Chapter XXIII: The Flag of Freedom

These stories of martial and constitutional advance are not all the story that this Union Jack tells. There is something more than mere valorous devotion which should be aroused in the expression of loyalty for a flag. Such a devotion might be found even under a despot's sway, for racial and reckless valour may, with some, take the place of thoughtful allegiance.

The story of an ideal flag should declare a supreme idea, an idea which has been so well expressed as being the "divine right of liberty in man. Not lawlessness, not license, but organized institutional liberty--liberty through law, and law for liberty."[152]

[152] Henry Ward Beecher.

When a flag records, by the unmistakable story of its life, how this desired freedom has been not simply alleged, but granted in actual fact to all who have reached the soil of its dominion, and, further, tells how the amplest dream of self-government is realized by those who dwell beneath its sway, then, indeed, is that flag to be cherished with the most passionate devotion, and valued in the most critical estimation.

Such a flag becomes an inspiration not only to the heart, but to the mind, and men may well be willing to risk their all, and life itself, for the maintenance of its unsullied honour. Such a flag is the Union Jack in Canada.

This three-crossed Jack in Canada is not only the national ensign of the British race, but it is more, for Canadians have made it the real "flag of freedom in America."

It is the proudest ascription of the Union Jack of the Empire that

"Though it may sink o'er a shot-torn wreck,
It never flies over a slave."

This fact is true to-day of the Jack throughout all the British territories, but it has not always been so, and we may, with much interest, trace the condition of the slave under the flag in Great Britain, in the Colonies, in the United States, and in Canada.

It has been the happy lot of the Motherland, the cradle of the liberties of the earth, that freedom has been enjoyed for many centuries upon her own home soil; but even there legal doubts existed until 1772 about the position of persons who, being slaves in other lands, had reached her shores, when the notable decision of Lord Mansfield declared that, "_When a slave has landed on the soil of the British Isles that slave is free_." Although this legal definition had been reached, the abolition, by statute, of slavery under the Union Jack was not enacted by the British Parliament until 1811; and even after that, as this Act did not apply outside the British Isles, slavery continued in the outer realms to such an extent that in 1820 there were no fewer than 340,000 slaves under British rule in the Island of Jamaica alone.

At last, in 1833, the glorious _Act of Emancipation_ was passed by the British Parliament, and the same freedom which had existed on the soil of the parent kingdom was extended to all races who lived anywhere under the Union Jack. The people of the parent isles gave further proof that this was done, not solely in the pursuit of an ideal, but out of real good-will, for they were not content with proclaiming freedom to the slave, but themselves purchased his emancipation by paying one hundred million dollars to his owners in those colonies in which, up to that time, slavery had existed with their consent. In the true spirit of British fair-play they thus scouted the idea of exercising their own compassion and good-will at any other person's expense.

Number Indemnity
of Slaves. paid.

[153]Jamaica 311,700 £6,152,000
Barbadoes 83,000 1,721,000
Trinidad 22,300 1,039,000
Antigua, etc. 172,093 3,421,000
Guiana 84,900 4,297,000
Mauritius 68,600 2,113,000
Cape of Good Hope 38,400 1,247,000
------- -----------
Total 780,993 £20,000,000

Such has been the story of freedom under the Union Jack on the other continents. Let us see how its history compares with that of other flags on the continent of America.

[153] Extract from Dictionary of Statistics, p. 541, "Abolition of Slavery."

The stories of the flags of Mexico and the republics of South America are so changing and unsettled that they may not be counted in the consideration, and the flag of Spain in Cuba never became an exponent of freedom. The sole competitor for the title of "the flag of the free" is the Stars and Stripes of the United States of North America.

The thirteen colonies of North America were, at the time of Lord Mansfield's decision in 1772, colonies of the British crown, and moved, no doubt, by a desire to emulate their brothers in Great Britain, and following their example, the representatives of the colonies met at Philadelphia, on 27th September, 1774, and in Continental Congress "declared against the slave-trade, and forbade any further importation of slaves into British America." Being supporters of the Union Jack, and following its ideals, they made, as Britons, a first step in the right direction, but no freedom was given to those already in the country.

It was, no doubt, under the influence of this spirit of British freedom, and with British hearts, that, when they were separating from their British allegiance, they stated in their Declaration of Independence (4th July, 1776):

"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."

Yet at the very time when this claim was made, that all men were born equal, well-nigh a million blacks were held in these same States in bondage,[154] and this sounding declaration of "liberty" did not bring freedom to a single slave.

[154] In 1780 there were 1,191,000 slaves in the United States, and as late as 1860 more than 4,000,000.

Indeed, when, eleven years afterwards, in 1787, the representatives of the thirteen States met[155] in federal convention, and adopted the "Constitution of the United States," the existence of slavery under the Stars and Stripes was recognized and its continuance guaranteed.

[155] 25th May, 1787, at Philadelphia.

The framers of the constitution were evidently conscious of the fact that the statements of their "declaration" were not in actual accordance with their actions, and therefore the provisions in their "constitution" concerning slavery were stated in a veiled and secret form, the words "slave" and "slavery" being carefully excluded. In this way the clauses of the American constitution have a different interpretation from that which their wording would apparently convey, for the existence of one class of their population in slavery was duly recognized, although not specifically mentioned.

The leaven of English freedom evinced in 1774 had continued to work among some of the States, even after their separation from the Crown, and emancipation had been begun in Vermont in 1777, in Pennsylvania in 1780, and was impending in some of the others, but had by no means been accepted in all.[156]

[156] Emancipation was effected in New Jersey in 1804; New York, 1827.

In arranging the proportionate representation of the several States in the union congress it became necessary to apportion the number of members of congress to be elected by each State, and in arranging this representation a concession was made to the slave-owning States whereby their slaves were to be recognized in estimating the number of their population.

The Article[157] enacts:

"Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this union according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three-fifths of all other persons."

[157] Article I., Section 2, Constitution of United States, 1787.

By the apparently simple but very pregnant words, "all other persons," of whom three-fifths were to be added, were meant the slaves, who, although they were not themselves accorded any citizenship or right to vote, were thus counted in determining the number of the representatives who were to be accredited to and elected by the State in which they were held in slavery.

As slavery was, in 1787, legal in some of the States and illegal in others, it also became necessary, in order to gain the acceptance of the union by the slave-owning States, that provision should be made for the legal return to their owners of any slaves who might escape from a slave-owning to a free State, and a clause guaranteeing the rendition of fugitive slaves was therefore embodied in the constitution. It was enacted:

"No person held to service or labour in one State--under the laws thereof--escaping to another shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labour, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service of labour may be due."[158]

[158] Article IV., Section 2, Constitution of United States, 1787.

It is stated on the authority of Madison,[159] "the father of the constitution," that the words used in each case in the original drafts of these clauses was "servitude," but it was afterwards changed to "service."

[159] James Madison, subsequently twice President of the United States, 1809 and 1813.

The expulsion of the words, although it might appear better to the eye, did not alter the fact that the whole of the States, which then framed their Union, although they did not all practise slavery, yet every one of them then consented to its perpetuation. Thus it came that slavery existed legally under the Stars and Stripes from 1787 until 1865, when happily it was terminated[160] by the proclamation of Lincoln and the constitutional amendment.

[160] Constitutional amendment abolishing slavery, January 31st, 1865.

Such is the story of the slave's "freedom" under the national flag of the United States.

We may now turn to the story of his freedom under the Union Jack in Canada.

We have seen that slavery, excepting on the soil of Great Britain, was not abolished in all other parts of the British Empire until 1833, and not in the United States until 1865. In 1792, long before either of these dates, self-government had been granted to Canada, and, under the two-crossed Jack, at the first meetings which were held by the parliament in Upper Canada, slavery was abolished on July 9th, 1793.[161] This was before our present Union Jack came into existence, so that in Canada alone, of all the outer lands over which this flag of 1801 has ever been raised, beginning from the very day on which it first was displayed, this three-crossed Jack has always, as in the Motherland, proclaimed freedom to the slave.

[161] There were a few isolated instances of slaves who continued for a short time in the possession of their previous owners, but after this date any slave who came to the country, and every child born of coloured parents, was free.

Canadians in this way feel added honour in the flag, and that it is more particularly their own; for on the continent of America, whether he came from the British West Indies, from the southern continent, from Cuba, or the United States, in all of which he was still the chattel of his owner, so soon as the slave reached the soil of Canada, and came under the colours of our Union Jack, that moment he was free.

The deep significance which this early law of Canada had given to the flag has often been attested by coloured men before their fellow-citizens and the world, and particularly by Frederick Douglas, the great coloured orator of the United States. While dilating upon the great advantage which had come to his own people since freedom had at last been granted to them in the United States, he would nevertheless contrast their condition with that existing in the neighbouring Canadian land, where the black child sits in the public schools by the side of his little white brother, and travels with him in the same carriage on the trains, and where the law is administered with impartiality for both white and black alike.[162]

[162] Speaking in the Exposition Hall, at the great Columbian Exhibition, Chicago, on August 25th, 1893, Douglas said of his people: "To-day we number 8,000,000 (coloured) people in the United States. To-day a desperate effort is being made to blacken the character of the negro and to brand him as a moral monster. In fourteen States of this Union wild mobs have taken the place of the law. They hang, shoot and burn men of my race without law and without right."

In telling words he would revert to the time "when there was but one flag in America under which the fugitive slave could be secure. When the slave had escaped from the control of his owner, and was making his way through the intervening States to the free land of the north, whether he gained the summit of the highest mountains or hid in the recesses of the deepest valleys, the fugitive could find no safe resting place. If he mingled in the teeming throngs of their busiest cities, he feared detection; if he sought solitude on their widest prairies, beneath the silent stars, he was in dread of being tracked; not until he had sighted the red-crossed Jack, and, crossing the northern lakes, had touched the strand of Canada's shore, could the slave fall upon his knees and know that at last he was free."

Thus pure, unsullied in its life-story, this three-crossed Union Jack of Canada is the only flag on the continent of America which has always and ever been the "flag of freedom," a flag under which all men, as their birthright, have been born equal and free.

Canadians may well, therefore, be proud of their flag, for what truer glory can be claimed for any other flag--than this, which spells out FREEDOM in its every fold?