library of Cincinnati | |
TO WHICH IS APPENDED A FAC SIMILE REPRINT OF DR. GEORGE BUCHANAN'S | |
ORATION ON THE MORAL AND POLITICAL EVIL OF SLAVERY, DELIVERED | |
AT A PUBLIC MEETING OF THE MARYLAND SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING | |
THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY, BALTIMORE, JULY 4, 1791 | |
CINCINNATI | |
ROBERT CLARKE & CO. | |
1873 | |
ANTI-SLAVERY OPINIONS | |
Before 1800. | |
I purpose this evening to call the attention of the Club to the state | |
of anti-slavery opinions in this country just prior to the year 1800. | |
In this examination I shall make use of a very rare pamphlet in the | |
library of General Washington, which seems to have escaped the notice | |
of writers on this subject; and shall preface my remarks on the main | |
topic of discussion with a brief description of the Washington | |
collection. | |
In the library of the Boston Athenaeum, the visitor sees, as he enters, | |
a somewhat elaborately-constructed book-case, with glass front, filled | |
with old books. This is the library of George Washington, which came | |
into possession of the Athenaeum in 1849. It was purchased that year | |
from the heirs of Judge Bushrod Washington--the favorite nephew to | |
whom the General left all his books and manuscripts--by Mr. Henry | |
Stevens, of London, with the intention of placing it in the British | |
Museum. Before the books were shipped, they were bought by Mr. George | |
Livermore and a few other literary and public-spirited gentlemen | |
of Boston, and presented to the Athenaeum. Mr. Livermore, as | |
discretionary executor of the estate of Thomas Dowse, the "literary | |
leather-dresser" of Cambridge, added to the gift one thousand dollars, | |
for the purpose of printing a description and catalogue of the | |
collection, which has not yet been done. | |
The collection numbers about twelve hundred titles, of which four | |
hundred and fifty are bound volumes, and seven hundred and fifty are | |
pamphlets and unbound serials. Some books of the original library of | |
General Washington still remain at Mt. Vernon, and are, or were a few | |
years since, shown to visitors, with other curiosities. | |
Separated from association with their former illustrious owner, the | |
bound volumes, which are mostly English books, present but few | |
attractions. Among them are a few treatises on the art of war and | |
military tactics, which evidently were never much read. These were | |
imported after his unfortunate expedition with Braddock's army, and | |
before the revolutionary war. There are books on horse and cattle | |
diseases; on domestic medicine; on farming, and on religious | |
topics--such works as we might expect to find on the shelves of a | |
intelligent Virginia planter. It is evident that their owner was no | |
student or specialist. Many of the books were sent to him as presents, | |
with complimentary inscriptions by the donors. The bindings are all in | |
their original condition, and generally of the most common | |
description. The few exceptions were presentation copies. Col. David | |
Humphreys, Washington's aid-de-camp during the revolutionary war, | |
presents his "Miscellaneous Works," printed in 1790, bound, regardless | |
of expense, by some Philadelphia binder, in full red morocco, gilt and | |
goffered edges, and with covers and fly-leaves lined with figured | |
satin. As the book was for a very distinguished man, the patriotic | |
binder has stamped on the covers and back every device he had in his | |
shop. Nearly all the volumes have the bold autograph of "Go. | |
Washington," upon their title pages, and the well-known book-plate, | |
with his name, armorial bearings, and motto, _Exitus acta probat_,[1] | |
on the inside of the covers. | |
There are persons at the present day who have very positive opinions | |
on the subject of prose fiction, believing that great characters like | |
Jonathan Edwards and George Washington never read such naughty books | |
when they were young. Let us see. Here is the "Adventures of Peregrine | |
Pickle; in which are included the Memoirs of a Lady of Quality," by | |
Tobias Smollett, in three volumes. On the title page of the first | |
volume is the autograph of George Washington, written in the cramped | |
hand of a boy of fourteen. The work shows more evidence of having been | |
attentively read, even to the end of the third volume, than any in the | |
library. Here is the "Life and Opinions of John Buncle," a book which | |
it is better that boarding-school misses should not read. Yet | |
Washington read it, and enjoyed the fun; for it is one of the few | |
books he speaks of in his correspondence as having read and enjoyed. | |
The present generation of readers are not familiar with John Buncle. | |
Of the book and its author, Hazlitt says "John Buncle is the English | |
Rabelais. The soul of Francis Rabelais passed into Thomas Amory, the | |
author of John Buncle. Both were physicians, and enemies of much | |
gravity. Their great business was to enjoy life. Rabelais indulges his | |
spirit of sensuality in wine, in dried neats' tongues, in Bologna | |
sausages, in Botorgas. John Buncle shows the same symptoms of | |
inordinate satisfaction in bread and butter. While Rabelais roared | |
with Friar John and the monks, John Buncle gossiped with the ladies." | |
It is the good fortune of the youth of our age that they are served | |
with fun in more refined and discreet methods; yet there is a | |
melancholy satisfaction in finding in the life of a great historical | |
character like Washington, who was the embodiment of dignity and | |
propriety, that he could, at some period of his existence, unbend and | |
enjoy a book like John Buncle. He becomes, thereby, more human; and | |
the distance between him and ordinary mortals seems to diminish. | |
Thomas Comber's "Discourses on the Common Prayer," has three | |
autographs of his father, Augustine Washington, one of his mother, | |
Mary Washington, and one of his own, written when nine years of age. | |
The fly-leaves he had used as a practice book for writing his father's | |
and mother's names and his own, and for constructing monograms of the | |
family names.[2] | |
The pamphlets in the collection have intrinsically more value than the | |
larger works. They were nearly all contemporaneous, and were sent to | |
Washington by their authors, with inscriptions upon the title pages | |
in their authors' handwriting, of the most profound respect and | |
esteem. Some of these pamphlets are now exceedingly rare. In a bound | |
volume lettered "Tracts on Slavery," and containing several papers, | |
all of radical anti-slavery tendencies,[3] is the one to which I wish | |
especially to call your attention. It is so rare that, having shown | |
this copy for fifteen years to persons especially interested in this | |
subject, and having made the most diligent inquiry, I have never heard | |
of another, till within a few days since, when I learn from my friend, | |
Mr. George H. Moore, the librarian of the New York Historical Society, | |
that there is a copy in that society's library. Its title is: "An | |
Oration upon the Moral and Political Evil of Slavery. Delivered at a | |
Public Meeting of the Maryland Society for Promoting the Abolition of | |
Slavery and the Relief of Free <DW64>s and others unlawfully held in | |
Bondage, Baltimore, July 4, 1791. By George Buchanan, M. D., Member of | |
the American Philosophical Society. Baltimore: Printed by Philip | |
Edwards, M,DCC,XCIII." Twenty pages, octavo. | |
A Fourth-of-July oration in Baltimore, on the moral and political | |
evils of slavery, only four years after the adoption of the | |
Constitution, is an incident worthy of historical recognition, and a | |
place in anti-slavery literature. The following extracts will give an | |
idea of its style and range of thought: | |
"God hath created mankind after His own image, and granted them | |
liberty and independence; and if varieties may be found in their | |
structure and color, these are only to be attributed to the nature | |
of their diet and habits, as also to the soil and the climate they | |
may inhabit, and serve as flimsy pretexts for enslaving them. | |
"What, will you not consider that the Africans are men? That they | |
have human souls to be saved? That they are born free and | |
independent? A violation of these prerogatives is an infringement | |
upon the laws of God. | |
"Possessed of Christian sentiments, they fail not to exercise them | |
when opportunity offers. Things pleasing rejoice them, and | |
melancholy circumstances pall their appetites for amusements. They | |
brook no insults, and are equally prone to forgiveness, as to | |
resentments. They have gratitude also, and will even expose their | |
lives to wipe off the obligation of past favors; nor do they want | |
any of the refinements of taste, so much the boast of those who | |
call themselves Christians. | |
"The talent for music, both vocal and instrumental, appears | |
natural to them; neither is their genius for literature to be | |
despised. Many instances are recorded of men of eminence among | |
them. Witness Ignatius Sancho, whose letters are admired by all | |
men of taste. Phillis Wheatley, who distinguished herself as a | |
poetess; the Physician of New Orleans; the Virginia Calculator; | |
Banneker, the Maryland Astronomer, and many others, whom it would | |
be needless to mention. These are sufficient to show, that the | |
Africans whom you despise, whom you inhumanly treat as brutes, and | |
whom you unlawfully subject to slavery, are equally capable of | |
improvement with yourselves. | |
"This you may think a bold assertion; but it is not made without | |
reflection, nor independent of the testimony of many who have | |
taken pains in their education. Because you see few, in comparison | |
to their number, who make any exertion of ability at all, you are | |
ready to enjoy the common opinion that they are an inferior set | |
of beings, and destined to the cruelties and hardships you impose | |
upon them. | |
"But be cautious how long you hold such sentiments; the time may | |
come when you will be obliged to abandon them. Consider the | |
pitiable situation of these most distressed beings, deprived of | |
their liberty and reduced to slavery. Consider also that they toil | |
not for themselves from the rising of the sun to its going down, | |
and you will readily conceive the cause of their inaction. What | |
time or what incitement has a slave to become wise? There is no | |
great art in hilling corn, or in running a furrow; and to do this | |
they know they are doomed, whether they seek into the mysteries of | |
science or remain ignorant as they are. | |
"To deprive a man of his liberty has a tendency to rob his soul of | |
every spring to virtuous actions; and were slaves to become | |
fiends, the wonder could not be great. 'Nothing more assimulates a | |
man to a beast,' says the learned Montesquieu, 'than being among | |
freemen, himself a slave; for slavery clogs the mind, perverts the | |
moral faculty, and reduces the conduct of man to the standard of | |
brutes.' What right have you to expect greater things of these | |
poor mortals? You would not blame a brute for committing ravages | |
upon his prey; nor ought you to censure a slave for making | |
attempts to regain his liberty, even at the risk of life itself. | |
"Such are the effects of subjecting man to slavery, that it | |
destroys every human principle, vitiates the mind, instills ideas | |
of unlawful cruelties, and subverts the springs of government. | |
"What a distressing scene is here before us? America, I start at | |
your situation! These direful effects of slavery demand your most | |
serious attention. What! shall a people who flew to arms with the | |
valor of Roman citizens when encroachments were made upon their | |
liberties by the invasion of foreign powers, now basely descend to | |
cherish the seed and propagate the growth of the evil which they | |
boldly sought to eradicate? To the eternal infamy of our country | |
this 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 country to contaminate the minds of | |
her citizens, you ought to have the virtue of extirpating it. | |
"In the first struggles for American freedom, in the enthusiastic | |
ardor of attaining liberty and independence, one of the most noble | |
sentiments that ever adorned the human breast was loudly | |
proclaimed in all her councils. Deeply penetrated with the sense | |
of equality, they held it as a fixed principle, 'that all men are | |
by nature, and of right ought to be, free; that they were created | |
equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable | |
rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of | |
happiness. Nevertheless, _when_ the blessings of peace were | |
showered upon them; _when_ they had obtained these rights which | |
they had so boldly contended for, _then_ they became apostates to | |
their principles, and riveted the fetters of slavery upon the | |
unfortunate African. | |
"Deceitful men! Who could have suggested that American patriotism | |
would at this day countenance a conduct so inconsistent; that | |
while America boasts of being a land of freedom, and an asylum for | |
the oppressed of Europe, she should at the same time foster an | |
abominable nursery of slaves to check the shoots of her growing | |
liberty? Deaf to the clamors of criticism, she feels no remorse, | |
and blindly pursues the object of her destruction; she encourages | |
the propagation of vice, and suffers her youth to be reared in the | |
habits of cruelty. Not even the sobs and groans of injured | |
innocence which reek from every state can excite her pity, nor | |
human misery bend her heart to sympathy. Cruel and oppressive she | |
wantonly abuses the rights of man, and willingly sacrifices her | |
liberty upon the altar of slavery. | |
"What an opportunity is here given for triumph among her enemies! | |
Will they not exclaim that, upon this very day, while the | |
Americans celebrate the anniversary of freedom and independence, | |
abject slavery exists in all her states but one? | |
[Note--Massachusetts.] How degenerately base to merit the rebuke! | |
Fellow countrymen, let the heart of humanity awake and direct your | |
councils. Combine to drive the fiend monster from your | |
territories. | |
"Your laborers are slaves, and they have no incentive to be | |
industrious; they are clothed and victualed, whether lazy or | |
hard-working; and, from the calculations that have been made, one | |
freeman is worth two slaves in the field, which make it in many | |
instances cheaper to have hirelings; for they are incited to | |
industry by hopes of reputation and future employment, and are | |
careful of their apparel and their implements of husbandry, where | |
they must provide them for themselves; whereas the others have | |
little or no temptation to attend to any of these circumstances. | |
"Fellow countrymen, let the hand of persecution be no longer | |
raised against you; act virtuously; 'do unto all men as you would | |
that they should do unto you,' and exterminate the pest of slavery | |
from the land." | |
The orator then goes on to hold up the horrors of an insurrection. He | |
reminds his hearers that in many parts of the South the number of | |
slaves exceeds that of the whites. He reminds them that these slaves | |
are naturally born free and have a right to freedom; that they will | |
not forever sweat under the yoke of slavery. "Heaven," he says, "will | |
not overlook such enormities. She is bound to punish impenitent | |
sinners, and her wrath is to be dreaded by all. What, then, if the | |
fire of liberty shall be kindled among them? What if some enthusiast | |
in their cause shall beat to arms and call them to the standard of | |
freedom? Led on by the hopes of freedom and animated by the inspiring | |
voice of their leaders, they would soon find that 'a day, an hour of | |
virtuous liberty was worth a whole eternity of bondage.' | |
"Hark! methinks I hear the work begun; the blacks have sought for | |
allies and have found them in the wilderness, and have called the | |
rusty savages to their assistance, and are preparing to take revenge | |
upon their haughty masters." | |
To this threatening passage the orator has appended a note, in which | |
he says: "This was thrown out as a conjecture of what possibly might | |
happen; and the insurrections of San Domingo tend to prove this danger | |
to be more considerable than has generally been supposed, and | |
sufficient to alarm the inhabitants of these states." | |
The contingency, which he thought might possibly happen, did actually | |
occur thirty-nine years later, when an insurrection broke out, August, | |
1830, in Southampton county, Virginia, under the lead of Nat Turner, a | |
fanatical <DW64> preacher, in which sixty-one white men, women, and | |
children were murdered before it was suppressed. | |
He recommends immediate emancipation; and if this can not be done, | |
"then," he says, "let the children be liberated at a certain age, and | |
in less than half a century the plague will be totally rooted out from | |
among you; thousands of good citizens will be added to your number, | |
and gratitude will induce them to become your friends." | |
This remarkable oration suggests some interesting questions of | |
historical inquiry. How far do these opinions represent the current | |
sentiments of that time on the subject of slavery? It will be seen | |
that they are of the most radical type. I am not aware that Wendell | |
Phillips or Wm. Lloyd Garrison ever claimed that the <DW64> race was | |
equal in its capacity for improvement to the white race. While its | |
rhetoric was more chaste, they certainly never denounced the system in | |
more vigorous and condemnatory terms. | |
Forty-four years later (October 21, 1835), Mr. Garrison was waited | |
upon, in open day, by a mob of most respectable citizens, while | |
attending a meeting of the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society, dragged | |
through the streets of Boston with a rope around his body, and locked | |
up in jail by the Mayor of that sedate city to protect him from his | |
assailants. On the 4th of July, 1834, a meeting of the American | |
Anti-Slavery Society was broken up in New York, and the house of Lewis | |
Tappan was sacked by mob violence. A month later, in the city of | |
Philadelphia a mob against anti-slavery and <DW52> men raged for | |
three days and nights. On the 28th of July, 1836, a committee of | |
thirteen citizens of Cincinnati, appointed by a public meeting, of | |
whom Jacob Burnet, late United States Senator and Judge of the Supreme | |
Court of Ohio, was chairman, waited upon Mr. James G. Birney and other | |
members of the executive committee of the Ohio Anti-Slavery Society, | |
under whose direction the "Philanthropist," an anti-slavery | |
newspaper, was printed here, and informed them that unless they | |
desisted from its publication the meeting would not be responsible for | |
the consequences. Judge Burnet stated that the mob would consist of | |
five thousand persons, and that two-thirds of the property holders of | |
the city would join it. The committee gave Mr. Birney and his friends | |
till the next day to consider the question, when they decided to make | |
no terms with the rioters and to abide the consequences. That night | |
the office was sacked, and the press of the "Philanthropist" was | |
thrown into the Ohio river. | |
But here was an oration delivered in the city of Baltimore in the year | |
1791, advancing the most extreme opinions, and it created not a ripple | |
on the surface of Southern society. | |
That the opinions of the oration did not offend those to whom it was | |
addressed, the official action of the Society, which is printed on the | |
third page, attests. It is as follows: | |
"At a special meeting of the 'Maryland Society for Promoting the | |
Abolition of Slavery and the Relief of Free <DW64>s and others | |
Unlawfully held in Bondage,' held at Baltimore, July 4, 1791, | |
unanimously | |
"_Resolved_, That the president present the thanks of the Society | |
to Dr. George Buchanan, for the excellent oration by him delivered | |
this day, and, at the same time, request a copy thereof in the | |
name and for the use of the Society. | |
"Signed--Samuel Sterett, President; Alex. McKim, Vice-President; | |
Joseph Townsend, Secretary." | |
The oration has this dedication: | |
"To the Honorable Thomas Jefferson, Esq., Secretary of State, | |
whose patriotism since the American Revolution has been uniformly | |
marked by a sincere, steady, and active attachment to the interest | |
of his country, and whose literary abilities have distinguished | |
him amongst the first of statesmen and philosophers--this oration | |
is respectfully inscribed, as an humble testimony of the highest | |
regard and esteem, by the Author." | |
The author was evidently a straight Democrat. | |
Seven years ago I copied this oration with the intention of reprinting | |
it, with a brief historical introduction, supposing I could readily | |
find the few facts I needed. But in this I was disappointed. Who was | |
Dr. George Buchanan? That he was a member of the American | |
Philosophical Society at Philadelphia was apparent on the title page; | |
but that was all I could learn of him from books or inquiry. I then | |
wrote to a historical friend in Baltimore to make inquiry for me | |
there, and I received letters from the author's son, McKean Buchanan, | |
senior paymaster in the United Stares navy, since deceased, and from | |
two grandsons, Mr. George B. Coale and Dr. Wm. Edw. Coale, giving | |
full particulars, which I will condense: | |
Dr. George Buchanan was born on an estate, five miles from Baltimore, | |
September 19, 1763, and for many years was a practicing physician in | |
Baltimore. He was a son of Andrew Buchanan, who was also born in | |
Maryland, and was General in the Continental troops of Maryland during | |
the Revolution, and was one of the Commissioners who located the city | |
of Baltimore. Dr. George Buchanan studied medicine and took a degree | |
at Philadelphia. He then went to Europe and studied medicine at | |
Edinburgh, and later at Paris, taking degrees at both places. | |
Returning to Baltimore, he married Letitia, daughter of the Hon. | |
Thomas McKean, an eminent jurist, who was a member of the Continental | |
Congress, one of the Signers the Declaration of Independence, and was | |
Governor of Pennsylvania from 1799 to 1806. In 1806, Dr. Buchanan | |
removed to Philadelphia, and died the next year of yellow fever, in | |
the discharge of his official duties as Lazaretto physician. His | |
eldest son was Paymaster McKean Buchanan, before mentioned. His | |
youngest son was Franklin Buchanan, captain in the United States navy | |
till he resigned, April 19, 1861, and went into the so-called | |
Confederate navy. He was, with the rank of Admiral, in command of the | |
iron-clad "Merrimac," and was wounded in the conflict of that vessel | |
with the monitor "Ericsson," at Hampton Roads, March 9, 1862, and was | |
later captured by Admiral Farragut in Mobile harbor. | |
"My brother," writes one of the grandsons, "told me that the last time | |
he saw Henry Clay, Mr. Clay took his hand in both of his and said, | |
with great emphasis: 'It is to your grandfather that I owe my present | |
position with regard to slavery. It was he who first pointed out to me | |
the curse it entailed on the white man, and the manifold evils it | |
brings with it.'" | |
In determining how far the sentiments contained in this oration were | |
the current opinions of the time, it became necessary for me to know | |
something definite of the "Maryland Society for the Abolition of | |
Slavery," of the Virginia, the Pennsylvania, and other societies, | |
which existed at that time. This information I could not obtain from | |
anti-slavery books, or from the most prominent abolitionists whom I | |
consulted. The matter seemed to have been forgotten, and it was the | |
common idea that there was nothing worth remembering of the | |
anti-slavery movement before 1830, when Mr. Garrison and his radical | |
friends came upon the stage in Boston. For the want of the facts I | |
needed, I laid aside the idea of reproducing the tract. The subject | |
was brought again to mind by hearing the excellent paper, by Mr. S. E. | |
Wright, our secretary, on the anti-slavery labors of Benjamin Lundy, | |
which he read to this Club, a few months ago. The labors of Mr. Lundy | |
began in 1816, and ended with his death in 1839. Quite recently I | |
have obtained much of the information I needed. | |
Among the unknown facts to which I could get no clue at the time I | |
have mentioned, were the names of the "Virginia Calculator" and the | |
"Physician of New Orleans," whom Dr. Buchanan mentions with Phillis | |
Wheatley, Ignatius Sancho, and Banneker, the Maryland astronomer, as | |
being <DW64>s who were distinguished for their literary and | |
mathematical acquirements. Mr. Phillips had never heard of them, and | |
he took the trouble to make inquiries among his anti-slavery friends, | |
but without success. | |
A year or more after I had abandoned my little project, in looking | |
over the files of the Columbian Centinal, printed in Boston, for 1790, | |
I found under the date of December 29th, in the column of deaths, the | |
following: | |
"DIED--<DW64> Tom, the famous African calculator, aged 80 years. He | |
was the property of Mrs. Elizabeth Cox, of Alexandria. Tom was a | |
very black man. He was brought to this country at the age of | |
fourteen, and was sold as a slave with many of his unfortunate | |
countrymen. This man was a prodigy. Though he could neither read | |
nor write, he had perfectly acquired the use of enumeration. He | |
could give the number of months, days, weeks, hours, and seconds, | |
for any period of time that a person chose to mention, allowing in | |
his calculations for all the leap years that happened in the | |
time. He would give the number of poles, yards, feet, inches, and | |
barley-corns in a given distance--say, the diameter of the earth's | |
orbit--and in every calculation he would produce the true answer | |
in less time than ninety-nine out of a hundred men would take with | |
their pens. And what was, perhaps, more extraordinary, though | |
interrupted in the progress of his calculations, and engaged in | |
discourse upon any other subject, his operations were not thereby | |
in the least deranged; he would go on where he left off, and could | |
give any and all of the stages through which the calculation had | |
passed. | |
"Thus died <DW64> Tom, this untaught arithmetician, this untutored | |
scholar. Had his opportunities of improvement been equal to those | |
of thousands of his fellow-men, neither the Royal Society of | |
London, the Academy of Science at Paris, nor even a Newton himself | |
need have been ashamed to acknowledge him a brother in science." | |
This obituary was doubtless extracted from a Southern newspaper. A | |
fact once found is easily found again. I have come across the name of | |
this unlettered <DW64> prodigy many times since, with the substance of | |
the facts already stated. In a letter which Dr. Benj. Rush, of | |
Philadelphia, addressed to a gentleman in Manchester, England, he says | |
that, hearing of the astonishing powers of <DW64> Tom, he, in company | |
with other gentlemen passing through Virginia, sent for him. A | |
gentleman of the company asked Tom how many seconds a man of seventy | |
years, some odd months, weeks, and days had lived. He told the exact | |
number in a minute and a half. The gentleman took a pen, and having | |
made the calculation by figures, told the <DW64> that he must be | |
mistaken, as the number was too great. "'Top, massa," said the <DW64> | |
"you hab left out de leap years." On including the leap years in the | |
calculation, the number given by the <DW64> was found to be correct.[4] | |
That Dr. Buchanan did not mention his name is explained by the fact | |
that he died only six months before; and the audience, who had | |
doubtless read the obituary notice just recited, or a similar one, | |
knew who was meant. Besides, he was a native African, and had no name | |
worth having. He was only <DW64> Tom. In Bishop Gregoire's work, | |
however, he is ennobled by the by the name of Thomas Fuller, and in | |
Mr. Needles' Memoir the name of Thomas Tuller.[5] | |
Why Dr. Buchanan should have omitted to mention the name of "the New | |
Orleans physician" does not appear, unless it be that he was equally | |
well known. His name, I have found recently, was James Derham. Dr. | |
Rush, in the American Museum for January, 1789, gave an account of Dr. | |
Derham, who was then a practitioner of medicine at New Orleans, and, | |
at the time the notice was written, was visiting in Philadelphia. He | |
was twenty-six years of age, married, member of the Episcopal Church, | |
and having a professional income of three thousand dollars a year. He | |
was born in Philadelphia a slave, and was taught to read and write, | |
and occasionally to compound medicines for his master, who was a | |
physician. On the death of his master he was sold to the surgeon of | |
the Sixteenth British regiment, and at the close of the war was sold | |
to Dr. Robert Dove, of New Orleans, who employed him as an assistant | |
in his business. He manifested such capacity, and so won the | |
confidence and friendship of his master, that he was liberated on easy | |
terms after two or three years' service, and entered into practice for | |
himself. "I have conversed with him," says Dr. Rush, "upon most of the | |
acute and epidemic diseases of the country where he lives. I expected | |
to have suggested some new medicines to him, but he suggested many | |
more to me. He is very modest and engaging in his manners. He speaks | |
French fluently, and has some knowledge of the Spanish."[6] | |
It was unfortunate that these incidents had not occurred early enough | |
to have come to the knowledge of Mr. Jefferson before he wrote his | |
"Notes on Virginia." These were precisely the kind of facts he was in | |
quest of. He probably would have used them, and have strengthened the | |
opinions he there expressed as to the intellectual capacity of the | |
<DW64> race. | |
His "Notes on Virginia" were written in 1781-2. His condemnation of | |
slavery in that work is most emphatic. "The whole commerce between | |
master and slave," he says, "is a perpetual exercise of the most | |
boisterous passions; the most unremitting despotism on the one part, | |
and degrading submission on the other. Our children see this and learn | |
to imitate it.... The parent storms, the child looks on, catches the | |
lineaments of wrath, puts on the same airs in the circle of smaller | |
slaves, gives loose to his worst of passions; and thus nursed, | |
educated, and daily exercised in tyranny, can not but be stamped by it | |
with odious peculiarities. The man must be a prodigy who can retain | |
his manners and morals undepraved by such circumstances. With what | |
execration should the statesman be loaded, who, permitting one-half | |
the citizens thus to trample on the rights of the other, transforms | |
those into despots and these into enemies--destroys the morals of the | |
one part, and the _amor patriae_ of the other?... Can the liberties of | |
a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm | |
basis--a conviction in the minds of men that these liberties are the | |
gift of God; that they are not to be violated but with His wrath? | |
Indeed, I tremble for my country, when I reflect that God is | |
just--that His justice can not sleep forever." Pp. 270-272, ed. Lond., | |
1787. | |
On the practical question, "What shall be done about it?" Mr. | |
Jefferson's mind wavered; he was in doubt. How can slavery be | |
abolished? He proposed, in Virginia, a law, which was rejected, making | |
all free who were born after the passage of the act. And here again he | |
hesitated. What will become of these people after they are free? What | |
are their capacities? He had never seen an educated <DW64>. He had | |
heard of Phillis Wheatley and Ignatius Sancho. He did not highly | |
estimate the poetry of the one, or the sentimental letters of the | |
other. He was willing to admit, however, that a <DW64> could write | |
poetry and sentimental letters. Beyond this all was in doubt. He | |
regarded it as highly probable that they could do nothing more. He | |
says: "Comparing them by their faculties of memory, reason, and | |
imagination, it appears to me that in memory they are equal to the | |
whites; in reason much inferior, as I think one could scarcely be | |
found capable of tracing and comprehending the investigations of | |
Euclid"--p. 232. He doubtingly adds: "The opinion that they are | |
inferior in the faculties of reason and imagination must be hazarded | |
with great diffidence. To justify a general conclusion requires many | |
observations"--p. 238. The opportunity for making these observations | |
he had never had. | |
It so happened that soon after writing this, Banneker, the Maryland | |
<DW64> astronomer, who had distinguished himself in the very faculty of | |
mathematical reasoning which Mr. Jefferson had supposed no <DW64> | |
possessed, sent him his Almanac, with a letter. To the letter Mr. | |
Jefferson replied as follows: | |
"I thank you sincerely for your letter of the 19th instant, and | |
for the Almanac it contained. Nobody wishes more than I do to see | |
such proofs as you exhibit, that nature has given to our black | |
brethren talents equal to those of other colors of men, and that | |
the appearance of a want of them is owing merely to the degraded | |
condition of their existence, both in Africa and America. I can | |
add with truth, that nobody wishes more ardently to see a good | |
system commenced for raising the condition, both of their body and | |
mind, to what it ought to be, as fast as the imbecility of their | |
present existence, and other circumstances which can not be | |
neglected, will admit. I have taken the liberty of sending your | |
Almanac to Monsieur de Condorcet, Secretary of the Academy of | |
Sciences at Paris, and member of the Philanthropic Society, | |
because I consider it a document to which your color had a right | |
for their justification against the doubts which have been | |
entertained of them. I am, with great esteem, sir, your most | |
obedient, humble servant, | |
"THOS. JEFFERSON."[7] | |
The next instances of precocious black men which must have come to his | |
knowledge were, doubtless, <DW64> Tom, in whom the mathematical faculty | |
was strangely developed, and James Derham, the New Orleans physician. | |
If Mr. Jefferson had rewritten his "Notes," he would, probably, have | |
included mathematics and medicine among the special subjects which | |
were peculiarly adapted to the capacities of the <DW64> mind. | |
It was not the question of the natural rights of the <DW64>, the | |
prejudice of color, nor of the ruinous improvidence of the system of | |
slavery, that controlled the decision in Mr. Jefferson's mind, as to | |
the methods by which the system should be terminated. On these points, | |
he was as radical as the extremest abolitionist; but he could not | |
satisfy himself as to the mental capacity of the <DW64>--whether he had | |
the full complement of human capabilities, and the qualifications for | |
equality of citizenship with the white man; for he saw that | |
emancipation, without expatriation, meant nothing else than giving the | |
black man all the rights of citizenship. The theory that the <DW64> is | |
a decaudalized ape, a progressing chimpanzee, is an invention of the | |
last forty years, and contemporaneous with the discovery that the | |
Bible sanctions slavery. He was, on the whole, inclined to the opinion | |
that they were an inferior race of beings, and that their residence, | |
in a state of freedom, among white men was incompatible with the | |
happiness of both. He thought they had better be emancipated, and sent | |
out of the country. He therefore took up with the colonization scheme | |
long before the Colonization Society was founded. He did not feel sure | |
on this point. With his practical mind, he could not see how a half | |
million of slaves could be sent out of the country, even if they were | |
voluntarily liberated;[8] where they should be sent to, or how | |
unwilling masters could be compelled to liberate their slaves. While, | |
therefore, he did not favor immediate emancipation, he was zealous for | |
no other scheme. | |
Bishop Gregoire, of Paris, felt deeply hurt at Mr. Jefferson's low | |
estimate of the <DW64>'s mental capacity, and wrote to him a sharp | |
letter on the subject. Later, the Bishop sent a copy of his own book | |
on the Literature of <DW64>s.[9] Acknowledging the receipt of the | |
Bishop's book, Mr. Jefferson says: | |
"Be assured that no person living wishes more sincerely than I do, | |
to see a complete refutation of the doubts I have myself | |
entertained and expressed on the grade and understanding allotted | |
to them by nature, and to find that, in this respect, they are on | |
a par with ourselves. My doubts were the result of personal | |
observation on the limited sphere of my own State, where the | |
opportunities for the development of their genius were not | |
favorable, and those of exercising it still less so. I expressed | |
them, therefore, with great hesitation; but whatever be their | |
degree of talent, it is no measure of their rights. Because Sir | |
Isaac Newton was superior to others in understanding, he was not | |
therefore lord of the person and property of others. On this | |
subject they are gaining daily in the opinions of nations, and | |
hopeful advances are making toward their re-establishment on an | |
equal footing with other colors of the human family. I pray you, | |
therefore, to accept my thanks for the many instances you have | |
enabled me to observe of respectable intelligence in that race of | |
men, which can not fail to have effect in hastening the day of | |
their relief." Works, v, p. 429. | |
Writing to another person a few months later, he alludes to this | |
letter and says: "As to Bishop Gregoire, I wrote him a very soft | |
answer. It was impossible for a doubt to be more tenderly or | |
hesitatingly expressed than it was in the Notes on Virginia; and | |
nothing was, or is, further from my intentions than to enlist myself | |
as a champion of a fixed opinion, where I have only expressed a | |
doubt." Works, v, p. 476. | |
Mr. Jefferson never got beyond his doubt; and Bishop Gregoire resented | |
his passive position by omitting Mr. Jefferson's name from a list of | |
fourteen Americans, which included Mr. Madison, William Pinkney, Dr. | |
Benj. Rush, Timothy Dwight, Col. Humphreys, and Joel Barlow, to whom, | |
with other philanthropists, he dedicated his book. | |
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.[10] So was Henry Clay at a later | |
period. | |
Mr. Jefferson, in August, 1785, wrote a letter to Dr. Richard Price, | |
of London, author of a treatise on Liberty, in which very advanced | |
opinions were taken on the slavery question. Concerning the | |
prevalence of anti-slavery opinions at that period, he says: | |
"Southward of the Chesapeake your book will find but few readers | |
concurring with it in sentiment on the subject of slavery. From the | |
mouth to the head of the Chesapeake, the bulk of the people will | |
approve its theory, and it will find a respectable minority, a | |
minority ready to adopt it in practice; which, for weight and worth of | |
character, preponderates against the greater number who have not the | |
courage to divest their families of a property which, however, keeps | |
their consciences unquiet. Northward of the Chesapeake you may find, | |
here and there, an opponent to your doctrine, as you find, here and | |
there, a robber and murderer, but in no greater number. In that part | |
of America there are but few slaves, and they can easily disincumber | |
themselves of them; and emancipation is put in such a train that in a | |
few years there will be no slaves northward of Maryland. In Maryland I | |
do not find such a disposition to begin the redress of this enormity | |
as in Virginia. These [the inhabitants of Virginia] have sucked in the | |
principles of liberty, as it were, with their mothers' milk, and it is | |
to these I look with anxiety to turn the fate of this question. Be | |
not, therefore, discouraged. The College of William and Mary in | |
Williamsburg, since the remodeling of its plan, is the place where | |
are collected together all the young men of Virginia under preparation | |
for public life. There they are under the direction (most of them) of | |
a Mr. George Wythe [Professor of Law from 1779 to 1789], one of the | |
most virtuous of characters, and whose sentiments on the subject of | |
slavery are unequivocal. I am satisfied if you could resolve to | |
address an exhortation to these young men, with all the eloquence of | |
which you are master, that its influence on the future decision of | |
this important question would be great, perhaps decisive."[11] Works, | |
i, p. 377. | |
There was great progress in anti-slavery sentiment between 1785 and | |
1791, when Maryland was fully awake, as we see from Dr. Buchanan's | |
Oration. In proof of this progress, it may be stated that, in 1784, | |
Mr. Jefferson drew up an ordinance for the government of the Western | |
territories, in which he inserted an article prohibiting slavery in | |
the territories after the year 1800. On reporting the ordinance to the | |
Continental Congress, the article prohibiting slavery was forthwith | |
stricken out, and the report, as amended, was accepted; but the | |
ordinance itself was a dead letter. Three years later, the celebrated | |
Ordinance of 1787, for the organization of the Northwest Territory, | |
embracing what is now the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, | |
and Wisconsin, was reported by a committee consisting of Edward | |
Carrington of Virginia, Nathan Dane of Massachusetts, Richard Henry | |
Lee of Virginia, John Kean of South Carolina, and Melanethon Smith of | |
New York, acting under the advice of Dr. Mannasseh Cutler, citizen of | |
Massachusetts, who was then in New York, attending the session of | |
Congress, for the purpose of buying land for the Ohio Company, which | |
made, the next year, the first English settlement in that Territory, | |
at Marietta. The Ordinance provided that "there shall be neither | |
slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said Territory." It was | |
passed without debate, or the offer (except by the committee) of an | |
amendment, by the vote of every state. A few years earlier or later, | |
such a vote would have been impossible.[12] Just before this date, | |
commenced the great Southern awakening on the subject of slavery, of | |
which so little is now known, and of which Dr. Buchanan's Oration is | |
an illustration. | |
There never has been a time since 1619, when the first slave ship, a | |
Dutch man-of-war, entered James river, in Virginia, when in our | |
country there were not persons protesting against the wickedness and | |
impolicy of the African slave trade and of the domestic slave system. | |
Slavery was introduced into the American colonies, against the wishes | |
of the settlers, by the avarice of British traders and with the | |
connivance of the British government. Just previous to the Revolution, | |
the Colony of Massachusetts made several attempts to relieve itself | |
of the incubus, and the acts of the General Court were smothered or | |
vetoed by three successive Governors, under the plea that they had | |
such instructions from England. In 1772, the Assembly of Virginia | |
petitioned the throne of England to stop the importation of slaves, | |
using language as follows: "We are encouraged to look up to the throne | |
and implore your Majesty's paternal assistance in averting a calamity | |
of a most alarming nature. The importation of slaves into the colonies | |
from the coast of Africa hath long been considered as a trade of great | |
inhumanity, and under its present encouragement, we have much reason | |
to fear will endanger the very existence of your Majesty's dominions. | |
Deeply impressed with these sentiments, we most humbly beseech your | |
Majesty to remove all restraints on your Majesty's Governors of this | |
colony, which inhibit to their assisting to such laws as might check | |
so very pernicious a commerce." No notice was taken of the petition by | |
the crown. This was the principal grievance complained of by Virginia | |
at the commencement of the revolutionary war. | |
The limits allowed me forbid my giving even a sketch of legislative | |
action, of the opinions of great men, of the labors of Samuel Sewall, | |
George Keith, Samuel Hopkins, William Burling, Ralph Sandiford, | |
Anthony Benezet, Benjamin Lay, John Woolman, and others, and of the | |
literature of the subject, from the beginning of the irrepressible | |
conflict in 1619 down to the period we are considering.[13] | |
The revolutionary war, and the questions which then arose, turned the | |
thoughts of men, as never before, to the injustice and impolicy of | |
slavery. At the first general Congress of the colonies, held at | |
Philadelphia in 1774, Mr. Jefferson presented an exposition of rights, | |
in which he says: "The abolition of slavery is the greatest object of | |
desire in these colonies, when it was unhappily introduced in their | |
infant state." Among the "articles of association" adopted by that | |
Congress, October 20, 1774, was this: "That we will neither import, | |
nor purchase any slave imported, after the first day of December next, | |
nor will we hire our vessels, nor sell our commodities or manufactures | |
to those who are concerned in the slave trade." | |
The first anti-slavery society, in this or any other country, was | |
formed April 14, 1775, at the Sun Tavern, on Second street, in | |
Philadelphia. The original members of this society were mostly, and | |
perhaps all of them, Friends or Quakers. This religious society had, | |
for any years earnestly protested against slavery. As early as 1696 | |
the yearly meeting had cautioned its members against encouraging the | |
bringing in of any more <DW64>s. In 1743, and, again in 1755, the | |
annual query was made, whether their members were clear of importing | |
or buying slaves. In 1758, those who disobeyed the advice of the | |
yearly meeting were placed under discipline; and in 1776, those who | |
continued to hold slaves over the lawful age, were disowned.[14] | |
The first anti-slavery society took the name of "The Society for the | |
Relief of Free <DW64>s unlawfully held in Bondage."[15] The society | |
met four times in 1775, and on account of the war no meeting occurred | |
again until February, 1784. I was so fortunate to find among some | |
pamphlets, presented to our Public Library a short time since, an | |
original copy of the "Rules and Regulations" of this society, printed | |
in 1784, which I have here.[16] Regular meetings were held till | |
April, 1787, when the constitution was revised and made to include the | |
"Abolition of Slavery" as well as the "Relief of Free <DW64>s" and Dr. | |
Benjamin Franklin was chosen president, and Benjamin Rush, secretary, | |
both signers of the Declaration of Independence.[17] | |
The society entered with zeal upon its mission, circulating its | |
documents, and opening a correspondence with eminent men in the United | |
States and in Europe.[18] | |
The New York "Society for Promoting the Manumission of Slaves" was | |
organized January 25, 1785, and John Jay was the first president. On | |
being appointed Chief Justice of the United States, he resigned, and | |
Alexander Hamilton was appointed to his place. This society circulated | |
gratuitously Dr. Samuel Hopkins's Dialogue on Slavery, and Address to | |
Slaveholders, and other documents. In 1787, the Society offered a | |
gold medal for the best discourse, at the public commencement of | |
Columbia College, on the injustice and cruelty of the slave-trade, and | |
the fatal effects of slavery. The London Society was organized July | |
17, 1787; the Paris Society in February, 1788;[19] and the Delaware | |
Society the same year.[20] The Maryland Society was formed September | |
8, 1789,[21] and the same year the Rhode Island Society was organized | |
in the house of Dr. Hopkins, at Newport. In 1790, the Connecticut | |
Society was formed, of which Dr. Ezra Stiles, President of Yale | |
College, and Judge Simeon Baldwin, were the president and secretary. | |
The Virginia Society was formed in 1791; and the New Jersey Society in | |
1792. | |
The principal officers of these societies were not fanatics; they were | |
most eminent men in the land--judges of the courts, members of the | |
Constitutional Convention and of the Continental and United States | |
Congress. | |
It is to be observed that there was no anti-slavery society in | |
Massachusetts, which enjoys the reputation of originating all the | |
radicalism of the land.[22] Slavery had come to an end there, about | |
the year 1780; but when, or how, nobody is able to say definitely. | |
Some even say that it was abolished there in 1776, by the Declaration | |
of Independence declaring that "all men are created equal." Others | |
claim that, substantially the same clause, "all men are born free and | |
equal," incorporated into the declaration of rights in the State | |
Constitution of 1780, abolished slavery. There was no action of the | |
State Legislature on the subject, and no proclamation by the governor; | |
yet it was as well settled in 1783, that there was no slavery in | |
Massachusetts, as it is to-day. This came about by a decision of the | |
Supreme Court that there was no slavery in the State, it being | |
incompatible with the declaration of rights. "How, or by what act | |
particularly," says Chief Justice Shaw, "slavery was abolished in | |
Massachusetts, whether by the adoption of the opinion in Somerset's | |
case as a declaration and modification of the common law, or by the | |
Declaration of Independence, or by the constitution of 1780, it is not | |
now very easy to determine; it is rather a matter of curiosity than | |
utility, it being agreed on all hands that, if not abolished before, | |
it was by the declaration of rights." 18 Pickering, 209.[23] | |
Mr. Sumner asserted, in a speech in the Senate, June 28, 1854, that | |
"in all her annals, no person was ever born a slave on the soil of | |
Massachusetts." Mr. Palfrey, in his History of New England,[24] | |
says: "In fact, no person was ever born into legal slavery in | |
Massachusetts;" and Prof. Emory Washburn, in his Lecture, January 22, | |
1869, on "Slavery as it once prevailed in Massachusetts,"[25] says: | |
"Nor does the fact that they were held as slaves, where the question | |
as to their being such was never raised, militate with the position | |
already stated--that no child was ever born into _lawful_ bondage in | |
Massachusetts, from the year 1641 to the present hour." | |
These statements, in substance the same, seem like a technical | |
evasion. Thousands were born into actual slavery--whether it were | |
legal or not was poor consolation to the slave--lived as slaves, were | |
sold as slaves, and died as slaves in Massachusetts. They never knew | |
they were freemen. The number of slaves in Massachusetts in 1776 was | |
5,249, about half of whom were owned in Boston, which had then a | |
population of 17,500. The proportion of slaves to the whole population | |
of Boston in 1776, was six times as great as the number of <DW52> | |
persons in Cincinnati to-day is to the whole population, and ten times | |
as great as the present proportion of <DW52> persons in Boston.[26] | |
The same declaration, that "all men are created equally free and | |
independent," is found in the constitutions of New Hampshire and | |
Virginia; but it did not in these states receive the same | |
construction as in Massachusetts. In New Hampshire it was construed to | |
mean that all persons _born_ after 1784--the date of the adoption of | |
the Constitution--were equally free and independent. In other words, | |
it brought about gradual emancipation. In Virginia, it was simply a | |
glittering generality--it had no legal meaning.[27] | |
In addition to the State Societies already named, there were several | |
local societies in Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. All the | |
abolition societies in the country were in correspondence and acted | |
together. At the suggestion of the New York Society, a convention of | |
delegates was called for the purpose of deliberating on the means of | |
attaining their common object, and of uniting in a memorial to | |
Congress. Delegates from ten of these societies, including the | |
Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, | |
Connecticut, and Rhode Island State Societies, and two local societies | |
on the eastern shore of Maryland, met on the first day of January, | |
1794, at the Select Council Chamber in Philadelphia,[28] and drew up a | |
joint memorial to Congress, asking for a law making the use of vessels | |
and men in the slave trade a penal offense. Such a law was passed by | |
Congress without debate.[29] These societies held annual conventions | |
for many years. The convention recommended that such meetings of | |
delegates be annually convened; that annual or periodical discourses | |
or orations be delivered in public on slavery and the means of its | |
abolition, in order that, "by the frequent application of the force of | |
reason and the persuasive power of eloquence, slaveholders and their | |
abettors may be awakened to a sense of their injustice, and be | |
startled with horror at the enormity of their conduct." | |
The convention also adopted an address "To the citizens of the United | |
States," which was drawn up by Dr. Benjamin Rush.[30] | |
Similar societies were formed in London and Paris, with whom these | |
societies were in constant correspondence. Pennsylvania passed an act | |
of gradual emancipation in 1780, and Rhode Island and Connecticut in | |
1784. A similar act, making all children born thereafter free, did not | |
pass the Legislature of New York till 1799. In the meantime these | |
societies were pouring in their memorials to State Legislatures and | |
Congress, holding meetings, distributing documents, and rousing public | |
sentiment to the enormities of the slave system. | |
The Connecticut petitioners say: "From a sober conviction of the | |
unrighteousness of slavery, your petitioners have long beheld with | |
grief our fellow-men doomed to perpetual bondage in a country which | |
boasts of her freedom. Your petitioners are fully of opinion that calm | |
reflection will at last convince the world that the whole system of | |
American slavery is unjust in its nature, impolitic in its principles, | |
and in its consequences ruinous to the industry and enterprise of the | |
citizens of these states." | |
The Virginia Society, petitioning Congress, says: "Your memorialists, | |
fully aware that righteousness exalteth a nation, and that slavery is | |
not only an odious degradation, but an outrageous violation of one of | |
the most essential rights of human nature, and utterly repugnant to | |
the precepts of the gospel, which breathes 'peace on earth and good | |
will to men,' lament that a practice so inconsistent with true policy | |
and the inalienable rights of men should subsist in so enlightened an | |
age, and among a people professing that all mankind are, by nature, | |
equally entitled to freedom." | |
The Pennsylvania Society memorialized Congress thus: "The memorial | |
respectfully showeth: That from a regard for the happiness of mankind, | |
an association was formed several years since in this state, by a | |
number of her citizens of various religious denominations, for | |
promoting the abolition of slavery, and for the relief of those | |
unlawfully held in bondage. A just and acute conception of the true | |
principles of liberty, as it spread through the land, produced | |
accessories to their numbers, many friends to their cause, and a | |
legislative co-operation with their views, which, by the blessing of | |
Divine Providence, have been successfully directed to the relieving | |
from bondage a large number of their fellow-creatures of the African | |
race. They have also the satisfaction to observe that in consequence | |
of that spirit of philanthropy and genuine liberty, which is generally | |
diffusing its beneficial influence, similar institutions are forming | |
at home and abroad. | |
"That mankind are all formed by the same Almighty Being, alike objects | |
of his care and equally designed for the enjoyment of happiness, the | |
Christian religion teaches us to believe, and the political creed of | |
Americans fully coincides with the position. | |
"Your memorialists, particularly engaged in attending to the | |
distresses arising from slavery, believe it their indispensable duty | |
to present the subject to your notice. They have observed with real | |
satisfaction, that many important and salutary powers are vested in | |
you for 'promoting the welfare and securing the blessings of liberty | |
to the people of the United States;' and as they conceive that these | |
blessings ought rightfully to be administered without distinction of | |
color to all descriptions of people, so they indulge themselves in the | |
pleasing expectation that nothing which can be done for the relief of | |
the unhappy objects of their care will be either omitted or delayed." | |
"From a persuasion that equal liberty was originally the portion, and | |
is still the birthright of all men, and influenced by the strong ties | |
of humanity and the principles of their institution, your memorialists | |
conceive themselves bound to use all justifiable endeavors to loosen | |
the bands of slavery, and promote a general enjoyment of the blessings | |
of freedom. Under these impressions they earnestly entreat your | |
serious attention to the subject of slavery; that you will be pleased | |
to countenance the restoration to liberty of those unhappy men, who, | |
alone, in this land of freedom, are degraded into perpetual bondage; | |
and who, amidst the general joy of surrounding freemen, are groaning | |
in servile subjection; that you will devise means for removing this | |
inconsistency from the character of the American people; and that you | |
will step to the very verge of the power vested in you for | |
discouraging every species of traffic in the persons of our | |
fellow-men," Annals of Congress, i, p. 1239. | |
This memorial was drawn up and signed by "BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, | |
_President_, Feb. 3, 1790." It was the last public act of that eminent | |
man. He died on the 17th day of the April following. It will be | |
observed that the memorial strikes at slavery itself, on the ground | |
that the institution is unjust, and a national disgrace. It was so | |
understood in Congress, and ruffled the equanimity of the | |
representatives of South Carolina and Georgia. Mr. Jackson, of | |
Georgia, distinguished himself in the debate by an elaborate defense | |
of the institution. He was especially annoyed that Dr. Franklin's name | |
should be attached to the memorial, "a man," he said, "who ought to | |
have known the constitution better."[31] | |
Dr. Franklin, though confined to his chamber, and suffering under a | |
most painful disease, could not allow the occasion to pass without | |
indulging his humor at the expense of Mr. Jackson. He wrote to the | |
editor of the _Federal Gazette_, March 23, 1790, as follows: "Reading, | |
last night, in your excellent paper, the speech of Mr. Jackson, in | |
Congress, against their meddling with the affair of slavery, or | |
attempting to mend the condition of the slaves, it put me in mind of a | |
similar one made about one hundred years since by Sidi Mehemet | |
Ibrahim, a member of the Divan of Algiers, which may be seen in | |
Martin's Account of his Consulship, anno 1687. It was against granting | |
the petition of a sect called _Erika_, or Purists, who prayed for the | |
abolition of piracy and slavery as being unjust. Mr. Jackson does not | |
quote it; perhaps he has not seen it. If, therefore, some of its | |
reasonings are to be found in his eloquent speech, it may only show | |
that men's interests and intellects operate, and are operated on, | |
with surprising similarity, in all countries and climates, whenever | |
they are under similar circumstances. The African's speech, as | |
translated, is as follows." He then goes on to make an ingenious | |
parody of Mr. Jackson's speech, making this African Mussulman give the | |
same religious, and other reasons, for not releasing the white | |
Christian slaves, whom they had captured by piracy, that Mr. Jackson | |
had made for not releasing African slaves.[32] There were inquiries in | |
the libraries for "Martin's Account of his Consulship," but it was | |
never found. The paper may be read in the second volume of Franklin's | |
Works, Sparks' edition, p. 518. None of Dr. Franklin's writings are | |
more felicitous than this _jeu d' esprit_; and it was written only | |
twenty-four days before his death. | |
In the midst of this period, when anti-slavery opinions were so | |
generally held by leading statesmen, the Constitution of the United | |
States was formed. It is due to the framers of that instrument to | |
state that the entire delegations from the Northern and Middle States, | |
and a majority of those from Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware were | |
inspired to a greater or less extent with these sentiments, and would | |
have supported any practical measures that would, in a reasonable | |
time, have put an end to slavery. South Carolina and Georgia | |
positively refused to come into the Union unless the clause, denying | |
to Congress the power to prohibit the importation of slaves prior to | |
1808, was inserted. The Northern States were not so strenuous in | |
opposition to this clause as Virginia and Maryland.[33] State after | |
state was abolishing the institution; anti-slavery opinions were | |
becoming universal; and it was generally supposed at the North that | |
slavery would soon die out. The financial and business interests of | |
the country were prostrated. Union at any cost must be had. The words | |
_slave_ and _slavery_ were carefully avoided in the draft, and the | |
best terms possible were made for South Carolina and Georgia. The | |
Constitution, as finally adopted, suited nobody; and by the narrowest | |
margins it escaped being rejected in all the States. The vote in the | |
Massachusetts Convention was 187 yeas to 168 nays; and in the Virginia | |
Convention, 89 yeas to 78 nays. | |
From this examination of the subject, we see that the popular idea, | |
that the political anti-slavery agitation was forced upon the South by | |
the North, and especially by Massachusetts, is not a correct one. In | |
the second period of excited controversy, from 1820 to 1830, the | |
South again took the lead. In 1827, there were one hundred and thirty | |
abolition societies in the United States. Of these one hundred and six | |
were in the slaveholding States, and only four in New England and New | |
York. Of these societies eight were in Virginia, eleven in Maryland, | |
two in Delaware, two in the District of Columbia, eight in Kentucky, | |
twenty-five in Tennessee, with a membership of one thousand, and fifty | |
in North Carolina, with a membership of three thousand persons.[34] | |
Many of these societies were the result of the personal labors of | |
Benjamin Lundy. | |
The Southampton insurrection of 1830, and indications of insurrection | |
in North Carolina the same year, swept away these societies and their | |
visible results. The fifteen years from 1830 to 1845 were the darkest | |
period the American slave ever saw. It was the reign of violence and | |
mob law at the North. This was the second great reaction. The first | |
commenced with the invention of the cotton-gin, by Eli Whitney, in | |
1793, and continued till the question of the admission of Missouri | |
came up in 1820. The third reaction was a failure; it commenced in | |
1861, and resulted in the overthrow of the institution. | |
In the year 1791, the date that Dr. Buchanan delivered his oration at | |
Baltimore, the College of William and Mary, in Virginia, conferred | |
upon Granville Sharp, the great abolition agitator of England, the | |
degree of LL. D. Granville Sharp had no other reputation than his | |
anti-slavery record. This slender straw shows significantly the | |
current of public opinion in Virginia at that time. If Granville Sharp | |
had come over some years later to visit the President and Fellows of | |
the College which had conferred upon him so distinguished a honor, it | |
might have been at the risk of personal liberty, if not of life. | |
Colleges are naturally conservative, both from principle and from | |
policy. Harvard College has never conferred upon Wm. Lloyd Garrison | |
the least of its academic honors. Wendell Phillips, its own alumnus, | |
the most eloquent of its living orators, and having in his veins a | |
strain of the best blood of Boston, has always been snubbed at the | |
literary and festive gatherings of the College. Southern gentlemen, | |
however, agitators of the divine and biblical origin of slavery, have | |
ever found a welcome on those occasions, for which latter courtesy the | |
College should be honored. | |
If the visitor who records his name in the register of the | |
Massachusetts Historical Society, will turn to the first leaf, he will | |
find standing at the head the autograph of Jefferson Davis. Whether | |
this position of honor was assigned by intention, or occurred | |
accidentally, I can not state. But there it is, and if you forget to | |
look for yourself, it will probably be shown to you by the attendant. | |
Mr. Davis, with his family, visited Boston in 1858, and was received | |
with marked attention by all. During this visit he was introduced, and | |
frequently came to the Athenaeum, where I made his acquaintance. Among | |
other objects of interest in the institution, I showed him | |
Washington's library and this oration of Dr. Buchanan. Nothing so | |
fixed his attention as this; he read it and expressed himself amazed. | |
He had heard that such sentiments were expressed at the South, but had | |
never seen them. | |
I am conscious that while I have taxed your patience, I have given but | |
an imperfect presentation of the subject. If this endeavor shall serve | |
to incite members of the Club to investigate the subject for | |
themselves, my object will have been attained. | |
FOOTNOTES: | |
[1] The questionable morality of Gen. Washington's motto might suggest | |
that it was not originally adopted by him. The sentiment, that "the | |
end justifies the means," has been charged, as a reproach, upon the | |
Jesuits. It was the motto of the Northamptonshire family from which | |
Gen. Washington descended, and was used by him, probably without a | |
thought of its Jesuitical association, or its meaning. | |
[2] On one of the fly-leaves, written in a boy's hand, is "Mary | |
Washington and George Washington." Beneath is this memorandum: "The | |
above is in General Washington's handwriting when nine years of age. | |
[Signed,] G. W. Parke Custis," who was the grandson of Mrs. | |
Washington, and the last surviver of the family. He was born in 1781, | |
and died at the Arlington House in 1857. | |
In the appraisement of General Washington's estate, after his death, | |
this book was valued at twenty-five cents, and the Miscellaneous Works | |
of Col. Humphreys, at three dollars. The boy's scribbling, in the one | |
case, and the gorgeous binding in the other, probably determined these | |
values. In the appendix of Mr. Everett's Life of Washington, is | |
printed the appraisers' inventory of Washington's library. Tracts on | |
Slavery was valued at $1.00; Life of John Buncle, 2 vols., $3.00; | |
Peregrine Pickle, 3 vols., $1.50; Humphrey Clinker, 25c., Jefferson's | |
Notes on Virginia, $1.50, Tom Jones, or the History of a Foundling, 3 | |
vols., (third vol. wanting) $1.50; Gulliver's Travels, 2 vols., $1.50; | |
Pike's Arithmetic, $2.00. | |
[3] The first of these tracts is "A Serious Address to the Rulers of | |
America, on the Inconsistency of their Conduct respecting Slavery: | |
forming a contest between the encroachments of England on American | |
liberty, and American injustice in tolerating slavery. By a Farmer, | |
London," 1783. 24 pages. 8vo. The author compared, in opposite | |
columns, the speeches and resolutions of the members of Congress in | |
behalf of their own liberty, with their conduct in continuing the | |
slavery of others. I have never seen the name of the author of this | |
tract. It was extensively circulated at the time, and had much | |
influence in forming the anti-slavery sentiment which later existed. | |
Another is "An Essay on the Impolicy of the African Slave Trade. In | |
two Parts. By the Rev. T. Clarkson, M. A. To which is added an Oration | |
upon the Necessity of Establishing at Paris a Society for Promoting | |
the Abolition of the Trade and Slavery of the <DW64>s. By J. P. | |
Brissot de Warville. Philadelphia: Printed by Francis Bailey, for 'the | |
Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery and the | |
Relief of Free <DW64>s unlawfully held in Bondage.' 1789." 155 pp. | |
8vo. | |
[4] These facts may also be found in Steadman's Narrative of an | |
Expedition to Surinam, vol. 2. p. 160; in Bishop Gregoire's "Enquiry | |
into the Intellectual and Moral Faculties and Literature of <DW64>s," | |
p. 153; in Edw. Needles' "Historical Memoir of the Pennsylvania | |
Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery," p. 32; and in Brissot | |
de Warville's New Travels in the United States, p. 287, ed. 1792. | |
[5] Mr. Needles says: "He was visited by William Hartshorn and Samuel | |
Coates of this city (Philadelphia), and gave correct answers to all | |
their questions--such as how many seconds there are in a year and a | |
half. In two minutes he answered 47,304,000. How many seconds in | |
seventy years, seventeen days, twelve hours. In one minute and a half, | |
2,110,500,800. He multiplied nine figures by nine," etc., etc. | |
[6] Accounts of these two black men were prepared by Dr. Rush, for the | |
information of the London Society. | |
[7] Works, iii, p. 291. | |
[8] In a letter to M. de Meusnier, dated January 24, 1786, Mr. | |
Jefferson says: "I conjecture there are six hundred and fifty thousand | |
<DW64>s in the five southermost states, and not fifty thousand in the | |
rest. In most of the latter, effectual measures have been taken for | |
their future emancipation. In the former nothing is done toward that. | |
The disposition to emancipate them is strongest in Virginia. Those who | |
desire it, form, as yet, the minority of the whole state, but it bears | |
a respectable proportion to the whole, in numbers and weight of | |
character; and it is constantly recruiting by the addition of nearly | |
the whole of the young men as fast as they come into public life. I | |
flatter myself that it will take place there at some period of time | |
not very distant. In Maryland and North Carolina, a very few are | |
disposed to emancipate. In South Carolina and Georgia, not the | |
smallest symptom of it; but, on the contrary, these two states and | |
North Carolina continue importations of slaves. These have long been | |
prohibited in all the other states." Works, ix, p. 290. | |
[9] "De la Litterature des Negres; ou Recherches aur leurs Facultes | |
Intellectuelles, leurs Qualites Morales et leur Litterature, Paris, | |
1808." 8vo. The work was translated by D. B. Warden, Secretary of the | |
American Legation at Paris, and printed at Brooklyn, New York, in | |
1810. | |
[10] Gen. Washington, although a slaveholder, put on record throughout | |
his voluminous correspondence his detestation of the system of | |
slavery, as practiced at the South. | |
M. Brissot de Warville, in connection with Gen. Lafayette and other | |
French philanthropists, early in the year 1788, formed at Paris the | |
Philanthropic Society of the Friends of <DW64>s, to co-operate with | |
those in America and London, in procuring the abolition of the traffic | |
in, and the slavery of, the blacks. In furtherance of this object, M. | |
Brissot de Warville delivered an oration in Paris, February 17, 1788, | |
which was translated and printed by the Pennsylvania Abolition | |
Society, in Philadelphia, the next year. In May of the same year, he | |
arrived in the United States, and wrote the most impartial and | |
instructive book of travels in America (with the exception of M. de | |
Tocqueville's), that has ever been made by a foreigner, of which | |
several editions in English were printed in London. His principles | |
brought him into intimate relations with persons who held anti-slavery | |
sentiments, and his work gives a very interesting epitome of the | |
prevalence of those sentiments at that period. | |
He visited General Washington at Mount Vernon, and conversed with him | |
freely on the subject of slavery. He states that the General had three | |
hundred slaves distributed in log houses in different parts of his | |
plantation of ten thousand acres. "They were treated," he said, "with | |
the greatest humanity; well fed, well clothed, and kept to moderate | |
labor. They bless God without ceasing for having given them so good a | |
master. It is a task worthy of a soul so elevated, so pure and so | |
disinterested, to begin the revolution in Virginia to prepare the way | |
for the emancipation of the <DW64>s. This great man declared to me | |
that he rejoiced at what was doing in other States on the subject [of | |
emancipation--alluding to the recent formation of several state | |
societies]; that he sincerely desired the extension of it in his own | |
State; but he did not dissemble that there were still many obstacles | |
to be overcome; that it was dangerous to strike too vigorously at a | |
prejudice which had begun to diminish; that time, patience, and | |
information would not fail to vanquish it. Almost all the Virginians, | |
he added, believe that the liberty of the blacks can not become | |
general. This is the reason why they do not wish to form a society | |
which may give dangerous ideas to their slaves. There is another | |
obstacle--the great plantations of which the state is composed, render | |
it necessary for men to live so dispersed that frequent meetings of a | |
society would be difficult. | |
"I replied, that the Virginians were in an error; that evidently, | |
sooner or later, the <DW64>s would obtain their liberty everywhere. It | |
is then for the interests of your countrymen to prepare the way to | |
such a revolution, by endeavoring to reconcile the restitution of the | |
rights of the blacks, with the interest of the whites. The means | |
necessary to be taken to this effect can only be the work of a | |
society; and it is worthy the saviour of America to put himself at the | |
head, and to open the door of liberty to 300,000 unhappy beings of his | |
own State. He told me that he desired the formation of a society, and | |
that he would second it; but that he did not think the moment | |
favorable. Doubtless more elevated views filled his soul. The destiny | |
of America was just ready to be placed a second time in his hands." | |
Ed. of 1792, pp. 290, 291. | |
"The strongest objection to freeing the <DW64>s lies in the character, | |
the manners, and habits of the Virginians. They seem to enjoy the | |
sweat of slaves. They are fond of hunting; they love the display of | |
luxury, and disdain the idea of labor. This order of things will | |
change when slavery shall be no more." Id., p. 281. | |
Patrick Henry, in the Virginia Constitutional Convention, opposing the | |
adoption of the Federal Constitution, said: "In this State there are | |
236,000 blacks. May Congress not say that every black man must fight? | |
Did we not see a little of this in the last war? We were not so hard | |
pushed as to make emancipation general; but acts of Assembly passed | |
that every slave who would go to the army should be free. Another | |
thing will contribute to bring this event [emancipation] about. | |
Slavery is detested. We feel its fatal effects; we deplore it with all | |
the pity of humanity. Have they [Congress] not power to provide for | |
the general defense and welfare? May they not think that these call | |
for the abolition of slavery? May they not pronounce all slaves free, | |
and will they not be warranted by that power? | |
"I repeat it again, that it would rejoice my very soul, that every one | |
of my fellow-beings were emancipated. As we ought, with gratitude, to | |
admire that decree of Heaven which has numbered us among the free, we | |
ought to lament and deplore the necessity of holding our fellow-men in | |
bondage. But is it practicable, by any human means, to liberate them | |
without producing the most dreadful and ruinous consequences?" | |
Elliott's Debates, Va., pp. 590, 591. | |
George Mason, in the same convention, speaking against article 1, | |
section 9, of the Constitution, which forbids Congress from | |
prohibiting the importation of slaves before the year 1808, said: "It | |
[the importation of slaves] was one of the great causes of our | |
separation from Great Britain. Its exclusion has been a principal | |
object of this State, and most of the States of the Union. The | |
augmentation of slaves weakens the States; and such a trade is | |
diabolical in itself, and disgraceful to mankind: yet, by this | |
Constitution, it is continued for twenty years. As much as I value a | |
union of all the States, I would not admit the Southern States into | |
the Union, unless they agree to the discontinuance of this disgraceful | |
trade, because it brings weakness, and not strength, to the Union." | |
Elliott's Debates, Va., p. 452. | |
[11] Mr. Jefferson's doubts, and his timidity, as a person of | |
political aspirations, in treating the subject of slavery in a | |
practical manner, reduced his conduct to the verge of cowardice, if | |
not of duplicity. While writing to Dr. Price in this assured tone, and | |
urging him to exhort the young men of the College of William and Mary, | |
on the evils of slavery, he was afraid to have these same students see | |
what he had himself written on the same subject, in his "Notes on | |
Virginia." M. de Chastelleux had written to him, desiring to print | |
some extracts from the "Notes on Virginia," in the _Journal de | |
Physique_. Mr. Jefferson replied, June 7, 1785, only two months before | |
he wrote the above letter to Dr. Price, saying: "I am not afraid that | |
you should make any extracts you please for the _Journal de Physique_, | |
which come within their plan of publication. The strictures on | |
slavery, and on the constitution of Virginia, are not of that kind and | |
they are the parts which I do not wish to have made public; at least, | |
till I know whether their publication would do most harm or good. It | |
is possible that, in my own country, these strictures might produce an | |
irritation which would indispose the people toward the two great | |
objects I have in view; that is, the emancipation of their slaves, and | |
the settlement of their constitution on a firmer and more permanent | |
basis. If I learn from thence that they will not produce that effect, | |
have printed and reserved just copies enough to be able to give one to | |
every young man at the College." Works, i, p. 339. | |
Writing from Paris, August 13, 1786, to George Wythe, Mr. Jefferson | |
says: "Madison, no doubt, informed you why I sent only a single copy | |
of my 'Notes' to Virginia. Being assured by him that they will not do | |
the harm I had apprehended; but, on the contrary, may do some good, I | |
propose to send thither the copies remaining on hand, which are fewer | |
than I intended." Works, ii, p. 6. Mr. Madison's communications to Mr. | |
Jefferson on the subject are in his "Letters and other Writings," i, | |
pp, 202, 211. M. Brissot de Warville proposed to Mr. Jefferson to | |
become a member of the Philanthropic Society of Paris. Mr. Jefferson | |
replied, February 12, 1788, as follows: "I am very sensible of the | |
honor you propose to me, of becoming a member of the society for the | |
abolition of the slave trade. You know that nobody wishes more | |
ardently to see an abolition, not only of the trade, but of the | |
condition of slavery; and certainly nobody will be more willing to | |
encounter every sacrifice for that object. But the influence and | |
information of the friends to this proposition in France, will be far | |
above the need of my association. I am here as a public servant; and | |
those whom I serve, having never yet been able to give their voice | |
against the practice, it is decent for me to avoid too public | |
demonstration of my wishes to see it abolished. Without serving the | |
cause here, it might render me less able to serve it beyond the water. | |
I trust you will be sensible of the prudence of those motives, | |
therefore, which govern my conduct on this occasion and be assured of | |
my wishes for the success of your undertaking." Works, ii, p. 357. | |
Compare this record with Mr. Garrison's, which he put forth in the | |
"Liberator," in 1831. He had been accused of using plain and harsh | |
language. He says: "My country is the world, and my countrymen are all | |
mankind. I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as | |
justice. I am in earnest; I will not equivocate; I will not excuse; I | |
will not retreat a single inch; and _I will be heard_." | |
[12] Mr. Jefferson's indecision in dealing with an institution he so | |
much abhorred, is seen in the anti-slavery provision of his ordinance. | |
He would allow slavery to get a foot-hold in the western territories, | |
and at the end of sixteen years would prohibit it. By southern votes, | |
this clause was fortunately stricken out. Every northern state voted | |
to retain Mr. Jefferson's fifth article of compact, and its rejection, | |
which was regarded at the time, as a public calamity, was soon seen to | |
be a piece of good fortune. Timothy Pickering, writing to Rufus King, | |
nearly a year later (March 8, 1785), says: "I should indeed have | |
objected to the period proposed (1800) for the exclusion of slavery; | |
for the admission of it for a day, or an hour, ought to have been | |
forbidden. It will be infinitely easier to prevent the evil at first, | |
than to eradicate it, or check it, at any future time. To suffer the | |
continuance of slaves till they can be gradually emancipated, in | |
states already overrun with them, may be pardonable; but to introduce | |
them into a territory where none now exist, can never be forgiven. For | |
God's sake, let one more effort be made to prevent so terrible a | |
calamity." | |
Mr. King, eight days later, moved, in Congress, to attach an article | |
of compact to Mr. Jefferson's ordinance, in the place of the one | |
stricken outs in substantially the words that stand in the Ordinance | |
of 1787: "That there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary | |
servitude in any of the states described in the resolve of Congress of | |
April 23, 178-." The matter was referred to a committee; but was never | |
taken up and acted on. If Mr. King's resolution had passed, it would | |
have excluded slavery from Kentucky, Tennessee, and all the Western | |
territories. | |
[13] George Keith, a Quaker, about the year 1693, printed a pamphlet | |
in which he charged his own religious denomination, "that they should | |
set their <DW64>s at liberty, after some reasonable time of service." | |
Samuel Sewall, Judge of the Superior Court of Massachusetts, in 1700, | |
printed a tract against slavery, entitled, "The Selling of Joseph, a | |
Memorial," which he gave to each member of the General Court, to | |
clergymen, and to literary gentlemen with whom he was acquainted. This | |
tract is reprinted in Moore's "Notes on Slavery in Massachusetts," p. | |
83. These were the earliest publications on slavery in this country. | |
Dr. Franklin having mentioned Keith's pamphlet, says: "About the year | |
1728 or 1729, I myself printed a book for Ralph Sandyford, another of | |
your friends in this city, against keeping <DW64>s in slavery; two | |
editions of which he distributed gratis. And about the year 1736, I | |
printed another book on the same subject for Benjamin Lay, who also | |
professed being one of your friends, and he distributed the books | |
chiefly among them." Works, x, 403. | |
The earliest statute for the suppression of slavery in the colonies | |
may be seen in Rhode Island Records, i, 248, under the date of May 19, | |
1652, which, however, was never enforced. | |
The earliest legislative protest against man-stealing, is the | |
following: "The General Court, conceiving themselves bound by the | |
first opportunity, to bear witness against the heinous and crying sin | |
of man-stealing, and also to prescribe such timely redress for what is | |
past, and such a law for the future, as may sufficiently deter all | |
others belonging to us to have to do in such vile and most odious | |
courses, justly abhorred of all good and just men--do order that the | |
<DW64> interpreter, with others unlawfully take, be, by the first | |
opportunity, (at the charge of the country for present) sent to his | |
native country of Guinea, and a letter with him of the indignation of | |
the Court thereabouts, and justice hereof--desiring our honored | |
Governor would please to put this order in execution." November 4, | |
1646, Massachusetts Records, ii, p. 168. | |
[14] Patrick Henry, in a letter dated January 18, 1773, to Robert | |
Pleasants, afterwards President of the Virginia Abolition Society, | |
said: "Believe me, I shall honor the Quakers for their noble efforts | |
to abolish slavery. It is a debt we owe to the purity of our religion | |
to show that it is at variance with that law that warrants slavery. I | |
exhort you to persevere in so worthy a resolution. I believe a time | |
will come when an opportunity will be offered to abolish this | |
lamentable evil." Wm. Goodell's Slavery and Anti-Slavery, p. 70. | |
[15] The preamble of the Constitution then adopted was as follows: | |
"Whereas, there are in this and the neighboring states a number of | |
<DW64>s and others kept in a state of slavery, who, we apprehend, from | |
different causes and circumstances, are justly entitled to their | |
freedom by the laws and Constitution under which we live, could their | |
particular cases be candidly and openly debated, and evidence to the | |
best advantage for them procured; but as in their situation, they, | |
being tied by the strong cords of oppression, are rendered incapable | |
of asserting their freedom, and many through this inability remain | |
unjustly in bondage through life; it therefore has appeared necessary | |
that some aid should be extended towards such poor unhappy sufferers, | |
wherever they may be discovered, either in this city or its | |
neighborhood; and, as loosing the bonds of wickedness, and setting the | |
oppressed free, is evidently a duty incumbent on all professors of | |
Christianity, but more especially at a time when justice, liberty, and | |
the laws of the land are the general topics among most ranks and | |
stations of men. Therefore, being desirous, as much as in us lies, to | |
contribute towards obtaining relief for all such as are kept thus | |
unjustly in thralldom, we have agreed to inspect and take charge of | |
all the particular cases which may hereafter come to our knowledge; | |
and that our good intentions may operate the more successfully, and be | |
of general utility to such as stand in need of our assistance, we | |
judge it expedient to form ourselves into a regular society, by the | |
name of "The Society for the Relief of Free <DW64>s unlawfully held in | |
Bondage." The officers elected were John Baldwin, President; Samuel | |
Davis, Treasurer; Thomas Harrison, Secretary. Six members were also | |
appointed a Committee of Inspection, and a number of cases were | |
forthwith committed to their care. Edw. Needles's Historical Memoir of | |
the Pennsylvania Society, p. 15. | |
[16] Appended to the Rules and Regulations, is the act of 1780, | |
providing for the gradual abolition of slavery in Pennsylvania. The | |
members of the Philadelphia Society were especially active in | |
procuring the passage of this act. Anthony Benezet held private | |
interviews with every member of the government on the subject. The act | |
passed the assembly by a vote of 34 to 21. The minority entered a | |
protest against it on several grounds: First, because it would be | |
offensive to other states, and would weaken the bonds of union with | |
them; Second, while they approved of the justice and humanity of | |
manumitting slaves in time of peace, this was not the proper time; | |
Third, they did not approve of slaves becoming citizens, of their | |
voting and being voted for, of intermarrying with white persons, etc.; | |
Fourth, because the motion to postpone to the next session of the | |
Assembly had been overruled. | |
[17] James Pemberton and Jonathan Penrose were chosen Vice-Presidents; | |
James Starr, Treasurer; and Wm. Lewis, John D. Cox, Miers Fisher, and | |
Wm. Rawle, Counselors. Thirty-six new members were elected at this | |
meeting. The preamble of the new organization was as follows: "It | |
having pleased the Creator of the world to make of one flesh all the | |
children of men, it becomes them to consult and promote each other's | |
happiness, as members of the same family, however diversified they may | |
be by color, situation, religion, or different states of society. It | |
is more especially the duty of those persons who profess to maintain | |
for themselves the rights of human nature, and who acknowledge the | |
obligations of Christianity, to use such means as are in their power | |
to extend the blessings of freedom to every part of the human race; | |
and in a more particular manner to such of their fellow-creatures as | |
are entitled to freedom by the laws and constitutions of any of the | |
United States, and who, notwithstanding, are detained in bondage by | |
fraud or violence. From a full conviction of the truth and obligation | |
of these principles; from a desire to diffuse them wherever the | |
miseries and vices of slavery exist, and in humble confidence of the | |
favor and support of the Father of mankind, the subscribers have | |
associated themselves, under the title of 'The Pennsylvania Society | |
for promoting the Abolition of Slavery, and the Relief of Free <DW64>s | |
unlawfully held in Bondage, and for improving the condition of the | |
African race.'" Needles's Memoir, p. 30. | |
[18] The secretaries were directed to have one thousand copies of the | |
Constitution printed, together with the names of the officers of the | |
society, and the acts of the Legislature of Pennsylvania for the | |
gradual abolition of slavery. They were also to prepare letters to be | |
sent to each of the Governors of the United States, with a copy of the | |
Constitution and laws, and a copy of Clarkson's essay on "The Commerce | |
and Slavery of the Africans." They were also directed to write letters | |
to the Society in New York, to Thomas Clarkson and Dr. Price of | |
London, and to the Abbe Raynall, in France. Needles's Memoir, p. 30. | |
Dr. Franklin drew up a "Plan for Improving the Condition of the Free | |
Blacks." It embraced: First, a Committee of Inspection, who shall | |
superintend the morals, general conduct, and ordinary situation of the | |
free <DW64>s, and afford them advice and instruction, protection from | |
wrongs, and other friendly offices. Second, a Committee of Guardians, | |
who shall place out children and young people with suitable persons, | |
that they may, during a moderate time of apprenticeship or servitude, | |
learn some trade, other business of subsistence. Third, a Committee of | |
Education, who shall superintend the school instruction, of the | |
children and youth of the free blacks. Fourth, a Committee of Employ, | |
who shall endeavor to procure constant employment for those free | |
<DW64>s who are able to work, as the want of this would occasion | |
poverty, idleness, and many vicious habits. The entire plan may be | |
seen in Dr. Franklin's Works, ii, pp. 513, 514. Immediately following, | |
in the same volume, is "An Address to the Public," from the | |
Pennsylvania Society, also written by Dr. Franklin in aid of raising | |
funds for carrying out the purposes of the society. | |
M. Brissot de Warville, who visited the New York and Philadelphia | |
Societies in 1788, says: "It is certainly a misfortune that such | |
societies do not exist in Virginia and Maryland, for it is to the | |
persevering zeal of those of Philadelphia and New York, that we owe | |
the progress of this [anti-slavery] revolution in America, and the | |
formation of the Society in London." He speaks of the impressions he | |
received in attending the meetings of these societies. "What serenity | |
in the countenances of the members! What simplicity in their | |
discourses; candor in their discussions; beneficence and energy in | |
their decisions! With what joy they learned that a like Society was | |
formed in Paris! They hastened to publish it in their gazettes, and | |
likewise a translation of the first discourse [his own] pronounced in | |
that society. These beneficent societies are at present contemplating | |
new projects for the completion of their work of justice and humanity. | |
They are endeavoring to form similar institutions in other states, and | |
have succeeded in the state of Delaware. The business of these | |
societies is not only to extend light and information to legislatures | |
and to the people at large, and to form the blacks by early | |
instruction in the duties of citizens; but they extend gratuitous | |
protection to them in all cases of individual oppression, and make it | |
their duty to watch over the execution of the laws, which have been | |
obtained in their favor. Mr. Myers Fisher, one of the first lawyers of | |
Philadelphia, is always ready to lend them his assistance, which he | |
generally does with success, and always without reward. These | |
societies have committees in different parts of the country to take | |
notice of any infractions of these laws of liberty, and to propose to | |
the legislature such amendments as experience may require"--pp. | |
291-294. | |
In an appendix, written in 1791, he says: "My wishes have not been | |
disappointed. The progress of these societies is rapid in the United | |
States; there is one already formed even in Virginia." His English | |
translator adds, that there has also one been formed in the state of | |
Connecticut. | |
In Needles' Memoir are the names of the following persons who were | |
officers, and served on committees, of the Pennsylvania Society before | |
the year 1800: John Baldwin, Samuel Davis, Thomas Harrison, Anthony | |
Benezet, Thomas Meredith, John Todd, James Starr, Samuel Richards, | |
James Whitehall, Wm. Lippencott, John Thomas, Benjamin Horner, John | |
Evans, Lambert Wilmore, Edward Brooks, Thomas Armit, John Warner, | |
Daniel Sidrick, Thomas Barton, Robert Evans, Benj. Miers, Robert Wood, | |
John Eldridge, Jonathan Penrose, Wm. Lewis, Francis Baily, Norris | |
Jones, Tench Cox, Wm. Jackson, Benj. Rush, Benj. Franklin, James | |
Pemberton, John D. Cox, Wm. Rawle, Miers Fisher, Temple Franklin, John | |
Andrews, Richard Peters, Thomas Paine, Caleb Lownes, S. P. Griffiths, | |
John Olden, John Todd, Jr., John Kaighn, Wm. Rogers, Benj. Say, Thomas | |
Parker, Robert Waln, Samuel Pancoast, Thomas Savery, Robert Taggert, | |
John Poultney, Wm. Zane, Joseph Moore, Joseph Budd, Wm. McIllhenny, | |
Samuel Baker, Jonathan Willis, Richard Jones, Ellis Yarnall, Thomas | |
Arnott, Philip Benezet, Samuel Emlen, Jr., Jacob Shoemaker, Jr., | |
Richard Wells, Bart. Wistar, R. Wells, J. McCrea, Nathan Boys, J. | |
Proctor, Robert Patterson, Walter Franklin, Edward Farris, John Ely, | |
Samuel M. Fox, Sallows Shewell, John Woodside, Wm. Garrum, Thomas | |
Ross, Joseph Sharpless, Joseph Cruikshanks, G. Williams, Wm. Webb, | |
Geo. Williams, David Thomas, Samuel Bettle, Edward Garrigues. | |
[19] At the end of M. Brissot de Warville's oration at Paris, February | |
19, 1788, on the necessity of establishing such a society, is a note, | |
which states that, after the Paris Society had been formed, "in the | |
space of six weeks, ninety others, distinguished for their nobility, | |
for their offices, and as men of letters, have made application to be | |
admitted into the Society. The Marquis de la Fayette is one of the | |
founders of this Society, and he gives it a support, so much the more | |
laudable, as the Society of Paris has many great difficulties to | |
encounter, which are unknown to the societies in London and America." | |
[20] M. Brissot, writing in September, 1788, speaks of the Delaware | |
Society as then existing. Warner Mifflin was its most enterprising | |
member. M. Brissot says of him: "One of the ardent petitioners to | |
Congress in this cause was the respectable Warner Mifflin. His zeal | |
was rewarded with atrocious calumnies, which he always answered with | |
mildness, forgiveness, and argument"--p. 300. A petition which Mr. | |
Mifflin made to Congress in November, 1792, for the abolition of | |
slavery, was, by vote of the House, returned to him by the clerk. | |
Annals of Congress, iii, p. 71. On March 23, 1790, the following | |
resolution on the subject of emancipation, after discussion in | |
committee of the whole House, was adopted: "That Congress have no | |
authority to interfere in the emancipation of slaves, or in the | |
treatment of them in any of the states, it remaining with the several | |
States alone to provide any regulations therein which humanity and | |
true policy may require." Annals, i. p. 1523. | |
[21] _Constitution of the Maryland Society for promoting the Abolition | |
of Slavery, and the Relief of Free <DW64>s and others unlawfully held | |
in Bondage._ | |
The present attention of Europe and America to slavery, seems to | |
constitute that crisis in the minds of men when the united endeavors | |
of a few may greatly influence the public opinion, and produce, from | |
the transient sentiment of the times, effects, extensive, lasting, and | |
useful. | |
The common Father of mankind created all men free and equal; and his | |
great command is, that we love our neighbor as ourselves--doing unto | |
all men as we would they should do unto us. The human race, however | |
varied in color or intellects, are all justly entitled to liberty; and | |
it is the duty and the interest of nations and individuals, enjoying | |
every blessing of freedoms to remove this dishonor of the Christian | |
character from amongst them. From the fullest impression of the truth | |
of these principles; from an earnest wish to bear our testimony | |
against slavery in all its forms, to spread it abroad as far as the | |
sphere of our influence may extend, and to afford our friendly | |
assistance to those who may be engaged in the same undertaking; and in | |
the humblest hope of support from that Being, who takes, as an | |
offering to himself, what we do for each other-- | |
We, the subscribers, have formed ourselves into the "MARYLAND SOCIETY | |
for promoting the ABOLITION OF SLAVERY, and the RELIEF OF FREE <DW64>s | |
and OTHERS unlawfully held in bondage." | |
THE CONSTITUTION. | |
I. The officers of the Society are a president, vice-president, | |
secretary, treasurer, four counselors, an electing-committee of | |
twelve, an acting-committee of six members. All these, except the | |
acting-committee, shall be chosen annually by ballot, on the first | |
seventh-day called Saturday, in the month called January. | |
II. The president, and in his absence the vice-president, shall | |
subscribe all the public acts of the Society. | |
III. The president, and in his absence, the vice-president, shall | |
moreover have the power of calling a special meeting of the Society | |
whenever he shall judge proper, or six members require it. | |
IV. The secretary shall keep fair records of the proceedings of the | |
Society; he shall also conduct the correspondence of the Society, with | |
a committee of three appointed by the president; and all letters on | |
the business of the Society are to be addressed to him. | |
V. Corresponding members shall be appointed by the electing-committee. | |
Their duty shall be to communicate to the secretary and his assistants | |
any information, that may promote the purposes of this institution, | |
which shall be transferred by him to the acting-committee. | |
VI. The treasurer shall pay all orders drawn by the president, or | |
vice-president; which orders shall be his vouchers for his | |
expenditures. He shall, before he enters on his office, give a bond of | |
not less than 200_l._ for the faithful discharge of his duty. | |
VII. The duty of the councilors shall be to explain the laws and | |
constitutions of the States, which relate to the emancipation of | |
slaves; and to urge their claims to freedom, when legal, before such | |
persons or courts as are authorized to decide upon them. | |
VIII. The electing-committee shall have sole power of admitting new | |
members. Two-thirds of them shall be a quorum for this purpose; and | |
the concurrence of a majority of them by ballot, when met, shall be | |
necessary for the admission of a member. No member shall be admitted | |
who has not been proposed at a general meeting of the Society nor | |
shall election of a member take place in less than a month after the | |
time of his being proposed. Foreigners, or other persons, who do not | |
reside in this State, may be elected corresponding members of the | |
Society without being subject to an annual payment, and shall be | |
admitted to the meetings of the Society during their residence in the | |
State. | |
IX. The acting-committee shall transact the business of the Society in | |
its recess, and report the same at each quarterly meeting. They shall | |
have a right, with the concurrence of the president or vice-president, | |
to draw upon the treasurer for such sums of money as may be necessary | |
to carry on the business of their appointment. Four of them shall be a | |
quorum. After their first election, at each succeeding quarterly | |
meeting, there shall be an election for two of their number. | |
X. Every member, upon his admission, shall subscribe the Constitution | |
of the Society, and contribute ten shillings annually, in quarterly | |
payments, towards defraying its contingent expenses. If he neglect to | |
pay the same for more than six months, he shall, upon due notice being | |
given him, cease to be a member. | |
XI. The Society shall meet on the first seventh-day, called Saturday, | |
in the months called January, April, July, and October, at such time | |
and place as shall be agreed to by a majority of the Society. | |
XII. No person, holding a slave as his property, shall be admitted a | |
member of this Society; nevertheless, the Society may appoint persons | |
of legal knowledge, owners of slaves, as honorary-counselors. | |
XIII. When an alteration in the Constitution is thought necessary, it | |
shall be proposed at a previous meeting, before it shall take place. | |
All questions shall be decided, where there is a division, by a | |
majority of votes. In those cases where the Society is equally | |
divided, the presiding officer shall have a casting vote. | |
OFFICERS OF THE SOCIETY. | |
_President_--PHILIP ROGERS. | |
_Vice-President_--JAMES CAREY. | |
_Secretary_--JOSEPH TOWNSEND. | |
_Treasurer_--DAVID BROWN. | |
_Counselors_--ZEBULON HOLLINGSWORTH, ARCHIBALD ROBINSON. | |
_Honorary-Counselors_--SAMUEL CHASE, LUTHER MARTIN. | |
_Electing-Committee_--JAMES OGLEBY, ISAAC GREIST, GEO. MATTHEWS, | |
GEORGE PRESSTMAN, HENRY WILSON, JOHN BANKSON, ADAM FONERDEN, JAMES | |
EICHELBERGER, WILLIAM HAWKINS, WILLIAM WILSON, THOMAS DICKSON, GER. | |
HOPKINS. | |
_Acting-Committee_--JOHN BROWN, ELISHA TYSON, JAMES M'CANNON, ELIAS | |
ELLICOTT, WILLIAM TRIMBLE, GEORGE DENT. | |
_September 8, 1789._ | |
[22] Of the one hundred and eighty-nine incorporators of the Rhode | |
Island Society, one hundred and seventeen were from Rhode Island, | |
sixty-eight from Massachusetts, three from Connecticut, and one from | |
Vermont. The Nation, Nov. 28, 1872. | |
[23] St. George Tucker, an eminent jurist, and Professor of Law at the | |
College of William and Mary, at Williamsburg, Virginia, January 24, | |
1795, addressed a letter to Dr. Jeremy Belknap, of Boston, inquiring | |
into the condition of the <DW64>s in Massachusetts, and the | |
circumstances under which slavery had come to an end in that state. | |
His object was to obtain facts which he could use in removing | |
prejudice against general emancipation in Virginia. "The introduction | |
of slavery into this country," he says, "is at this day considered | |
among its greatest misfortunes. I have cherished a hope that we may, | |
from the example of our sister State, learn what methods are most | |
likely to succeed in removing the same evils from among ourselves. | |
With this view, I have taken the liberty to enclose a few queries, | |
which, if your leisure will permit you to answer, you will confer on | |
me a favor which I shall always consider as an obligation." He | |
propounded eleven queries, to which Dr. Belknap replied at length. The | |
correspondence is printed in the Massachusetts Historical Society's | |
selections, iv, pp. 191-211. The next year Judge Tucker printed, at | |
Philadelphia, his "Dissertation on Slavery, with a proposal for the | |
gradual abolition of it in Virginia." Dr. Belknap's replies to Judge | |
Tucker's inquiries have much historical interest. To the fifth query, | |
"The mode by which slavery hath been abolished?" he says: "The general | |
answer is, that slavery hath been abolished here by _public opinion_, | |
which began to be established about thirty years ago. At the beginning | |
of our controversy with Great Britain, several persons, who before had | |
entertained sentiments opposed to the slavery of the blacks, did then | |
take occasion publicly to remonstrate against the inconsistency of | |
contending for their own liberty, and, at the same time, depriving | |
other people of theirs. Pamphlets and newspaper essays appeared on the | |
subject; it often entered into the conversation of reflecting people; | |
and many who had, without remorse, been the purchasers of slaves, | |
condemned themselves, and retracted their former opinion. The Quakers | |
were zealous against slavery and the slave-trade; and by their means | |
the writings of Anthony Benezet of Philadelphia, John Woolman of New | |
Jersey, and others were spread through the country. Nathaniel Appleton | |
and James Swan, merchants of Boston, and Dr. Benjamin Rush, of | |
Philadelphia, distinguished themselves as writers on the side of | |
liberty. Those on the other side generally concealed their names; but | |
their arguments were not suffered to rest long without an answer. The | |
controversy began about the year 1766, and was renewed at various | |
times till 1773, when it was warmly agitated, and became a subject of | |
forensic disputation at the public commencement at Harvard College." | |
p. 201. | |
[24] Vol. ii, p. 30. | |
[25] Lectures by Members of the Mass. Historical Society on the Early | |
History of Massachusetts, p. 216. | |
[26] Mr. George H. Moore, in his elaborate work, "Notes on the History | |
of Slavery in Massachusetts," expresses a doubt whether slavery | |
legally came to an end in Massachusetts at the period stated above; | |
and perhaps not before the adoption of the fourteenth amendment to the | |
Constitution. He says: "It would not be the least remarkable of the | |
circumstances connected with this strange and eventful history, that | |
though _virtually_ abolished before, the actual prohibition of slavery | |
in Massachusetts, as well as Kentucky, should be accomplished by the | |
votes of South Carolina and Georgia." p. 242. | |
[27] Dr. Belknap says the clause "all men are born free and equal" was | |
inserted in the Declaration of Rights of Massachusetts "not merely as | |
a moral and political truth, but with a particular view to establish | |
the liberation of the <DW64>s on a general principle, and so it was | |
understood by the people at large; but some doubted whether it was | |
sufficient"--p. 203. That some persons had this result in view is | |
probable; but contemporaneous records and acts of the citizens do not | |
justify the statement that "so it was understood by the people at | |
large." Dr. Belknap was living in New Hampshire at the time, and did | |
not come to Boston till 1786. The construction put upon the clause, by | |
the Supreme Court, was evidently a happy afterthought; and was | |
inspired by that _public opinion_ to which Dr. Belknap himself, in his | |
reply to Judge Tucker, ascribes the extinction of slavery. | |
[28] The Pennsylvanian Society assumed all the expenses of the | |
Convention, of entertaining the delegates, and of printing the | |
proceedings. The delegates of the Pennsylvanian Society were William | |
Rogers, Samuel P. Griffiths, Samuel Coats, William Rawle, Robert | |
Patterson, and Benjamin Rush. The printed proceedings of this | |
convention, which is in the New York Historical Society's library, I | |
have not had access to. Joseph Bloomfield, of New Jersey, an officer | |
of the Revolution, attorney-general, governor of the state from | |
1801-12, and member of Congress from 1817-21, was president of the | |
Convention. | |
[29] The memorial was presented in both branches of Congress, January | |
28, 1794. The record in the House was as follows: "A memorial from the | |
several societies formed in different parts of the United States, for | |
promoting the abolition of slavery, in convention assembled at | |
Philadelphia, on the first instant, was presented to the House and | |
read, praying that Congress may adopt such measures as may be the most | |
effectual and expedient for the abolition of the slave-trade. Also, a | |
memorial of the Providence Society, for abolishing the slave-trade, to | |
the same effect. _Ordered_, That the said memorials be referred to Mr. | |
Trumbull [of Connecticut], Mr. Ward [of Massachusetts], Mr. Giles [of | |
Virginia], Mr. Talbot [of New York], and Mr. Grove [of North | |
Carolina]; that they do examine the matter thereof, and report the | |
same, with their opinion thereupon, to the House." Annals of Congress, | |
iv, p. 349. | |
A bill was reported in conformity to the wishes of the memorialists, | |
passed its several stages without debate, and was approved March 22, | |
1794. For the bill, see Id., p. 1426. | |
[30] The address is as follows: | |
"_To the Citizens of the United States_: | |
"The Address of the Delegates from the several Societies formed in | |
different parts of the United States, for promoting the Abolition of | |
Slavery, in convention assembled at Philadelphia, on the first day of | |
January, 1794. | |
"FRIENDS AND FELLOW-CITIZENS: United to you by the ties of | |
citizenship, and partakers with you in the blessings of a free | |
government, we take the liberty of addressing you upon a subject | |
highly interesting to the credit and prosperity of the United States. | |
"It is the glory of our country to have originated a system of | |
opposition to the commerce in that part of our fellow-creatures who | |
compose the nations of Africa. Much has been done by the citizens of | |
some of the States to abolish this disgraceful traffic, and to improve | |
the condition of those unhappy people whom the ignorance, or the | |
avarice of our ancestors had bequeathed to us as slaves. But the evil | |
still continues, and our country is yet disgraced by laws and | |
practices which level the creature man with a part of the brute | |
creation. Many reasons concur in persuading us to abolish domestic | |
slavery in our country. It is inconsistent with the safety of the | |
liberties of the United States. Freedom and slavery can not long exist | |
together. An unlimited power over the time, labor, and posterity of | |
our fellow-creatures, necessarily unfits man for discharging the | |
public and private duties of citizens of a republic. It is | |
inconsistent with sound policy, in exposing the States which permit | |
it, to all those evils which insurrections and the most resentful war | |
have introduced into one of the richest islands in the West Indies. It | |
is unfriendly to the present exertions of the inhabitants of Europe in | |
favor of liberty. What people will advocate freedom, with a zeal | |
proportioned to its blessings, while they view the purest republic in | |
the world tolerating in its bosom a body of slaves? In vain has the | |
tyranny of kings been rejected, while we permit in our country a | |
domestic despotism which involves in its nature most of the vices and | |
miseries that we have endeavored to avoid. It is degrading to our rank | |
as men in the scale of being. Let us use our reason and social | |
affections for the purposes for which they were given, or cease to | |
boast a pre-eminence over animals that are unpolluted by our crimes. | |
"But higher motives to justice and humanity towards our | |
fellow-creatures, remain yet to be mentioned. Domestic slavery is | |
repugnant to the principles of Christianity. It prostrates every | |
benevolent and just principle of action in the human heart. It is | |
rebellion against the authority of a common Father. It is a practical | |
denial of the extent and efficacy of the death of a common Savior. It | |
is an usurpation of the prerogative of the Great Sovereign of the | |
universe, who has solemnly claimed an exclusive property in the souls | |
of men. But if this view of the enormity of the evil of domestic | |
slavery should not affect us, there is one consideration more, which | |
ought to alarm and impress us, especially at the present juncture. It | |
is a violation of a Divine precept of universal justice, which has in | |
no instance escaped with impunity. The crimes of nations, as well as | |
individuals, are often designated in their punishments; and we | |
conceive it to be no forced construction of some of the calamities | |
which now distress or impend over our country, to believe that they | |
are the measure of the evils which we have meted to others. The | |
ravages committed upon many of our fellow-citizens by the Indians, and | |
the depredations upon the liberty and commerce of others, of the | |
citizens of the United States by the Algerines, both unite in | |
proclaiming to us in the most forcible language, 'to loose the bands | |
of wickedness, to break every yoke, to undo the heavy burthens, and to | |
let the oppressed go free.' | |
"We shall conclude this address by recommending to you: | |
"_First._ To refrain immediately from that species of rapine and | |
murder which has improperly been softened by the name of the African | |
trade. It is Indian cruelty and Algerine piracy in another form. | |
"_Second._ To form Societies in every State, for the purpose of | |
promoting the abolition of the slave-trade, of domestic slavery, for | |
the relief of persons unlawfully held in bondage, and for the | |
improvement of the condition of Africans and their descendants amongst | |
us. | |
"The Societies which we represent, have beheld with triumph the | |
success of their exertions in many instances, in favor of their | |
African brethren; and, in full reliance upon the continuance of Divine | |
support and direction, they humbly hope their labors will never cease | |
while there exists a single slave in the United States." | |
[31] Mr. Jackson opposed the reference of the memorial to a committee, | |
and wished it to be thrown aside. Mr. Burke, of South Carolina, said | |
he saw the disposition of the House, and feared the memorial would be | |
referred. He "was certain the commitment would sound an alarm, and | |
blow the trumpet of sedition in the Southern States." | |
Mr. Seney, of Maryland, denied that there was anything | |
unconstitutional in the memorial; its only object was that Congress | |
should exercise their constitutional authority to abate the horrors of | |
slavery as far as they could. | |
Mr. Parker, of Virginia, said: "I hope the petition of these | |
respectable people will be attended to with all the readiness the | |
importance of its object demands; and I cannot help expressing the | |
pleasure I feel in finding so considerable a part of the community | |
attending to matters of such momentous concern to the future | |
prosperity and happiness of the people of America. I think it my duty | |
as a citizen of the Union to espouse their cause." | |
Mr. Page, of Virginia (governor from 1802-1805), said he was in favor | |
of the commitment. He hoped that the designs of the respectable | |
memorialists would not be stopped at the threshold, in order to | |
preclude a fair discussion of the prayer of the memorial. With respect | |
to the alarm that was apprehended, he conjectured there was none; but | |
there might be just cause, if the memorial was _not_ taken into | |
consideration. He placed himself in the case of a slave, and said | |
that, on hearing that Congress had refused to listen to the decent | |
suggestions of a respectable part of the community, he should infer | |
that the general government (from which was expected great good would | |
result to every class of citizens) had shut their ears against the | |
voice of humanity; and he should despair of any alleviation of the | |
miseries he and his posterity had in prospect. If anything could | |
induce him to rebel, it must be a stroke like this. But if he was told | |
that application was made in his behalf, and that Congress was willing | |
to hear what could be urged in favor of discouraging the practice of | |
importing his fellow-wretches, he would trust in their justice and | |
humanity, and wait for the decision patiently. He presumed that these | |
unfortunate people would reason in the same way. | |
Mr. Madison, of Virginia, said, if there were the slightest tendency | |
by the commitment to break in upon the constitution, he would object | |
to it; but he did not see upon what ground such an event could be | |
apprehended. He admitted that Congress was restricted by the | |
constitution from taking measures to abolish the slave-trade; yet | |
there was a variety of ways by which it could countenance the | |
abolition of slavery; and regulations might be made in relation to the | |
introduction of slaves into the new States, to be formed out of the | |
Western Territory. | |
The memorial was committed by a vote of 43 yeas to 14 nays. Of the | |
Virginia delegation, 8 voted yea and 2 nay; Maryland, 3 yea, 1 nay; | |
Delaware and North Carolina, both delegations absent. Mr. Vining, the | |
member for Delaware, however, spoke and voted later with the friends | |
of the memorialists. | |
The committee reported on the 8th of March. The report was discussed | |
in committee of the whole, and amended to read as follows: | |
"_First._ That the migration or importation of such persons as any of | |
the States now existing shall think proper to admit, can not be | |
prohibited by Congress prior to the year 1808. | |
"_Second._ That Congress have no authority to interfere in the | |
emancipation of slaves, or in the treatment of them, in any of the | |
States--it remaining with the several States alone, to provide any | |
regulations therein which humanity and true policy may require. | |
"_Third._ That Congress have authority to restrain the citizens of the | |
United States from carrying on the African trade, for the purpose of | |
supplying foreigners with slaves, and of providing, by proper | |
regulations, for the humane treatment during their passage of slaves | |
imported by the said citizens into the States admitting such | |
importation." | |
This was the first legislation on the subject of slavery in the new | |
Congress, and was carried by 29 votes to 25--North Carolina, South | |
Carolina, and Georgia voting unanimously in the negative. All the | |
other States (except Rhode Island, from which no member was present) | |
voted in the affirmative or divided. New Hampshire voted 1 yea, 1 nay; | |
Massachusetts, 6 yeas, 3 nays; Connecticut, 2 yeas, 2 nays; New York, | |
5 yeas, 2 nays; New Jersey, 3 yeas; Pennsylvania, 5 yeas; Virginia, 5 | |
yeas, 6 nays; Maryland, 1 yea, 4 nays; Delaware, 1 yea. | |
[32] At this period, one hundred and fifteen American citizens, | |
captured by piracy, were held as slaves in Algiers, for whom large | |
ransoms were demanded by the pirates. | |
[33] The convention, after discussing principles, appointed a | |
"committee of detail," consisting of Mr. Rutledge of South Carolina, | |
Mr. Randolph of Virginia, Mr. Wilson of Pennsylvania, Mr. Ellsworth of | |
Connecticut, and Mr. Gorham of Massachusetts, to reduce to the form of | |
a constitution the resolutions agreed upon. This committee without | |
instructions, or authority from the resolutions adopted, introduced a | |
clause forever prohibiting the abolition of the African slave-trade. | |
Mr. Randolph earnestly protested against this clause. He was opposed | |
to any restriction on the power of Congress to abolish it. He "could | |
never agree to the clause as it stands. He would sooner risk the | |
Constitution." Madison Papers, p. 1396. Mr. Ellsworth "was for leaving | |
the clause as it now stands. Let every State import what it pleases. | |
The morality, the wisdom of slavery, are considerations belonging to | |
the States themselves. What enriches a part, enriches the whole; and | |
the States are the best judges of their particular interest." Id., p. | |
1389. It was moved, as a compromise, to guarantee the slave-trade for | |
twenty years, by postponing the restriction to 1808. This motion was | |
seconded by Mr. Gorham, of Massachusetts, and it passed. Mr. Madison, | |
of Virginia, opposed it. "Twenty years," he said, "will produce all | |
the mischief that can be apprehended from the liberty to import | |
slaves. So long a term will be more dishonorable to the American | |
character, than to say nothing about it in the Constitution." Id., p. | |
1427. Mr. Mason, of Virginia, pronounced the traffic as "infernal." | |
Id., p. 1390. | |
[34] Life of Benjamin Lundy, Phil. 1847, p. 218. The total membership | |
of the 130 societies was 6625, exclusive of twelve societies in | |
Illinois from which no returns had been received. These statistics | |
were gathered by the American Anti-Slavery Convention, which was held | |
at Philadelphia, in 1827. | |
Addenda. | |
Since the preceding pages were in type, I have seen, in the | |
library of the New York Historical Society, the printed minutes | |
of the first convention held by the Abolition Societies of the | |
United States, which met at Philadelphia, January 1, 1794, and | |
was several days in session, of which mention was made on page | |
59. These minutes show that my statement of the societies | |
represented needs correction. The Rhode Island Society appears to | |
have had no delegates present. The Virginia Society appointed | |
delegates; but, for reasons stated below, they were not admitted. | |
Several societies, however, were represented, of which before I | |
had seen no mention. As the convention met in the depth of | |
winter, and as traveling was then expensive and difficult, it is | |
evidence of a deep interest in the subject, that so many | |
delegations attended. | |
The convention met in the City Hall, at Philadelphia, and | |
organized by choosing Joseph Bloomfield, of New Jersey, | |
President; John McCrea, Secretary; and Joseph Fry, Door-keeper. | |
The following societies were represented by the delegates named: | |
_Connecticut Society_--Uriah Tracy. | |
_New York Society_--Peter Jay Munroe, Moses Rogers, Thomas | |
Franklin, Jr., William Dunlap. | |
_New Jersey Society_--Joseph Bloomfield, William Coxe, Jr., John | |
Wistar, Robert Pearson, Franklin Davenport. | |
_Pennsylvania Society_--William Rogers, William Rawle, Samuel | |
Powel Griffitts, Robert Patterson, Samuel Coates, Benjamin Rush. | |
_Washington (Pa.) Society_--Absalom Baird. | |
_Delaware Society_--Warren Mifflin, Isaiah Rowland, Joseph | |
Hodgson, John Pemberton. | |
_Wilmington (Del.) Society_--Joseph Warner, Isaac H. Starr, | |
Robert Coram. | |
_Maryland Society_--Samuel Sterett, James Winchester, Joseph | |
Townsend, Adam Fonerdon, Jesse Hollingsworth. | |
_Chester-town (Md.) Society_--Joseph Wilkinson, James Maslin, | |
Abraham Ridgely. | |
A letter, directed to the convention, from Robert Pleasants, | |
chairman of the Committee of Correspondence of the Virginia | |
Society, was presented and read. By this letter it appeared that | |
Samuel Pleasants and Israel Pleasants, of Philadelphia, were | |
appointed to represent that society in the convention; and in | |
case of their declining, or being prevented from acting, the | |
convention were at liberty to nominate two other persons as their | |
representatives. In the letter was inclosed "an authentic account | |
of several vessels lately fitted out in Virginia for the African | |
slave-trade." The convention, after considering the proposition | |
of the Virginia Society, adopted the following resolution: | |
"_Resolved_, That as information, and an unreserved comparison of | |
one another's sentiments, relative to the important cause in | |
which we are severally engaged, are our principal objects; and as | |
the persons appointed by the Virginia Society are not citizens of | |
that State, nor members of that Society, to admit them, or, | |
according to their proposals for us to elect others as their | |
representatives, would be highly improper." | |
The president was directed to acknowledge the receipt of the | |
letter, to inform the Virginia Society of the above resolution, | |
and to thank them for the important information contained in the | |
letter. | |
Benjamin Rush, William Dunlap, Samuel Sterett, William Rawle, and | |
Warner Mifflin, were appointed a committee to report the objects | |
proper for the consideration of the convention, and the best | |
plan for carrying the same into execution. Under the direction of | |
this committee, memorials were prepared to be sent to the | |
legislatures of the several States which had not abolished | |
slavery; a memorial to Congress asking for the enactment of a law | |
making the use of vessels and men in the slave-trade a penal | |
offense; and an address to the citizens of the United States, | |
already printed in a note, pp. 60-63. It was also voted "to | |
recommend to the different Abolition societies to appoint | |
delegates to meet in convention, at Philadelphia, on the first | |
Wednesday of January, 1795, and on the same day in every year | |
afterward, until the great objects of their original association | |
be accomplished." | |
I was so fortunate as to find, also, in the New York Historical | |
Society's library, the minutes of the conventions of 1795 and | |
1797. The convention of 1795 met in the City Hall, at | |
Philadelphia, January 7, and continued in session till the 14th | |
of that month. The societies represented, and delegates, were as | |
follows: | |
_Rhode Island Society_--Theodore Foster. The credentials from the | |
president of the society stated that George Benson was also | |
appointed to represent the society; but he did not appear. | |
_Connecticut Society_--Jonathan Edwards, Uriah Tracy, Zephaniah | |
Swift. | |
_New York Society_--John Murray, Jr., William Johnson, Lawrence | |
Embree, William Dunlap, William Walton Woolsey. | |
_New Jersey Society_--James Sloan, Franklin Davenport. Other | |
delegates appointed, Joseph Bloomfield, William Coxe, Jr., and | |
John Wistar, did not appear. It was explained to the convention | |
that the absence of Mr. Bloomfield was occasioned by sickness. | |
_Pennsylvania Society_--William Rawle, Robert Patterson, Benjamin | |
Rush, Samuel Coates, Caspar Wistar, James Todd, Benjamin Say. | |
_Washington (Pa.) Society_--Thomas Scott, Absalom Baird, Samuel | |
Clark. | |
_Delaware Society_--Richard Bassett, John Ralston, Allen McLane, | |
Caleb Boyer. | |
_Wilmington (Del.) Society_--Cyrus Newlin, James A. Bayard, | |
Joseph Warner, William Poole. | |
_Maryland Society_--Samuel Sterett, Adam Fonerdon, Joseph | |
Townsend, Joseph Thornburgh, George Buchanan, John Bankson, | |
Philip Moore. | |
_Chester-town (Md.) Society_--Edward Scott, James Houston. | |
Dr. Benjamin Rush was elected President; Walter Franklin, | |
Secretary; and Joseph Fry, Door-keeper. | |
Jonathan Edwards, William Dunlap, Caspar Wistar, Cyrus Newlin, | |
Caleb Boyer, Philip Moore, and James Houston were appointed the | |
committee on business. Memorials were prepared, and adopted by | |
the convention, to be sent to the legislatures of South Carolina | |
and Georgia, as both States still persisted in the importation of | |
slaves. An address to the Abolition Societies of the United | |
States was also adopted, the spirit of which may be inferred from | |
the following extract: | |
"When we have broken his chains, and restored the African to the | |
enjoyment of his rights, the great work of justice and | |
benevolence is not accomplished. The new-born citizen must | |
receive that instruction, and those powerful impressions of moral | |
and religious truths, which will render him capable and desirous | |
of fulfilling the various duties he owes to himself and to his | |
country. By educating some in the higher branches, and all in the | |
useful parts of learning, and in the precepts of religion and | |
morality, we shall not only do away the reproach and calumny so | |
unjustly lavished upon us, but confound the enemies of truth, by | |
evincing that the unhappy sons of Africa, in spite of the | |
degrading influence of slavery, are in nowise inferior to the | |
more fortunate inhabitants of Europe and America." | |
The fourth annual convention of the Abolition Societies of the | |
United States was held in the Senate Chamber, at Philadelphia, | |
May 3, 1797. The societies represented, and delegates, were as | |
follows: | |
_New York Society_--Willett Seaman, Thomas Eddy, Samuel L. | |
Mitchell, William Dunlap, Elihu Hubbard Smith. | |
_New Jersey Society_--Joseph Bloomfield, Richard Hartshorne, | |
Joseph Sloan, William Coxe, Jr., William Carpenter. | |
_Pennsylvania Society_--Benjamin Rush, William Rawle, Samuel P. | |
Griffitts, Casper Wistar, Samuel Coates, Robert Patterson, James | |
Todd. | |
_Maryland Society_--Francis Johonnett, Jesse Tyson, Gerrard T. | |
Hopkins. | |
_Choptank (Md.) Society_--Seth Hill Evitts. | |
_Virginia Society_ (at Richmond)--Joseph Anthony. | |
_Alexandria (Va.) Society_--George Drinker. | |
Joseph Bloomfield was elected President; Thomas P. Cope, | |
Secretary; and Jacob Meyer, Door-keeper. | |
Communications from the New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, | |
Maryland, Choptank (Md.), Virginia, and Alexandria (Va.) | |
Abolition Societies were read. The minutes of the convention of | |
1797 are more elaborately compiled, and contain more statistics | |
than the previous reports. Among other papers adopted by the | |
convention, was an "Address to the Free Africans." Besides the | |
seven societies, which sent delegates, the eight societies | |
following, which sent none, were reported, viz: Rhode Island, | |
Connecticut, Washington (Pa.), Delaware (at Dover), Wilmington | |
(Del.), Chester-town (Md.), Winchester (Va.), and Kentucky | |
Societies. Among the memorials presented to Congress, in 1791, | |
was one from the Caroline County (Md.) Society. Besides the | |
Maryland Society, at Baltimore, there appear to have been three | |
local societies on the Eastern Shore of that State. | |
The several societies reported their membership, in 1797, as | |
follows: New York Society, two hundred and fifty; New Jersey | |
Society, "compiled partially;" Pennsylvania Society, five hundred | |
and ninety-one; Maryland Society, two hundred and thirty-one; | |
Choptank (Md.) Society, twenty-five; Wilmington (Del.) Society, | |
sixty; Virginia Society, one hundred and forty-seven; Alexandria | |
(Va.) Society, sixty-two. From the other societies no reports of | |
membership were received. The Choptank (Md.) Society, formed in | |
1790, reported having liberated more than sixty slaves; the | |
Wilmington (Del.) Society, reported having liberated eighty since | |
1788; and the Alexandria (Va.) Society reported having made | |
twenty-six complaints under the law against the importation of | |
slaves. By votes of previous conventions, the Abolition Societies | |
were required to sustain schools for the education of Africans. | |
The minutes for 1797 contain interesting reports from the several | |
societies of their success in this department of benevolence. | |
Before the year 1782, it was illegal in Virginia for a master to | |
liberate his slaves without sending them out of the State. The | |
Assembly of Virginia then passed an act permitting the | |
manumission of slaves. Judge Tucker of that State, in his | |
"Dissertation on Slavery," estimated that, from 1782 to 1791, ten | |
thousand slaves were liberated in Virginia by their masters. | |
Of the anti-slavery literature of this period, which has not | |
already been noticed, there is in the New York Historical | |
Society's library, "An Oration spoken before the Connecticut | |
Society for the Promotion of Freedom, and the Relief of Persons | |
unlawfully held in Bondage, convened at Hartford the 8th of May, | |
1794. By Theodore Dwight.[35] Hartford, 1794." 8vo, 24 pp. Also, | |
a "Discourse delivered April 12, 1797, at the Request of the New | |
York Society for the Promoting the Manumission of Slaves, and | |
protecting such of them as have been or may be liberated. By | |
Samuel Miller, A. M. New York, 1787." 8vo, 36 pp. | |
In the Boston Athenaeum library are the following tracts: | |
"A Dissuasion to Great Britain and the Colonies from the Slave | |
Trade to Africa. By James Swan. Revised and abridged. Boston, | |
1773." 8vo, 40 pp. The original edition was printed in 1772. | |
"A Forensic Dispute on the Legality of Enslaving the Africans, | |
held at a Public Commencement in Cambridge, N. E., July 21, 1773, | |
by the Candidates for the Bachelors' Degrees. Boston, 1773." 8vo, | |
48 pp. | |
"A Short Account of that Part of Africa inhabited by the <DW64>s. | |
[By Anthony Benezet.] Philadelphia, 1772." 8vo, 80 pp. | |
"An Address to the British Settlements in America upon | |
Slaveholding. Second edition. To which are added Observations on | |
a Pamphlet entitled 'Slavery not forbidden by Scripture; or, a | |
Defence of the West Indian Planters.' By a Pennsylvanian [Dr. | |
Benjamin Rush]. Philadelphia, 1773." 8vo, pp. 28 + 54. Also, | |
another edition issued the same year, with the title somewhat | |
varied; the second part being termed, "A Vindication of the | |
Address to the Inhabitants," etc. The pamphlet entitled "Slavery | |
not forbidden by Scripture," etc., was written by R. Nisbet, and | |
is in the Library of Congress. | |
"Memorials presented to the Congress of the United States, by the | |
different Societies instituted for promoting the Abolition of | |
Slavery, in the States of Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, | |
Pennsylvania, Mary, and Virginia. Published by the Pennsylvania | |
Society for promoting the Abolition of Slavery. Philadelphia. | |
Printed by Francis Bailey, 1792." 8vo, 31 pp. | |
This tract contains the memorials which were presented to the | |
House of Representatives, December 8, 1791, and which were read | |
and referred. The Rhode Island memorial is signed by David | |
Howell, President, and dated December 28, 1790. Connecticut--by | |
Ezra Stiles, President; Simon Baldwin, Secretary; January 7, | |
1791. New York--by Matthew Clarkson, Vice-President; December 14, | |
1790. Pennsylvania--by James Pemberton, President; John McCrea | |
and Joseph P. Norris, Secretaries; October 3, 1791. Washington | |
(Pa.)--by Andrew Swearingen, Vice-President. Maryland, in | |
Baltimore--"Signed by the members generally;" but the names of no | |
members are given. Chester-town, Maryland--by James M. Anderson, | |
President; Daniel McCurtin, Secretary; November 19, 1791. | |
Caroline County, Maryland--by Edward White, Vice-President; | |
Charles Emery, Secretary; September 6, 1791. | |
Of the sixteen Abolition Societies existing in the United States | |
during this decade, it appears that six were in States which, at | |
the outbreak of the late rebellion, were non-slaveholding; and | |
ten were in slaveholding States. | |
FOOTNOTES: | |
[35] The "Dwight" to whom, with others, Bishop Gregoire inscribed his | |
"Literature of <DW64>s," was probably Theodore Dwight, and not | |
President Timothy Dwight, as stated on page 31. | |
DR. GEORGE BUCHANAN'S | |
ORATION ON SLAVERY, | |
_BALTIMORE_, _July 4, 1791_. | |
AN | |
ORATION | |
UPON THE | |
MORAL AND POLITICAL EVIL | |
OF | |
SLAVERY. | |
DELIVERED AT A PUBLIC MEETING | |
OF THE | |
MARYLAND SOCIETY | |
FOR PROMOTING THE | |
ABOLITION of SLAVERY, | |
And the RELIEF of _FREE NEGROES_, and | |
others unlawfully held in BONDAGE. | |
BALTIMORE, July 4th, 1791. | |
By GEORGE BUCHANAN, M. D. | |
Member of the _American Philosophical Society_. | |
BALTIMORE: Printed by PHILIP EDWARDS. | |
M,DCC,XCIII. | |
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * | |
At a special meeting of the "MARYLAND SOCIETY _for promoting the | |
Abolition of Slavery, and the Relief of free <DW64>s and others | |
unlawfully held in Bondage_," held at _Baltimore, July 4th, | |
1791_,-- | |
"UNANIMOUSLY RESOLVED | |
THAT the President present the Thanks of this Society to Dr. | |
_George Buchanan_, for the excellent ORATION, by him delivered | |
this Day--and at the same time request a copy thereof in the Name | |
and for the Use of the Society." | |
_Extract from the Minutes._ | |
JOSEPH TOWNSEND, Secretary. | |
_President_, SAMUEL STERETT, | |
_Vice President_, ALEXr McKIM. | |
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * | |
TO THE HONORABLE | |
THOMAS JEFFERSON, Esq. | |
SECRETARY OF STATE, | |
WHOSE Patriotism, since the American Revolution, has been uniformly | |
marked, by a sincere, steady and active Attachment to the Interest of | |
his Country; and whose literary Abilities have distinguished him | |
amongst the first of Statesmen and Philosophers-- | |
THIS ORATION | |
Is respectfully inscribed, as an humble Testimony of the highest | |
Regard and Esteem, by | |
THE AUTHOR. | |
ORATION | |
CITIZENS _and_ FELLOW-MEMBERS, | |
SUMMONED by your voice, I appear before you with diffidence; the | |
arduous task you have imposed upon me, would have been better executed | |
by some one of greater abilities and information, and one more versed | |
in public speaking. | |
However, my feeble executions shall not be wanting to promote the | |
intentions of so laudable an institution; and while I endeavour to | |
fulfil the purport of this meeting, I shall hope not to fail in | |
proving its utility. | |
Too much cannot be offered against the unnatural custom that pervades | |
the greatest part of the world, of dragging the human race to slavery | |
and bondage, nor of exposing the ignominy of such barbarity. | |
Let an impartial view of man be taken, so far as it respects his | |
existence, and in the chain of thought, the _white_, _swarthy_ and | |
_black_, will be all linked together, and at once point out their | |
equality. God hath created mankind after his own image, and granted to | |
them liberty and independence; and if varieties may be found in their | |
structure and colour, these are only to be attributed to the nature of | |
their diet and habits, also of the soil and climate they may inhabit, | |
and serve as flimsy pretexts for enslaving them. | |
In the first rudiment of society, when simplicity characterised the | |
conduct of man, slavery was unknown, every one equally enjoyed that | |
peace and tranquility at home, to which he was naturally born: But | |
this equality existed but for a time; as yet no laws, no government | |
was established check the ambitious, or to curb the crafty; hence | |
reprisals were made upon the best by the strong and robust, and | |
finally subjected the weak and indigent to poverty and want. | |
Here then arose a difference in the circumstances of men, and the poor | |
and weak were obliged to submit themselves to the control of the rich | |
and powerful; but although the authority exercised was at first mild, | |
and ensured to the bondsmen almost the same privileges with their | |
masters, yet the idea of power soon crept in upon the mind, and at | |
length lenity was converted into rigidity, and the gall of servitude | |
became insupportable; the oppressed, soon found that _that liberty_, | |
which they had just given up, was an inalienable privilege of man, and | |
sought means to regain it: this was effected,--but not until a time | |
when ignorance began to decline, when improvements were made in the | |
arts, commerce and governments, and when men could seek protection | |
from the law, or by industry could ward off the bitterness of poverty, | |
and ensure to themselves an independence. | |
Happy circumstance! To feel oneself emancipated from the chains of | |
slavery, must awaken every delicate sensation of the soul, and | |
transport the gloomy mind into a region of bliss; for what is life, | |
without an enjoyment of those privileges which have been given to us | |
by nature? It is a burden, which if not awed by Divine Providence, | |
would be speedily cast off, by all who sweat under the yoke of slavish | |
servitude, and know no alternative but an unceasing submission to the | |
goads of a brutal master. | |
Ages have revolved since this happy condition of human affairs; and | |
although mankind have been gradually verging from a state of | |
simplicity to a more social refinement, yet the governments of those | |
primitive times laid open an analogy for licentiousness; and we find, | |
by pursuing the history of man, that slavery was again introduced, and | |
stained the annals of all the powers of Europe. | |
The idea of possessing, as property, was too lucrative to be totally | |
eradicated; it diffused itself into Egypt and Cyprus, which became the | |
first and most noted markets for the sale and purchase of slaves, and | |
soon became the cause of rapine and bloodshed in Greece and Rome: | |
there it was an established custom to subject to slavery all the | |
captives in time of war; and not only the Emperors, but the nobility, | |
were in possession of thousands--to them they served as instruments of | |
diversion and authority. | |
To give an idea only of the amphitheatrical entertainments, so | |
repugnant to humanity, would make the most obdurate heart feel with | |
keen sensibility. For to hear with patience of voracious animals | |
being turned loose among human beings, to give sport to the rich and | |
great, when upon reflection, he may be assured, that the merciless jaw | |
knew no restraint but precipitately charged upon its prey whom it | |
left, without remorse, either massacred or maimed. | |
Such was the practice among the ancients, and to charge the modern | |
with like enormities, would by many be deemed criminal. | |
But I fear not to accuse them--the prosecution of the present | |
barbarous and iniquitous slave trade affords us too many instances of | |
cruelties exercised against the harmless Africans. A trade, which, | |
after it was abolished in Europe by the general introduction of | |
Christianity, was again renewed about the fourteenth century by the | |
mercenary Portuguese, and now prosecuted by the Spaniards, French and | |
British, in defiance of every principle of justice, humanity and | |
religion. | |
Ye moderns, will you not blush at degenerating into ancient barbarity, | |
and at wearing the garb of Christians, when you pursue the practices | |
of savages? | |
Hasten to reform, and put an end to this unnatural and destructive | |
trade--Do you not know that thousands of your fellow-mortals are | |
annually entombed by it? and that it proves ruinous to your | |
government? You go to Africa to purchase slaves for foreign markets, | |
and lose the advantages of all the proper articles of commerce, which | |
that country affords. You bury your seamen upon the pestiferous | |
shores; and, shocking to humanity! make monsters of all you engage in | |
the traffic. | |
Who are more brutal than the Captains of vessels in the slave trade? | |
Not even the tawny savage of the American wilds, who thirsts after the | |
blood of the Christian, and carries off his scalp the trophy of | |
splendid victory! | |
They even countenance the practice of the ancients, in seeing a sturdy | |
mastiff tear in pieces some poor wretch of their hateful cargoes, or | |
in viewing their wreathes and tortures, when smarting under the lash | |
of a seasoned cat.[36] | |
It is time to abolish these enormities, and to stay such repeated | |
insults from being offered to Divine Providence: Some dreadful curse | |
from heaven may be the effect of them, and the innocent be made to | |
suffer for the guilty. | |
What, will you not consider that the Africans are men? that they have | |
human souls to be saved? that they are born free and independent? A | |
violation of which prerogatives is an infringement upon the laws of | |
God. | |
But, are these the only crimes you are guilty of in pursuing the | |
trade? No--you stir up the harmless Africans to war, and stain their | |
fields with blood: you keep constant hostile ferment in their | |
territories, in order to procure captives for your uses; some you | |
purchase with a few trifling articles, and waft to distant shores to | |
be made the instruments of grandeur, pride and luxury. | |
You commit also the crime of kidnapping others, whom you forcibly drag | |
from their beloved country, from the bosoms of their dearest | |
relatives; so leave a wife without a husband, a sister without a | |
brother, and a helpless infant to bemoan the loss of its indulgent | |
parent. | |
Could you but see the agonizing pangs of these distressed mortals, in | |
the hour of their captivity, when deprived of every thing that is dear | |
to them, it would make even the heathenish heart to melt with sorrow; | |
like a noble Senator of old, death is their choice in preference to | |
lingering out their lives in ignominious slavery--and often do we see | |
them meet it with a smile. | |
The horrors of the grave intimidate not even the delicate females; too | |
many melancholy instances are recorded of their plunging into the | |
deep, and carrying with them a tender infant at their breast; even in | |
my own recollection, suicide has been committed in various forms by | |
these unhappy wretches, under the blind infatuation of revising the | |
land of their nativity. | |
Possessed of Christian sentiments, they fail not to exercise them when | |
an opportunity offers. Things pleasing rejoice them, and melancholy | |
circumstances pall their appetites for amusements.--They brook no | |
insults, and are equally prone to forgiveness as to resentment; they | |
have gratitude also, and will even expose their own lives, to wipe off | |
the obligation of past favours; nor do they want any of the | |
refinements of taste, so much the boast of those who call themselves | |
Christians. | |
The talent for music, both vocal and instrumental, appears natural to | |
them: Neither is their genius for literature to be despised; many | |
instances are recorded of men of eminence amongst them: Witness | |
Ignatius Sancho, whose letters are admired by all men of | |
taste--Phillis Wheatley, who distinguished herself as a poetess--The | |
physician of New Orleans--The Virginia calculator--Banneker, the | |
Maryland Astronomer, and many others whom it would be needless to | |
mention. These are sufficient to shew, that the Africans, whom you | |
despise, whom you inhumanly treat as brutes, and whom you unlawfully | |
subject to slavery, with the tyrannizing hands of Despots, are equally | |
capable of improvements with yourselves. | |
This you may think a bold assertion, but it is not made without | |
reflection, nor independent of the testimony of many, who have taken | |
pains with their education. | |
Because you few, in comparison to their number, who make any exertions | |
of abilities at all, you are ready to enjoy the common opinion, that | |
they are inferior set of beings, and destined by nature to the | |
cruelties and hardships you impose upon them. | |
But be cautious how long you hold such sentiments; the time may come, | |
when you will be obliged to abandon them--consider the pitiable | |
situation of these most distressed beings; deprived of their liberty | |
and reduced to slavery; consider also, that they toil not for | |
themselves, from the rising of the Sun to its going down, and you will | |
readily conceive the cause of their inaction. | |
What time, or what incitement has a slave to become wise? there is no | |
great art in hilling corn, or in running a furrow; and to do this, | |
they know they are doomed, whether they seek into the mysteries of | |
science, or remain ignorant as they are. | |
To deprive a man of his liberty, has a tendency to rob his soul of | |
every spring to virtuous actions; and were slaves to become fiends, | |
the wonder could not be great. Nothing more assimilates a man to a | |
beast, says the learned Montesque, than being among freemen, himself a | |
slave; for slavery clogs the mind, perverts the moral faculty, and | |
reduces the conduct of man to the standard of brutes. | |
What right then have you to expect greater things from these poor | |
mortals? You would not blame a brute for committing ravages upon his | |
prey, nor ought you to censure a slave, for making attempts to regain | |
his liberty even at the risque of life itself. | |
Ye mercenary Portuguese, ye ambitious French, and ye deceitful | |
Britons, I again call upon you to take these things into your | |
consideration; it is time, a remorse of conscience had seized upon | |
you; it is time, you were apprised of your danger: Behold the | |
thousands that are annually lost to your governments, in the | |
prosecution of an unlawful and iniquitous trade. | |
View the depredations that you commit upon a nation, born equally free | |
with yourselves; consider the abyss of misery into which you plunge | |
your fellow-mortals, and reflect upon the horrid crimes you are hourly | |
committing under the bright sunshine of revealed religion.--Will you | |
not then find yourselves upon a precipice, and protected from ruin, | |
only because you are too wicked to be lost? | |
What Empire, or what State can have the hope of existing, which | |
prosecutes a trade, that proves a sinking fund to her coffers, and to | |
her subjects, tramples the human species under foot, with as much | |
indifference as the dirt, and fills the world with misery and woe? | |
Let not a blind hardness of opinion any longer bias your judgments, | |
and prevent you from acting like Christians. | |
View the Empires amongst the ancients; behold Egypt in the time of | |
Secostris, Greece in the time of Cyrus, and Rome in the reign of | |
Augustus; view them all, powerful as enemies, patterns of virtue and | |
science, bold and intrepid in war, free and independent; and now see | |
them sacrificed at the shrine of luxury, and dwindled into | |
insignificance. When in power, they usurped the authority of God, they | |
stretched out their arms to encompass their enemies, and bound their | |
captives in iron chains of slavery. | |
Vengeance was then inflicted, their spoils became the instruments of | |
pride, luxury and dissipation, and finally proved the cause of their | |
present downfall. | |
Then look back at home; view your degeneracy from the times of Louis | |
the 14th and Charles the 2d, and if a universal blush don't prevail, | |
it will argue a hardness of heart, tempered by a constant action of | |
wickedness upon the smooth anvil of religion. | |
For such are the effects of subjecting man to slavery, that it | |
destroys every human principle, vitiates the mind, instills ideas of | |
unlawful cruelties, and eventually subverts the springs of government. | |
What a distressing scene is here before us. America, I start at your | |
situation! The idea of these direful effect of slavery demand your | |
most serious attention.--What! shall a people, who flew to arms with | |
the valour of Roman Citizens, when encroachments were made upon their | |
liberties, by the invasion of foreign powers, now basely descend to | |
cherish the seed and propagate the growth of the evil, which they | |
boldly sought to eradicate. To the eternal infamy of our country, this | |
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 country, to contaminate the minds of her citizens, you ought | |
to have the virtue of extirpating it. | |
Emancipated from the shackles of despotism, you know no superior; free | |
and independent, you stand equally respected among your foes, and | |
your allies.--Renowned in history, for your valour, and for your | |
wisdom, your way is left open to the highest eminence of human | |
perfection. | |
But while with pleasing hopes you may anticipate such an event, the | |
echo of expiring freedom cannot fail to assail the ears, and pierce | |
the heart with keen reproach. | |
In the first struggles for American freedom, in the enthusiastic | |
ardour for attaining liberty and independence, one of the most noble | |
sentiments that ever adorned the human breast, was loudly proclaimed | |
in all her councils-- | |
Deeply penetrated with a sense of _Equality_, they held it as a fixed | |
principle, "_that all men are by nature and of right ought to be free, | |
that they are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain | |
inalienable rights, amongst which are life, liberty and the pursuit of | |
happiness_." | |
Nevertheless, _when_ the blessings of peace were showered upon them, | |
when they had obtained these rights which they had so boldly contended | |
for, _then_ they became apostates to their principles, and rivetted | |
the fetters of slavery upon the unfortunate Africans. | |
Deceitful men! who could have suggested, that American patriotism | |
would at this day countenance a conduct so inconsistent; that while | |
America boasts of being a land of freedom, and an asylum for the | |
oppressed of Europe, she should at the same time foster an abominable | |
nursery for slaves, to check the shoots of her growing liberty? | |
Deaf to the clamours of criticism, she feels no remorse, and blindly | |
pursues the object of her destruction; she encourages the propagation | |
of vice, and suffers her youth to be reared in the habits of cruelty. | |
Not even the sobs and groans of injured innocence, which _reek_ from | |
every State, can excite her pity, nor human misery bend her heart to | |
sympathy. | |
Cruel and oppressive she wantonly abuses the _Rights of Man_, and | |
willingly sacrifices her liberty at the altar of slavery: What an | |
opportunity is here given for triumph among her enemies? Will they not | |
exclaim, that upon this very day, while the Americans the anniversary | |
of Freedom and Independence, abject slavery exists tn all her States | |
but one.[37] | |
How degenerately base to merit the rebuke. Fellow-countrymen, let the | |
heart of humanity awake and direct your counsels; reflect that | |
slavery gains root among you; look back upon the curses which it has | |
heaped upon your ancestors, and unanimously combine to drive the | |
_fiend Monster_ from your territories; it is inconsistent with the | |
principles of your government, with the education of your youth, and | |
highly derogatory to the true spirit of Christianity. | |
In despotic governments, says Montesque, where they are already in a | |
state of political slavery, civil slavery is more tolerable than in | |
other governments; for there the minds of masters and servants are | |
equally degenerate and act in unison.--But in America, this cannot be | |
the case; here the pure forms of Republicanism are established, and | |
hold forth to the world the enjoyment of Freedom and Independence. | |
Her citizens have thrown off the load of oppression, under which they | |
formerly laboured; and elated with their signal victories, have become | |
oppressors in their turn. | |
They have slaves, over whom they carry the iron rod of subjection, and | |
fail not to exercise it with cruelty, hence their situations become | |
insupportable, misery inhabits their cabins, and persecution pursues | |
them in the field. | |
I would wish to be partial to my country, and carry a hand of lenity; | |
it is more pleasing to celebrate than to detract, but whoever takes a | |
view of the situation of its slaves, will find it even worse than this | |
description. | |
Naked and starved, they often fall victims to the inclemencies of the | |
weather, and inhumanly beaten; sacrifices to the turbulent tempers of | |
their cruel masters. | |
Unfortunate Africans! born in freedom and subjected to slavery! How | |
long will you remain the spoils of despotism, and the harbinger of | |
human calamities? Cannot your distresses awaken the heart of | |
sensibility, and excite her pity? Cannot your unlawful treatment call | |
forth the voice of humanity to plead your cause? | |
Americans! step forward; you have already diffused a spirit of Liberty | |
throughout the world; you have set examples of heroism; and now let me | |
intreat you to pave the way to the exercise of humanity: an | |
opportunity is offered to raise yourselves to the first eminence among | |
mankind. | |
Rouse then from your lethargy, and let not such torpid indifference | |
prevail in your councils.--Slavery, the most implacable enemy to your | |
country, is harboured amongst you; it makes a rapid progress, and | |
threatens you with destruction. | |
Already has it disturbed the limpid streams of liberty, it has | |
polluted the minds of your youth, sown the seeds of despotism, and | |
without a speedy check to her ravages, will sink you into a pit of | |
infamy, where you shall be robbed of all the honours you have before | |
acquired. | |
Let it viewed either morally or politically, and no one argument can | |
be adduced in its favour. | |
The savage mind may perhaps be reconciled to it, but the heart of the | |
Christian must recoil at the idea.--He sees it forbidden in Holy Writ, | |
and his conscience dictates to him, that it is wrong. | |
"_He that stealeth a man_," says Exodus, "_and selleth him, of if he | |
be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death._" | |
Oh my countrymen! are there any of you who can con over this elegant | |
passage of Scripture, without trembling; or can you stand before the | |
great Author of your existence, with an arm uplifted to subject his | |
creatures to slavery, without dreading an execution of this divine | |
threat. | |
"_The nation, to whom they shall be in bondage, will I judge, said | |
God_"--and what that judgment may be, is beyond the suggestion of | |
mortals. We may be hurled amidst the elements of woe to expiate the | |
guilt, for he who holdeth men in slavery liveth in sin. | |
In a civilized country, where religion is tolerated in all its purity, | |
it must be the fault of ignorance, stubborn indifference to | |
Christianity, to rebel against divine sentiments; and considering | |
slavery in a political view, it must appear equally as destructive to | |
our terrestrial happiness, as it endangers our enjoyment of heavenly | |
bliss. | |
For who is there, unless innured to savage cruelties, that hear of the | |
inhuman punishments daily afflicted upon the unfortunate Blacks, | |
without feeling for their situations? | |
Can a man who calls himself a Christian, coolly and deliberately tie | |
up, thumb screw, torture with pincers, and beat unmercifully a poor | |
slave, for perhaps a trifling neglect of duty? Or can any one be an | |
eye witness to such enormities, without at the same time being deeply | |
persuaded of its guilt? | |
I fear these questions may be answered in the affirmative, but I hope | |
by none of this respectable audience; for such men must be monsters, | |
not of the regular order of nature, and equally prone to murder, or to | |
less cruelties. | |
But independent of these effects, which the existence of slavery in | |
any country has over the moral faculty of man, it is highly injurious | |
to its natural oeconomy; it debars the progress of agriculture, and | |
gives origin to sloth and luxury. | |
View the fertile fields of Great Britain, where the hand of freedom | |
conducts the plowshare, then look back upon your own, and see how mean | |
will be the comparison. | |
Your labourers are slaves, and they have no inducement, no incentive | |
to be industrious; they are cloathed and victualled, whether lazy or | |
hard-working; and from the calculations that have been made, one | |
freeman is worth almost two slaves in the field, which makes it in | |
many instances cheaper to have hirelings; for they are incited to | |
industry by the hopes of reputation and future employment, and are | |
careful of their apparel and their instruments of husbandry, where | |
they must provide them for themselves, whereas, the others have little | |
or no temptation to attend to any of these circumstances. | |
But this, the prejudiced mind is scarce able to scan, the pride of | |
holding men as property is too flattering to yield to the dictates of | |
reason, and blindly pushes on man to his destruction. | |
What a pity is it, that darkness should so obscure us, that America | |
with all her transcending glory, should be stigmatized with the | |
infamous reproach of oppression, and her citizens be called Tyrants. | |
Fellow-countrymen, let the hand of persecution be no longer raised | |
against you.--Act virtuously; do unto all men as you would they should | |
do unto you, and exterminate the pest of slavery from your land. | |
Then will the tongues of slander be silenced, the shafts of criticism | |
blunted, and America enter upon a new theatre of glory. | |
But unless these things shall be done, unless the calamitous situation | |
of the slaves shall at least be alleviated, what is America to expect? | |
Can she think that the repeated insults to Divine Authority will pass | |
off with impunity? Or can she suppose, that men, who are naturally | |
born free, shall forever sweat under the yoke of ignominious slavery, | |
without making one effort to regain their liberty? | |
No, my countrymen, these things are not to be expected.--Heaven will | |
not overlook such enormities! She is bound to punish impenitent | |
sinners, and her wrath is to be dreaded by all! Moreover, the number | |
of slaves, that are harboured amongst you holds forth an alarm; in | |
many parts of the continent they exceed the whites, and are capable of | |
ransacking the country. | |
What then, if the fire of Liberty shall be kindled amongst them? What, | |
if some enthusiast in their cause shall beat to arms, and call them to | |
the standard of freedom? Would they fly in clouds, until their numbers | |
became tremendous, and threaten the country with devastation and | |
ruin?--It would not be the feeble efforts of an undisciplined people, | |
that could quell their fury. | |
Led on by the hopes of freedom, and animated by the aspiring voice of | |
their leader, they would soon find, that "a day, an hour of virtuous | |
liberty, worth a whole eternity of bondage." | |
Hark! Methinks I hear the work begun, the Blacks have sought for | |
Allies, and found them in the wilderness; they have called the rusty | |
savages to their assistance, and are preparing to take revenge of | |
their haughty masters.[38] | |
A revenge, which they consider as justly merited; for being no longer | |
able to endure their unnatural and unlawful bondage, they are | |
determined to seek Liberty or Death. | |
Why then is there not some step to be taken to ward off the dreadful | |
catastrophe? | |
Fellow countrymen, will you stand and see your aged parents, your | |
loving wives, your dutiful children butchered by the merciless hand of | |
the enthusiast, when you have it in your power to prevent it? | |
In this enlightened period, when the Rights of Man is the topick of | |
political controversy, and slavery is considered not only unnatural | |
but unlawful, why do you not step forward and compleat the glorious | |
work you have begun, and extend the merciful hand to the unfortunate | |
Blacks? Why do you not form some wise plan to liberate them, and | |
abolish slavery in your country? | |
If it should be deemed injudicious or impolitic to effect it at once, | |
let it be done gradually; let the children for one or two generations | |
be liberated at a certain age, and less than half a century will the | |
plague be totally rooted out from amongst you--then will you begin to | |
see your consequence--thousands of good citizens will be added to your | |
number, and your arms will become invincible: Gratitude will induce | |
_them_ to become your friends; for the PROMISE alone of freedom to a | |
slave ensures his loyalty; witness their conduct in the second Punic | |
war which the Senate of Rome carried on against Hannibal; not a man | |
disgraced himself, but all with an intrepidity peculiar to veterans | |
met their foes, fought and conquered. | |
Witness also the valour of a few Blacks in South-Carolina, who under | |
the promise of freedom, joined the great and good Colonel JOHN | |
LAURENS; and in a sudden surprised the British, and distinguished | |
themselves as heroes. | |
I remember it was said, they were foremost in the ranks, and nobly | |
contended for their promised reward. | |
At this critical juncture, when savage cruelties threatened to invade | |
your peaceful territories, and murder your citizens, what great | |
advantage might be derived from giving freedom to the Africans at | |
once. Would they not all became your Allies; would they not turn out | |
hardy for the wilderness, to drive the blood-thirsty savage to his | |
den, and teach him it were better to live peaceably at home, than to | |
come under the scourge of such newly liberated levies. | |
Americans arouse--It is time to hear the cause of the wretched sons of | |
Africa, enslaved in your country; they plead not guilty to every | |
charge of crime, and unmeritedly endure the sufferings you impose upon | |
them. | |
Yet, like haughty Despots, or corrupt judges, you forbid a trial. | |
Justice however to yourselves and humanity toward your fellow mortals, | |
loudly demand it of you, and you ought not to hesitate in obeying | |
their sacred mandates. | |
A few years may be sufficient to make you repent of your unrelenting | |
indifference, and give a stab to all your boasted honors; then may | |
you, pitiable citizens, be taught wisdom, when it will be too late; | |
then may you cry out, Abba Father, but mercy will not be found, where | |
mercy was refused. | |
Let all the social feelings of the soul, let honour, philanthropy, | |
pity, humanity, and justice, unite to effect their emancipation. | |
For eternal will be the disgrace of keeping them much longer in the | |
iron fetters of slavery, but immortal the honour of accomplishing | |
their FREEDOM. | |
* * * * * | |
_To the_ SOCIETY. | |
Such were the sentiments, my friends, that first induced you to form | |
yourselves into this Society. | |
For seeing human nature debased in the most vile manner, and seeing | |
also that your country deeply suffered from the iniquitous custom of | |
holding man in slavery, you have justly concluded "that at this | |
particular crisis, when Europe and America appear to pay some | |
attention to this evil, the united endeavours of a few, might greatly | |
influence the public opinion, and produce from the transient sentiment | |
of the times, effects, extensive, lasting and useful."--But however | |
great have been your exertions; however much they have been guided by | |
the precepts of humanity and religion, your public reward has been | |
censure and criticism; but let not such airy weapons damp your ardour | |
for doing good; your _just reward_ is in Heaven, not on earth. | |
Yours is the business of mercy and compassion, not of oppression. You | |
forcibly rescue from the hands of no man his property, but by your | |
examples and precepts you promote the Abolition of Slavery, and give | |
relief to free <DW64>s, and others unlawfully held in bondage. | |
You have shown an anxiety to extend a portion of that freedom to | |
others, which GOD in his Providence hath extended unto you, and a | |
release from that thraldom to which yourselves and your country were | |
so lately tyrannically doomed, and from which you have been but | |
recently delivered. You have evinced to the world your inclination to | |
remove as much as possible the sorrows of those who have lived in | |
undeserved bondage, and that your hearts are expanded with kindness | |
toward men of all colours, conditions and nations; and if you did not | |
interest yourselves in their behalf, how long might their situations | |
remain hard and distressing. | |
Numbers might passively remain for life in abject slavery from an | |
ignorance of the mode of acquiring their emancipation, notwithstanding | |
they may be justly entitled to their freedom by birth and by the law. | |
If the hand of prosecution is now raised against you, for relieving | |
your fellow mortals from the distresses of unlawful slavery, and | |
restoring them to liberty, it is to be hoped it will not be of long | |
duration; the principles of your institutions will be daily made more | |
known, and others will begin to think as you do; they will find upon | |
reflection, that they have no just power or authority to hold men in | |
slavery, and seeing that your actions are charitable and | |
disinterested, will cordially inlist under your banners, and aid your | |
benevolent exertions. | |
Already have you reason to suppose, that your good examples have been | |
influential; you humbly began with a few, and you now see your numbers | |
hourly encreasing. | |
It may be the effusions of a youthful fancy, solicitous of | |
aggrandizing your merit, but I fear not to say, that the operations of | |
similar institutions will date one of the most splendid aeras of | |
American greatness. | |
Go on then, my friends, pursue the dictates of an unsullied | |
conscience, and cease not until you have finished your work--but let | |
prudence guide you in all your undertakings, and let not an | |
enthusiastic heat predominate over reason. Your cause is a just one, | |
consistent with law and equity, and must finally be advocated by all | |
men of Humanity and Religion. | |
* * * * * | |
"_For, 'tis Liberty alone which gives the flower | |
of fleeting life its lustre and perfume, | |
And we are weeds without it._" | |
TASK. | |
FOOTNOTES: | |
[36] _A whip with nine tails._ | |
[37] Massachusetts. | |
[38] This was thrown out as a conjecture of what possibly might | |
happen, and the insurrections in St. Domingo tend to prove the danger, | |
to be more considerable than has generally been supposed, and | |
sufficient to alarm the inhabitants of these States. | |
FINIS. | |
[Transcriber's Notes: | |
Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as | |
possible, including obsolete and variant spellings and other | |
inconsistencies. | |
The transcriber noted the following issues and made changes as | |
indicated to the text to correct obvious errors: | |
1. p. 15, "tendto" --> "tend to" | |
2. p. 18, "partiotism" --> "patriotism" | |
3. p. 30, Footnote #9, "Litterature" --> "Litterature" | |
4. p. 33, Footnote #10, Elliot's Debates, Va. p. 452: | |
(page number is indecipherable, possibly 452.) | |
5. p. 37, Footnote #11, "contray" --> "contrary" | |
6. p. 40, Footnote #12, April 23, 178?, (year is indecipherable) | |
7. p. 41, Both "Ralph Sandiford" and "Ralph Sandyford" appear in | |
main text and Footnote #13 | |
8. p. 76, Both "Adam Fonerdon" and "Adam Fonerden" appear in | |
main text and Footnote #21 | |
9. p. 99, "terrestial" --> "terrestrial" | |
10. p. 18, "peceably" --> "peaceably" | |
Also, many occurrences of mismatched single and double quotes remain | |
as published. | |
End of Transcriber's Notes] | |
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Anti-Slavery Opinions before the Year | |
1800, by William Frederick Poole and George Buchanan | |
*** |