History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 : Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens

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CHAPTER I. RESTRICTION AND EXTENSION. 1800-1825.

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COMMENCEMENT OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.—SLAVE Population of 1800.—Memorial Presented to Congress calling Attention to the Slave-trade to the Coast of Guinea.—Georgia cedes the Territory lying West of her to become a State.—Ohio adopts a State Constitution.—William Henry Harrison appointed Governor of the Territory of Indiana.—An Act of Congress prohibiting the Importation of Slaves into the United States or Territories.—Slave Population of 1810.—Mississippi applies for Admission into the Union with a Slave Constitution.—Congress besieged by Memorials urging more specific Legislation against the Slave-trade.—Premium offered to the Informer of every illegally imported African seized within the United States.—Circular Letters sent to the Naval Officers on the Seacoast of the Slave-holding States.—President Monroe’s Message to Congress on the Question of Slavery.—Petition presented by the Missouri Delegates for the Admission of that State into the Union.—The Organization of the Arkansas Territory.—Resolutions passed for the Restriction of Slavery in New States.—The Missouri Controversy.—The Organization of the Anti-slavery Societies.—An Act for the Gradual Abolition Of Slavery in New Jersey.—Its Provisions.—The Attitude of the Northern Press on the Slavery Question.—Slave Population of 1820.—Anti-slavery Sentiment at the North.

THE nineteenth century opened auspiciously for the cause of the Negro. Although slavery had ceased to exist in Massachusetts and Vermont, the census of 1800 showed that the slave population in the other States was steadily on the increase. In the total population of 5,305,925, there were 893,041 slaves. The subjoined table exhibits the number of slaves in each of the slave-holding States in the year 1800.

CENSUS OF 1800—SLAVE POPULATION.

On the 2d of January, 1800, a number of Colored citizens of the city and county of Philadelphia presented a memorial to Congress, through the delegate from that city, Mr. Waln, calling attention to the slave-trade to the coast of Guinea. The memorial charged that the slave-trade was clandestinely carried on from various ports of the United States contrary to law; that under this wicked practice free Colored men were often seized and sold as slaves; and that the fugitive-slave law of 1793 subjected them to great inconvenience and severe persecutions. The memorialists did not request Congress to transcend their authority respecting the slave-trade, nor to emancipate the slaves, but only to prepare the way, so that, at an early period, the oppressed might go free.

Upon a motion by Mr. Waln for the reference of the memorial to the Committee on the Slave-trade, Rutledge, Harper, Lee, Randolph, and other Southern members, made speeches against such a reference. They maintained that the petition requested Congress to take action on a question over which they had no control. Waln, Thacher, Smilie, Dana, and Gallatin contended that there were portions of the petition that came within the jurisdiction of the Constitution, and, therefore, ought to be received and acted upon. Mr. Rutledge demanded the yeas and nays; but in such a spirit as put Mr. Waln on his guard, so he withdrew his motion, and submitted another one by which such parts of the memorial as came within the jurisdiction of Congress should be referred. Mr. Rutledge raised a point of order on the motion of the gentleman from Pennsylvania that a part of the memorial could not be referred, but was promptly overruled. Mr. Gray, of Virginia, moved to amend by adding a declaratory clause that the portions of the memorial, not referred, inviting Congress to exercise authority not delegated, have a tendency to create disquiet and jealousy, and ought, therefore, to receive the pointed disapprobation of this House. After some discussion, it was finally agreed to strike out the last clause and insert the following: ought therefore to receive no encouragement or countenance from this House. The call of the roll resulted in the adoption of the amendment, with but one vote in the negative by Mr. Thacher, of Maine, an uncompromising enemy of slavery. The committee to whom the memorial was referred brought in a bill during the session prohibiting American ships from supplying slaves from the United States to foreign markets.

On the 2d of April, 1802, Georgia ceded the territory lying west of her present limits, now embracing the States of Alabama and Mississippi. Among the conditions she exacted was the following:

The demand was acceded to, and, as the world knows, Alabama and Mississippi became the most cruel slave States in the United States.

Ohio adopted a State constitution in 1802-3, and the residue of the territory not included in the State as it is now, was designated as Indiana Territory. William Henry Harrison was appointed governor. One of the earliest moves of the government of the new territory was to secure a modification of the ordinance of 1787 by which slavery or involuntary servitude was prohibited in the territory northwest of the Ohio River. It was ordered by a convention presided over by Gen. Harrison in 1802-3, that a memorial be sent to Congress urging a restriction of the ordinance of 1787. It was referred to a select committee, with John Randolph as chairman. On the 2d of March, 1803, he made a report by the unanimous request of his committee, and the portion referring to slavery was as follows:

After discussing the subject-matter embodied in the memorial from the territory of Indiana, the committee presented eight resolves, one of which related to the subject of slavery, and was as follows:

Congress was about to close its session, and, therefore, there was no action taken upon this report. At the next session it went into the hands of a new committee whose chairman was Cæsar Rodney, of Delaware, who had just been elected to Congress. On the 17th of February, 1804, Mr. Rodney made the following report:

After discussing other matters contained in the Indiana petition, the committee says, in reference to slavery:

The House did not take up and act upon this report, and so the matter passed for the time being. But the original memorial, with several petitions of like import, came before Congress in 1805-6. They were referred to a select committee, and on the 14th of February, 1806, Mr. Garnett, of Virginia, the chairman, made the following favorable report:

After a lengthy discussion of matters embodied in the Indiana memorial, the committee recommended the following resolve on the question of slavery:

The report and resolves were made the special order for the following Monday, but were never called up.

At the opening of the next session, Gen. Harrison presented another letter, accompanied by several resolves passed by the Legislative Council and House of Representatives, urging the passage of a measure restricting the ordinance of 1787. The letter and enclosures were received on the 21st of January, 1807, and referred to the following select committee: Parke, of Indiana, chairman; Alston, North Carolina; Masters, New York; Morrow, Ohio; Rhea, Tennessee; Sandford, Kentucky; Trigg, Virginia.

On the 12th of February, 1807, the chairman, Mr. Parke, made the following report in favor of the request of the memorialists [the third]. It was unanimous.

Like its predecessor this report was made a special order, but was never taken up.

On the 7th of November, 1807, the President laid a letter from Gen. Harrison [probably the one already referred to], and the resolves of his Legislature, before Congress, and that body referred them to a select committee consisting of Franklin, of North Carolina; Ketchel, of New Jersey; and Tiffin, of Ohio.

On the 13th of November, Mr. Franklin made the following adverse report:

Thus ended in defeat the stubborn effort to secure a restriction of the ordinance of 1787, and the admission of slavery into the Territory lying west of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, now comprising the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin.

In his message to Congress at the commencement of the session of 1806-7, President Jefferson suggested to that body the wisdom of abolishing the African slave-trade. He said in this connection:

This portion of the message was referred to a select committee; and in due time they reported a bill to prohibit the importation or bringing of slaves into the United States or the territories thereof after the 31st day of December, 1807.

Mr. Early, of Georgia, the chairman of the committee, inserted a clause into the bill requiring that all slaves illegally imported should be forfeited and sold for life for the benefit of the United States. A long debate ensued and was conducted with fiery earnestness from beginning to end. It was urged in support of the above regulation, that nothing else could be done but to sell them; that it would never do to release them in the States where they might be captured, poor, ignorant, and dangerous. It was said by the opponents of the measure, that Congress could not regulate the matter, as the States had the reserved authority to have slavery, and were, therefore, competent to say who should be free and who bond. It was suggested, farther along in the debate, that Congress might order such slaves into such States as prohibited slavery, where they could be bound out for a term of years. After a great many able speeches the House refused to strike out the forfeiture clause by a vote of sixty-three to thirty-six. When the act was called up for final passage, it was amended by inserting a clause imposing a fine of $20,000, upon all persons concerned in fitting out a vessel for the slave-trade; and likewise a fine of $5,000, and forfeiture of the vessel for taking on board any Negro or Mulatto, or any person of color, in any foreign port with the intention of selling them in the United States.

During these efforts at restriction the slave population was growing daily. The census of 1810 showed that within a decade the slave population had sprung from 893,041, in 1800, to 1,191,364,—an increase of 33 per cent. The following table exhibits this remarkable fact:

CENSUS OF 1810.—SLAVE POPULATION.

On the 10th of December, 1817, Mississippi applied for admission into the Union with a slave constitution. The provisions relating to slavery dispensed with grand juries in the indictment of slaves, and trial by jury was allowed only in trial of capital cases.

During the session of 1817-8, Congress was besieged by a large number of memorials praying for more specific legislation against the slave-trade. During the session the old fugitive-slave act was amended so as to make it more effective, and passed by a vote of eighty-four to sixty-nine. In the Senate, with several amendments, and heated debate, it passed by a vote of seventeen to thirteen; but upon being returned to the House for concurrence, the Northern members had heard from their constituents, and the bill was tabled, and its friends were powerless to get it up.

In 1818-9, Congress passed an act offering a premium of fifty dollars to the informer of every illegally imported African seized within the United States, and twenty-five dollars for those taken at sea. The President was authorized to have such slaves removed beyond the limits of the United States, and to appoint agents on the West Coast of Africa to superintend their reception. An effort was made to punish slave-trading with death. It passed the House, but was struck out in the Senate.

On the 12th of January, 1819, the Secretary of the Navy transmitted to the Speaker of the House of Representatives copies of circular letters that had been sent to the naval officers on the various stations along the sea-coast of the slave-holding States. The following letter is a fair sample of the remainder:

On the 17th of December, 1819, President Monroe sent the following message to Congress on the subject of the slave-trade:

In March, 1818, the delegate from Missouri presented petitions from the inhabitants of that territory, praying to be admitted into the Union as a State. They were referred to a select committee, and a bill was reported for the admission of Missouri as a State on equal footing with the other States. The bill was read twice, when it was sent to the Committee of the Whole, where it was permitted to remain during the entire session. During the next session, on the 13th of February, 1819, the House went into the Committee of the Whole with Gen. Smith, of Maryland, in the chair. The committee had two sittings during which they discussed the bill. Gen. Tallmadge, of New York, offered the following amendment directed against the life of the clause admitting slavery:

A long and an able discussion followed, in which the authority of the government to prohibit slavery under new State governments was affirmed and denied. On coming out of the Committee of the Whole, the yeas and nays were demanded on the amendment prohibiting the introduction of slavery into Missouri, and resulted as follows: yeas, 87,—only one vote from the South, Delaware; nays, 76,—ten votes from Northern States. Upon the latter clause of the amendment—and that all children of slaves, born within the said State, after the admission thereof into the Union, shall be declared free at the age of twenty-five years: yeas, 82,—one vote from Maryland; nays, 78,—fourteen from Northern States. And thus the entire amendment of Gen. Tallmadge was sustained, and being reported to the House, passed by a vote 98 to 56.

The bill reached the Senate on the 17th of February, and after its second reading was referred to a select committee. On the 22d of February, the chairman, Mr. Tait, of Georgia, reported the bill back with amendments, striking out the Tallmadge restriction clauses. The House went into the Committee of the Whole on the 27th of February, to consider the bill, when Mr. Wilson, of New Jersey, moved to postpone the further consideration of the bill until the 5th of March. It was rejected. The committee then began to vote upon the recommendations of the select committee. Upon striking out the House amendment, providing that all the children of slaves born within said State should be free, etc., it was carried by a vote of 27 to 7, eleven Northern Senators voting to strike out. The seven votes against striking out were all from free States.

Upon the clause prohibiting servitude except for crimes, etc., 22 votes were cast for striking out,—five being from Northern States; against striking out, 16,—and they were all from Northern States.

Thus amended, the bill was ordered to be engrossed, and on the 2d of March—the last day but one of the session—was read a third time and passed. It was returned to the House, where the amendments were read, when Mr. Tallmadge moved that the bill be indefinitely postponed. His motion was rejected by a vote of: yeas, 69; nays, 74. But upon a motion to concur in the Senate amendments, the House refused to concur: yeas, 76; nays, 78. The Senate adhered to their amendments, and the House adhered to their disagreement by a vote of 76 to 66; and thus the bill fell between the two Houses and was lost.

The southern portion of the territory of Missouri, which was not included within the limits of the proposed State, was organized as a separate territory, under the designation of the Arkansas Territory. After considerable debate, and several attempts to insert an amendment for the restriction of slavery, the bill creating the territory of Arkansas passed without any reference to slavery, and thus the territory was left open to slavery, and also the State some years later.

The Congressional discussion of the slavery question aroused the anti-slavery sentiment of the North, which found expression in large and earnest meetings, in pungent editorials, and numerous memorials. At Trenton, New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and other places, the indignation against slavery was great. On December 3, 1819, a large meeting was held in the State House at Boston, when a resolution was adopted to memorialize Congress on the subject of restraining the increase of slavery in new States to be admitted into the Union. The memorial was drawn by Daniel Webster, and signed by himself, George Blake, Josiah Quincy, James T. Austin, and others. The New York Legislature passed resolutions against the extension of slavery into the territories and new States; and requested the Congressmen and instructed the Senators from that State not to vote for the admission of any State into the Union, except such State should pledge itself to unqualified restriction in the letter and spirit of the ordinance of 1787. These resolutions were signed on January 17, 1820.

On the 24th of January the New Jersey Legislature followed in the same strain, with six pertinent resolves, a copy of which the governor was requested to forward to each of the senators and representatives of this State, in the Congress of the United States.

Pennsylvania had taken action on the 11th of December, 1819; but the resolves were not signed by Gov. William Findlay until the 16th of the month. The Legislature was composed of fifty-four Democrats and twenty Whigs, and yet there was not a dissenting vote cast.

Two Southern States passed resolutions,—Delaware and Kentucky: the first in favor of restriction, the last opposed to restriction.

The effort to secure the admission of Missouri with a slave constitution was not dead, but only sleeping. The bill was called up as a special order on the 24th of January, 1820. It occupied most of the time of the House from the 25th of January till the 19th of February, when a bill came from the Senate providing for the admission of Maine into the Union, but containing a rider authorizing the people of Missouri to adopt a State constitution, etc., without restrictions respecting slavery. The bill providing for the admission of Maine had passed the House during the early days of the session, and now returned to the House for concurrence in the rider. The debate on the bill and amendments had occupied much of the time of the Senate. In the Judiciary Committee on the 16th of February, the question was taken on amendments to the Maine admission bill, authorizing Missouri to form a State constitution, making no mention of slavery: and twenty-three votes were cast against restriction,—three from Northern States; twenty-one in favor of restriction,—but only two from the South.

Mr. Thomas offered a resolution reaffirming the doctrine of the sixth article of the ordinance of 1787, and declaring its applicability to all that territory ceded to the United States by France, under the general designation of Louisiana, which lies north of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes north latitude, etc. But on the following day he withdrew his original amendment, and submitted the following:

Mr. Trimble, of Ohio, offered a substitute, but it was rejected. The question recurring upon the passage of the amendment of Mr. Thomas, excluding slavery from all the territory north and west of Missouri, it was carried by a vote of 34 to 20.

Thus amended, the bill was ordered to engrossment by a vote of 24 to 20. On the 18th of February the bill passed, and this was its condition when it came to the House. By a vote of 93 to 72 the House agreed not to leave the Missouri question on the Maine bill as a rider; but immediately thereafter struck out the Thomas Senate amendment by a vote of 159 to 18. The House disagreed to the remaining Senate amendments, striking out the clause restricting slavery in Missouri by a vote of 102 to 68.

Thus rejected, the bill was returned to the Senate shorn of its amendments. After four days of debate in the Senate it was decided not to recede from the attachment of the Missouri subject to the Maine bill; not to recede from the amendment prohibiting slavery west of Missouri, and north of 36° 30´ north latitude, and insisted upon the remaining amendments without division.

When the bill was returned to the House a motion was made to insist upon its disagreement to all but section nine of the Senate amendments, and was carried by a vote of 97 to 76.

The Senate asked for a committee of conference upon differences between the two Houses, which was cheerfully granted by the House. On the 2d of March, Mr. Holmes, of Massachusetts, as chairman, made the following report:

The vote resulted as follows: For giving up restriction on Missouri, yeas, 90; against giving up restriction of slavery in Missouri, 87.

Mr. Taylor, of New York, offered an amendment to include Arkansas Territory under the prohibition of slavery in the territory west and north of Missouri, but his amendment was cut off by a call for the previous question. Then the House concurred in the Senate amendment excluding forever slavery from the territory west and north of Missouri by a vote of 134 to 42! And on the following day the bill admitting Maine into the Union was passed without opposition.

Thus the Northern delegates in Congress were whipped into line, and thus did the South gain her point in the extension of slavery in violation of the sacred compact between the States contained in the ordinance of 1787.

But the struggle was opened afresh when Missouri presented herself for admission on the 16th of November, 1820. The constitution of this new State, adopted by her people on the 19th of July, 1820, contained the following resolutions which greatly angered the Northern members, who so keenly felt the defeat and humiliation they had Suffered so recently:

Upon the motion to admit the State the vote stood: yeas, 79, nays, 93. Upon a second attempt to admit her, with the understanding that the resolution just quoted should be expunged the vote was worse than before, standing: yeas, 6; nays, 146!

The House now rested, until a joint resolve, admitting her with but a vague and ineffective qualification, came down from the Senate, where it was passed by a vote of 26 to 18—six Senators from Free States in the affirmative. Mr. Clay, who had resigned in the recess, and been succeeded, as Speaker, by John W. Taylor, of New York, now appeared as the leader of the Missouri admissionists, and proposed terms of compromise, which were twice voted down by the Northern members, aided by John Randolph and three others from the South, who would have Missouri admitted without condition or qualification. At last, Mr. Clay proposed a joint committee on this subject, to be chosen by ballot—which the House agreed to by a vote of 101 to 55; and Mr. Clay became its chairman. By this committee it was agreed, that a solemn pledge should be required of the Legislature of Missouri, that the constitution of that State should not be construed to authorize the passage of any act, and that no act should be passed by which any of the citizens of either of the States should be excluded from the enjoyment of the privileges and immunities to which they are entitled under the Constitution of the United States. The joint resolution, amended by the addition of this proviso, passed the House by 86 yeas to 82 nays; the Senate concurred (Feb. 27, 1821) by 26 yeas to 15 nays—(all Northern but Macon, of N. C.). Missouri complied with the condition, and became an accepted member of the Union. Thus closed the last stage of the fierce Missouri controversy, which for a time seemed to threaten—as so many other controversies have harmlessly threatened—the existence of the Union.

By this time there was scarcely a State in the North but that had organized anti-slavery, or abolition, societies. Pennsylvania boasted of a society that was accomplishing a great Work. Where it was impossible to secure freedom for the enslaved, religious training was imparted, and many excellent efforts made for the amelioration of the condition of the Negroes, bond and free. A society for promoting the Abolition of Slavery was formed at Trenton, New Jersey, on the 2d of March, 1786. It adopted an elaborate constitution, which was amended on the 26th of November, 1788. It did an effective work throughout the State; embraced in its membership some of the ablest men of the State; and changed public sentiment for the better by the methods it adopted and the literature it circulated. On the 15th of February, 1804, it secured the passage of the following Act for the gradual emancipation of the slaves in the State:

The public journals of the larger Northern cities began to take a lively interest in the paramount question of the day, which, without doubt, was the slavery question. Gradual emancipation was doing an excellent work in nearly all the Northern States, as may be seen by the census of 1820. When the entire slave population was footed up it showed an increase of 30 per cent. during the previous ten years, but when examined by States it was found to be on the decrease in all the Northern or free States, except Illinois. The slave population of Virginia had increased only 8 per cent.; North Carolina 21 per cent.; South Carolina 31 per cent.; Tennessee 79 per cent.; Mississippi 92 per cent.; and Louisiana 99 per cent. The slave population by States was as follows:

CENSUS OF 1820—SLAVE POPULATION.

The anti-slavery sentiment of the Northern States was growing, but no organization with a great leader at its head had yet announced its platform or unfurled its banner in a holy war for the emancipation of the Bondmen of the Free Republic of North America.

FOOTNOTES:

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I have in my possession large numbers of official orders and letters on the suppression of the slave-trade, but the space appropriated to this history precludes their publication. There are, however, some important documents in the appendix to this volume.

CHAPTER II. NEGRO TROOPS IN THE WAR OF 1812.

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EMPLOYMENT OF NEGROES AS SOLDIERS in the War of 1812.—The New York Legislature authorizes the Enlistment of a Regiment of Colored Soldiers.—Gen. Andrew Jackson’s Proclamation to the Free Colored Inhabitants of Louisiana calling them to Arms.—Stirring Address to the Colored Troops the Sunday before the Battle of New Orleans.—Gen. Jackson anticipates the Valor of his Colored Soldiers.—Terms of Peace at the Close of the War by the Commissioners at Ghent.—Negroes placed as Chattel Property.—Their Valor in War secures them no Immunity in Peace.

WHEN the war-clouds gathered in 1812, there was no time wasted in discussing whether it would be prudent to arm the Negro, nor was there a doubt expressed as to his valor. His brilliant achievements in the war of the Revolution, his power of endurance, and martial enthusiasm, were the golden threads of glory that bound his memory to the victorious cause of the American Republic. A lack of troops and an imperiled cause led to the admission of Negroes into the American army during the war of the Revolution. But it was the Negro’s eminent fitness for military service that made him a place under the United States flag during the war in Louisiana. The entire country had confidence in the Negro’s patriotism and effectiveness as a soldier. White men were willing to see Negroes go into the army because it reduced their chances of being sent forth to the tented field and dangerous bivouac.

New York did not hesitate to offer a practical endorsement of the prevalent opinion that Negroes were both competent and worthy to fight the battles of the Nation. Accordingly, the following Act was passed authorizing the organization of two regiments of Negroes.

Gen. Andrew Jackson believed in the fighting capacity of the Negro, as evidenced by the subjoined proclamation:

Just before the battle of New Orleans, General Jackson reviewed his troops, white and black, on Sunday, December 18, 1814. At the close of the review his Adjutant-General, Edward Livingston, rode to the head of the column, and read in rich and sonorous tones the following address:

But in this war, as in the Revolutionary struggle, the commissioners who concluded the terms of peace, armed with ample and authentic evidence of the Negro’s valorous services, placed him among chattel property.

And in no State in the South were the laws more rigidly enforced against Negroes, both free and slave, than in Louisiana. The efficient service of the Louisiana Negro troops in the war of 1812 was applauded on two continents at the time, but the noise of the slave marts soon silenced the praise of the Black heroes of the battle of New Orleans.

FOOTNOTES:

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Laws of the State of New York, passed at the Thirty-eighth Session of the Legislature, chap. xviii.

Niles’s Register, vol. vii. p. 205.

Niles’s Register, vol. vii. pp. 345, 346.

CHAPTER III. NEGROES IN THE NAVY.

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NO PROSCRIPTION AGAINST NEGROES AS Sailors.—They are carried upon the Rolls in the Navy without Regard to their Nationality.—Their Treatment as Sailors.—Commodore Perry’s Letter to Commodore Chauncey in Regard to the Men sent him.—Commodore Chauncey’s Spirited Reply.—The Heroism of the Negro set forth in the Picture of Perry’s Victory on Lake Erie.—Extract of a Letter from Nathaniel Shaler, Commander of a Private Vessel.—He cites several Instances of the Heroic Conduct of Negro Sailors.

IT is rather a remarkable fact of history that Negroes were carried upon the rolls of the navy without reference to their nationality. About one tenth of the crews of the fleet that sailed to the Upper Lakes to co-operate with Col. Croghan at Mackinac, in 1814, were Negroes. Dr. Parsons says:—

This ample and reliable testimony as to the treatment of Negroes as sailors, puts to rest all doubts as to their status in the United States navy.

In the summer of 1813, Captain (afterwards Commodore) Perry wrote a letter to Commodore Chauncey in which he complained that an indifferent lot of men had been sent him. The following is the letter that he wrote.

Commodore Chauncey replied in the following sharp letter, in which he gave Captain Perry to understand that the color of the skin had nothing to do with a man’s qualifications for the navy:

Perry was not long in discovering that the Negroes whom Commodore Chauncey had sent him were competent, faithful, and brave; and his former prejudice did not prevent him from speaking their praise.

These brave Negro sailors served faithfully through all the battles on the Lakes, and in the battle of Lake Erie rendered most effective service. Once more the artist has rescued from oblivion the heroism of the Negroes; for in the East Senate stairway of the Capitol at Washington, and in the rotunda of the Capitol at Columbus, in the celebrated picture of Perry’s Victory on Lake Erie, a Negro sailor has a place among the immortalized crew.

The following testimony to the bravery of Colored sailors is of the highest character.

After praise of such a nature and from such a source, eulogy is superfluous.

FOOTNOTES:

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Livermore, pp. 159, 160.

Mackenzie’s Life of Perry, vol. i. pp. 165, 166.

Mackenzie’s Life of Perry, vol. i. pp. 186, 187.

Analectic Magazine, vol. iii. p. 255.

Niles’s Weekly Register, Saturday, Feb. 26, 1814.

Part 5.

ANTI-SLAVERY AGITATION.

CHAPTER IV. RETROSPECTION AND REFLECTION. 1825-1850.

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THE SECURITY OF THE INSTITUTION of Slavery at the South.—The Right to hold Slaves questioned.—Rapid Increase of the Slave Population.—Anti-slavery Speeches in the Legislature of Virginia.—The Quakers of Maryland and Delaware emancipate their Slaves.—The Evil Effect of Slavery upon Society.—The Conscience and Heart of the South did not respond to the Voice of Reason or Dictates of Humanity.

AN awful silence succeeded the stormy struggle that ended in the violation of the ordinance of 1787. It was now time for reflection. The Southern statesmen had proven themselves the masters of the situation. The institution of slavery was secured to them, with many collateral political advantages. And, in addition to this, they had secured the inoculation of the free territory beyond the Mississippi and Ohio rivers with the virus of Negro-slavery.

If the mother-country had forced slavery upon her colonial dependencies in North America, and if it were difficult and inconvenient to part with slave-labor, who were now responsible for the extension of the slave area? Southern men, of course. What principle or human law was strong enough to support an institution of such cruel proportions? The old law of European pagans born of bloody and destroying wars? No; for it was now the nineteenth century. Abstract law? Certainly not; for law is the perfection of reason—it always tends to conform thereto—and that which is not reason is not law. Well did Justinian write: Live honestly, hurt nobody, and render to every one his just dues. The law of nations? Verily not; for it is a system of rules deducible from reason and natural justice, and established by universal consent, to regulate the conduct and mutual intercourse between independent States. The Declaration of Independence? Far from it; because the prologue of that incomparable instrument recites: We hold these truths to be self-evident—that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. And the peerless George Bancroft has added: The heart of Jefferson in writing the Declaration, and of Congress in adopting it, beat for all humanity; the assertion of right was made for all mankind and all coming generations, without any exception whatever; for the proposition which admits of exceptions can never be self-evident. There was but one authority for slavery left, and that was the Bible.

Many slave-holders thought deeply on the question of their right to hold slaves. A disturbed conscience cried aloud for a Thus saith the Lord, and the pulpit was charged with the task of quieting the general disquietude. The divine origin of slavery was heard from a thousand pulpits. God, who never writes a poor hand, had written upon the brow of every Negro, the word Slave; slavery was their normal condition, and the white man was God’s agent in the United States to carry out the prophecy of Noah respecting the descendants of Ham; while St. Paul had sent Onesimus back to his owner, and had written, Servants, obey your masters.

But apologetic preaching did not seem to silence the gnawing of a guilty conscience. Upon the battle-fields of two great wars; in the army and in the navy, the Negroes had demonstrated their worth and manhood. They had stood with the undrilled minute-men along the dusty roads leading from Lexington and Concord to Boston, against the skilled redcoats of boastful Britain. They were among the faithful little band that held Bunker Hill against overwhelming odds; at Long Island, Newport, and Monmouth, they had held their ground against the stubborn columns of the Ministerial army. They had journeyed with the Pilgrim Fathers through eight years of despair and hope, of defeat and victory; had shared their sufferings and divided their glory. These recollections made difficult an unqualified acceptance of the doctrine of the divine nature of perpetual slavery. Reason downed sophistry, and human sympathy shamed prejudice. And against prejudice, custom, and political power, the thinking men of the South launched their best thoughts. Jefferson said: The hour of emancipation is advancing in the march of time. It will come, and whether brought on by the generous energy of our own minds, or by the bloody process of St. Domingo, excited and conducted by the power of our present enemy [Great Britain], if once stationed permanently within our country and offering asylum and arms to the oppressed [Negro], is a leaf in our history not yet turned over. These words, written to Edward Coles, in August, 1814, were still ample food for the profound meditation of the slave-holders. In his Notes on Virginia Mr. Jefferson had written the following words: Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever. That, considering numbers, nature, and natural means, only a revolution of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation, is among possible events. That it may become probable by supernatural interference. The Almighty has no attribute which can take side with us in such a contest.

The eloquence of Patrick Henry and the logic and philosophy of Madison and Jefferson rang in the ears of the people of the slave-holding States, and they paused to think. In forty years the Negro population of Virginia had increased 186 per cent.—from 1790 to 1830,—while the white had increased only 51 per cent. The rapid increase of the slave population winged the fancy and produced horrid dreams of insurrection; while the pronounced opposition of the Northern people to slavery seemed to proclaim the weakness of the government and the approach of its dissolution. In 1832, Thomas Jefferson Randolph, a grandson of Thomas Jefferson, lifted up his voice in the Legislature of Virginia against the institution of slavery.

Mr. P. A. Bolling said:—

Mr. C. J. Faulkner said:—

In Maryland and Delaware the Quakers were rapidly emancipating their slaves, and the strong reaction that had set in among the thoughtful men of the South began to threaten the institution. Men felt that it was a curse to the slave, and poisoned the best white society of the slave-holding States. As early as 1781, Mr. Jefferson, with his keen, philosophical insight, beheld with alarm the demoralizing tendency of slavery. The whole commerce, says Mr. Jefferson, "between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions; the most unrelenting despotism on the one part, and degrading submission on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it—for man is an imitative animal. This quality is the germ of all education in him. From his cradle to his grave he is learning to do what he sees others do. If a parent could find no motive, either in his philanthropy or his self-love, for restraining the intemperance of passion toward his slave, it should always be a sufficient one that his child is present. But generally, it is not sufficient. The parent storms; the child looks on, catches the lineaments of wrath, puts on the same airs in the circle of smaller slaves, gives a loose tongue to