Chapter II: Part 2

"This infernal traffic originated in the avarice of British
merchants. The British Government constantly checked the attempts of
Virginia to put a stop to it. The present question concerns, not the
importing states alone, but the whole Union.... Maryland and
Virginia, he said, had already prohibited the importation of slaves
expressly. North Carolina had done the same in substance. All this
would be in vain if South Carolina and Georgia be at liberty to
import. The Western people are already calling out for slaves for
their new lands; and will fill that country with slaves if they can
be got through South Carolina and Georgia. Slavery discourages arts
and manufactures. The poor despise labor when performed by slaves.
They prevent the emigration of whites, who really enrich and
strengthen a country. They produce the most pernicious effect on
manners. Every master of slaves is born a petty tyrant. They bring
the judgment of Heaven on a country. As nations cannot be rewarded
or punished in the next world, they must be in this. By an
inevitable chain of causes and effects, Providence punishes National
sins by National calamities. He lamented that some of our Eastern
brethren had, from a lust of gain, embarked in this nefarious
traffic. As to the states being in possession of the right to
import, this was the case with many other rights, now to be properly
given up. He held it essential, in every point of view, that the
General Government should have power to prevent the increase of
slavery."

"But these prophetic words of George Mason," adds Mr. Fiske, "were
powerless against the combination of New England and the far
South."[35]

Some seven decades later, Virginia erected under the shadow of her
Capitol a bronze statue to commemorate the fame of this illustrious
son.

Governor Randolph and Mr. Madison earnestly supported their colleague,
the former declaring that this feature rendered the constitution so
odious as to make doubtful his ability to support it; and the latter
asserting, "Twenty years 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."[36]

FOREIGN SLAVE TRADE LEGALIZED

Thus it was by the votes of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut,
Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, and against the
votes of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Virginia, that the
slave trade was legalized by the National Government for the period
from 1787 to 1808.

DISASTERS RESULTING THEREFROM

If it be argued that this provision of the constitution offered no
menace to Virginia or to any other state not willing to admit the
importations, the reply is obvious that this action of the National
Government was deplorable because it placed the imprimatur of its
supreme law upon the morality as well as legality of the slave trade;
and further, because with the advent from abroad of every additional
slave the difficulties and dangers of emancipating those in the
South—their natural habitat—was increased. New England and the North
were not menaced. Climatic and economic conditions, as well as their
local laws, raised a protecting barrier. Beneath the hot skies of the
South—where flourished the much sought for crops of cotton, rice and
sugar cane—was the land to which with unerring instinct the Trader
piloted his craft freighted with ignorance and woe. As long,
therefore, as one port remained open and the National Government
sanctioned the traffic, just so long would the inflowing tide
continue, each new arrival adding to the difficulties of the
situation.

Thus the nation, under its new charter, entered upon its career
handicapped by the curse of slavery and further menaced by the new
lease of life accorded the slave trade. Upon Virginia the maximum of
burden rested. She had within her borders nearly one-third of the
whole slave population of the Union. Hers was the ceaseless task of
guarding against further importations from home or abroad; of devising
some practicable plan for gradually emancipating the slaves in her
midst, and meanwhile to continue day by day the work of teaching these
children of the Dark Continent an intelligible language, the use of
tools, the necessity for labor and the rudiments of morality and
religion.

-----

Footnote 33:

_Critical Period of American History_, Fiske, p. 264.

Footnote 34:

_History of Negro Race in America_, Williams, Vol. I, p. 426.

Footnote 35:

_Critical Period of American History_, Fiske, p. 264.

Footnote 36:

_Life and Times of Madison_, Rives, Vol. II, p. 446.

VI

THE FOREIGN SLAVE TRADE
VIRGINIA'S EFFORTS TO ABOLISH IT

Despite Virginia's failure to secure the immediate suppression of the
foreign slave trade, her sons were active in their efforts to restrict
its growth and at the earliest possible moment to drive the slave
ships from the seas.

In the first Congress under the constitution, April, 1789, Josiah
Parker of Virginia sought to amend the Tariff Bill under discussion by
inserting a clause levying an import tax of ten dollars upon every
slave brought into the country.

"He was sorry the constitution prevented Congress from prohibiting
the importation altogether. It was contrary to Revolution principles
and ought not to be permitted.... He hoped Congress would do all in
their power to restore to human nature its inherent privileges; to
wipe off, if possible, the stigma under which America labored; to do
away with the inconsistence in our principles justly charged upon
us; and to show by our actions, the pure beneficence of the doctrine
held out to the world in our Declaration of Independence."

Mr. Parker was supported by two other Virginians, Theodoric Bland and
James Madison, the latter declaring:

"The clause in the constitution allowing a tax to be imposed though
the traffic could not be prohibited for twenty years, was inserted,
he believed, for the very purpose of enabling Congress to give some
testimony of the sense of America with respect to the African trade.
By expressing a national disapprobation of that trade it is to be
hoped we may destroy it, and so save ourselves from reproaches and
our posterity from the imbecility ever attendant on a country filled
with slaves."[37]

But notwithstanding these appeals the movement was defeated, though
the discussion was evidently fruitful in bringing to the attention of
the country that under the constitution, Congress had authority not
only to levy a tax of ten dollars per capita on slaves imported, but
to prohibit citizens of the United States from engaging in the traffic
with foreign countries. These latter conclusions were formally
embodied in a report made to Congress on the 23rd of March, 1790, by a
committee of which Josiah Parker of Virginia was one of the leading
members. The adoption of this report stirred the opponents of the
slave trade to greater activity and numerous petitions were presented
at the next session of Congress from Maryland and Virginia and almost
every one of the Northern States. In the Virginia petition, the slave
trade was denounced as "an outrageous violation of one of the most
essential rights of human nature."[38]

In his message to Congress, at its session, 1806-7, Mr. Jefferson,
then President, brought to the attention of that body the fact that
under the constitution the time was at hand when the African slave
trade could be abolished, and urged the speedy enactment of such a
law. He said:

"I congratulate you, fellow-citizens, on the approach of a period at
which you may interpose your authority constitutionally to withdraw
the citizens of the United States from all further participation in
those violations of human rights which have so long been continued
on the unoffending inhabitants of Africa, and which the morality,
the reputation and the best interests of our country have long been
eager to proscribe."

An act was accordingly passed prohibiting the slave trade and imposing
forfeitures and fines upon ships and ships' crews engaged in the
traffic. The law also forfeited slaves so illegally imported and
provided that the disposition of such slaves should be left to the
states wherein they were found.

The African slave trade had flourished so long under the patronage and
support of the leading nations of Christendom and with the
acquiescence, at least, of the United States during the previous
twenty years, that it was difficult by simple statutory enactment to
put an end to the nefarious traffic. It will be seen, therefore, that
the trade continued from time to time between the coast of Africa, the
United States, West Indies and Brazil, despite the efforts of the
Federal authorities to enforce the laws made for its suppression. In
all these efforts Virginians, holding official places, were most
earnest and energetic in their warfare against the trade.

In his message to Congress, December 5, 1810, President Madison
declares:

"Among the commercial abuses still committed under the American flag
... it appears that American citizens are instrumental in carrying
on the traffic in enslaved Africans, equally in violation of the
laws of humanity and in defiance of those of their own country,"

and urges Congress to devise further means for suppressing the evil.

Again, in his message to Congress of December 3, 1816, President
Madison brings the subject to the attention of Congress and urges the
enactment of such amendments as will suppress violations of the
statute.

In the progress of time, certain slaves brought into the country in
violation of the act were captured and sold, thus in effect defeating
one of the prime objects of the law, which was to prevent any increase
in the slave population. Thereupon, at the session of Congress, 1819,
under the leadership of Charles Fenton Mercer and John Floyd of
Virginia a bill was passed amending the existing statute, requiring
the President to use armed cruisers off the coasts of Africa and
America to suppress the trade, providing for the immediate return to
Africa of any imported slaves, directing the President to appoint
agents to receive and care for them on their return and appropriating
One Hundred Thousand Dollars to carry out the general purposes of the
law.[39]

In the House, on motion of Hugh Nelson, of Virginia, the death penalty
was fixed as the punishment for violating the law, but this provision
was stricken out by the Senate.[40]

In February, 1823, Charles Fenton Mercer, a representative from
Virginia, in the House, secured the adoption of the following joint
resolution:

"RESOLVED, That the President of the United States be requested to
enter upon and to prosecute from time to time such negotiations with
the maritime powers of Europe and America as he may deem expedient
for the effectual abolition of the African slave trade and its
ultimate denunciation as Piracy under the laws of Nations by the
consent of the civilized world."[41]

Mr. Mercer, in urging the adoption of this resolution, denounced the
African slave trade "as a crime begun on a barbarous shore, claimed by
no civilized state, and subject to no moral law; a remnant of ancient
barbarism, a curse extended to the New World by the colonial policy of
the Old."[42]

Mr. Mercer supplemented his congressional action by visits made at his
own expense to the Governments of the Old World to urge upon them the
adoption of the policy set forth in his resolution.'[43]

It was early appreciated that unless at least a qualified "right of
search" was accorded the war vessels of the leading nations engaged in
the effort to suppress the slave trade, these efforts would be
seriously hindered. Accordingly the lower house of Congress, in May,
1821, under the leadership of Charles Fenton Mercer, from whose
committee the resolution was reported, adopted the recommendation that
a "right of search" be accorded the British Government in return for a
like privilege accorded the United States.[44] This resolution,
however, was defeated in the Senate.

Subsequently President Monroe submitted to Congress the draft of a
treaty with England embodying this provision. In a special message,
under date of May 21, 1824, he gave at length his reasons for
approving the treaty—saying:

"Should this convention be adopted there is every reason to believe
that it will be the commencement of a system destined to accomplish
the entire abolition of the slave trade."

Unfortunately, the ratification of this treaty was defeated in the
Senate, and not until 1862 was the "right of search" between Great
Britain and America established.

In his message to Congress June 1, 1841, President Tyler writes:

"I shall also at the proper season invite your attention to the
statutory enactments for the suppression of the slave trade which
may require to be rendered more effective in their provisions. There
is reason to believe that the traffic is on the increase.... The
highest consideration of public honor as well as the strongest
promptings of humanity require a resort to the most vigorous efforts
to suppress the trade."

Again, in his message of December 7, 1841, President Tyler writes:

"I invite your attention to existing laws for the suppression of the
African slave trade, and recommend all such alterations as may give
to them greater force and efficiency. That the American flag is
grossly abused by the abandoned and profligate of other nations is
but too probable."

In 1842, in the preparation of the Ashburton Treaty President Tyler
secured the insertion of a clause providing for the maintenance and
co-operation of squadrons of the United States and Great Britain off
the coast of Africa for the suppression of the trade.[45]

The ratification of this treaty was urged upon the Senate by the
President in his message of August 11, 1842, as conducive to the
abolition of what he termed the "unlawful and inhuman traffic."

Though Brazil, by statute, prohibited the African slave trade in 1831,
yet the traffic continued and in this trade citizens of the United
States as ship owners, or crew, were engaged despite the Federal
statutes against such a practice. Henry A. Wise of Virginia, Consul at
Rio Janeiro, made frequent and earnest reports to the State Department
calling the attention of the authorities to these violations. Under
date of February 18th, 1845, he writes to the Secretary of State at
Washington:

"I beseech, I implore the President of the United States to take a
decided stand on this subject. You have no conception of the bold
effrontery and the flagrant outrages of the African slave trade, and
of the shameless manner in which its worst crimes are licensed here,
and every patriot in our land would blush for our country did he
know and see, as I do, how our citizens sail and sell our flag to
the uses and abuses of that accursed practice."[46]

In his message to Congress, under date of December 4th, 1849,
President Taylor writes:

"Your attention is earnestly invited to an amendment of our existing
laws relating to the African slave trade with a view to the
effectual suppression of that barbarous traffic. It is not to be
denied that this trade is still in part carried on by means of
vessels built in the United States and owned or navigated by some of
our citizens."

The foregoing recitals will serve to illustrate the uncompromising
attitude of hostility on the part of leading Virginians toward the
African slave trade. They sought by Federal statutes and concerted
action with foreign nations to drive the pernicious traffic from the
seas. They denounced the trade as inhuman, because it stimulated men
to reduce free men to slavery and then entailed upon slaves the
horrors and dangers of the "middle passage." They resolutely opposed
any addition to the slave population of America because profoundly
convinced that every such importation was fraught with menace to the
social, economic and moral well-being of the nation and rendered more
difficult the emancipation of those who had already been brought to
her shores. As we have seen, her representatives at the first meeting
of the Continental Congress had defined Virginia's position in the
notable memorial which declared:

"The abolition of domestic slavery is the great object of desire in
those colonies, where it was unhappily introduced in their infant
state. But, previous to the enfranchisement of the slaves we have,
it is necessary to exclude all further importations from
Africa."[47]

This was the philosophy of the situation as defined by the great
statesmen of the Revolutionary period and to their views their ablest
successors in Virginia adhered down to the outbreak of the Civil War.

-----

Footnote 37:

_Annals of Congress_, Vol. I, col. 336.

Footnote 38:

_Suppression of the Slave Trade_, DuBois, p. 80.

Footnote 39:

_Annals of Congress_, 15th Congress, 2nd section, part I, pp. 442-3.

Footnote 40:

_Suppression of the Slave Trade_, DuBois, p. 120, Note 3.

Footnote 41:

_Annals of Congress_, 17th Congress, second session, pp. 435 and
928.

Footnote 42:

_Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America_, Wilson, Vol. I, p.
106.

Footnote 43:

_The Confederate Cause and Conduct in the War Between the States_,
McGuire and Christian, p. 17.

Footnote 44:

_Suppression of Slave Trade_, DuBois, p. 137.

Footnote 45:

_Letters and Times of the Tylers_, Tyler, Vol. II, p. 219.

Footnote 46:

_American Slave Trade_, Spear, p. 81.

Footnote 47:

_Writings of Jefferson_, Ford, Vol. I, p. 440.

VII

SOME VIRGINIA STATUTES WITH RESPECT TO SLAVERY

Having by her act of 1778, prohibiting the importation of slaves,
provided against any increase in their number from without, Virginia
at the close of the Revolution proceeded to legislate with respect to
those already in her midst, permitting and encouraging their gradual
emancipation.

STATUTE PERMITTING EMANCIPATIONS

Under British rule, slaveholders were forbidden to manumit their
slaves, except with the permission of the Council.[48] In 1782, the
General Assembly of Virginia enacted a law, under which slaveholders
were authorized to emancipate their slaves by deed or will duly made
and recorded.[49]

By an act passed in 1785, it was provided that slaves brought into the
state and remaining twelve months should be free.[50]

In 1787, acts were passed validating certain manumissions made by
wills prior to 1782, the General Assembly declaring that it was "just
and proper" that "the benevolent intentions" of the testators should
be carried into effect.[51]

In 1788, an act was passed making the enslaving of the child of free
blacks a crime punishable by death upon the scaffold.[52]

In 1795, an act was passed allowing a slave to sue _in forma pauperis_
in any court proceedings affecting his freedom. He might make
complaint to the nearest magistrate or court and the owner was then
required to give bond to permit the slave to attend the next term of
the court and maintain his cause. If the owner failed or refused to
comply, the slave was taken into the custody of the state, counsel was
assigned to defend his cause and every process of the law allowed him
without cost.[53] Following the adoption of the foregoing laws, the
General Assembly, in 1803, passed an act to still further safeguard
the rights of negroes who had secured their freedom. By this last act
the authorities were required to keep registers in each county in
which were to be recorded the names of all the free negroes and also
the names of slaves whose right to manumission would accrue upon the
death of the person having only an estate for life in such slaves.

STATUTE RESTRICTING EMANCIPATION

The effect of these acts facilitating and encouraging manumissions at
length began to appear. At the close of the Revolution there were less
than three thousand free negroes in Virginia.[54] In the ten years
next succeeding, they reached thirteen thousand, and the census of
1810 records their number at thirty thousand, five hundred and
seventy. Here was a new problem—the presence in a state dominated by
white men of a considerable body of negroes possessing neither the
privileges of the whites nor amenable to the restrictions imposed upon
the great mass of the blacks. As a result of these conditions, acts
were passed in 1806 providing that no slaves thereafter manumitted
should remain in Virginia. In 1819 an act was passed authorizing the
County Courts to permit such as were "sober, peaceful, orderly and
industrious to remain in the state."[55] Later, it was provided by
statute that all slaves thereafter manumitted should leave the state
within twelve months from the date of their emancipation.
Thenceforward slaveholders were accorded the right to manumit their
slaves, subject to the claims of their creditors and to the obligation
upon the former slaves of going beyond the state within twelve months
following their manumission.

While these last mentioned statutes embarrassed the work of
emancipation, they stimulated the sentiment in favor of colonization.
However, despite the difficulties which confronted them, slaveholders
still continued to emancipate their slaves and hostility to the
institution of slavery—the conviction that it was a burden upon the
commonwealth—became more and more widespread among the people. The
growth of these sentiments continued until the year 1832. The Rev.
Philip Slaughter, a writer with pro-slavery sympathies, records:

"That was the culminating point—the flood tide of anti-slavery
feeling which had been gradually rising for more than a century in
Virginia was then precipitated upon us before its time by the
Southampton convulsion."[56]

To the disastrous effects upon public sentiment of this tragic event
which occurred in August, 1831, must be added the reactionary
influence of the Abolitionists, who now began their work of agitation
and their arraignment, not simply of slavery nor of slaveholders, but
of the morality and civilization of every community in which the
institution existed. The failure, too, of the General Assembly of
Virginia at its session of 1832 to adopt any plan for the gradual
abolition of slavery or for the removal beyond the state of the free
negroes then within her borders was also strongly reactionary. Despite
the ability and influence of the anti-slavery leaders in that body no
remedial legislation was adopted and thousands of the people accepted
the result as proof of the fact that the practical difficulties in the
way of emancipation were such as to shut out the hope of its
accomplishment.

-----

Footnote 48:

_Hening's Statutes_, Vol. IV, p. 132.

Footnote 49:

_Hening's Statutes_, Vol. XI, p. 39.

Footnote 50:

_Hening's Statutes_, Vol. XII, p. 182.

Footnote 51:

_Hening's Statutes_, Vol. XII, pp. 611 and 613.

Footnote 52:

_Idem_, p. 531.

Footnote 53:

_History of Slavery in Virginia_, Ballagh, p. 123.

Footnote 54:

_History of Slavery in Virginia_, Ballagh, p. 121.

Footnote 55:

_Idem_, p. 125.

Footnote 56:

_The Virginian History of African Colonization_, Slaughter, p. 55.

VIII

THE MOVEMENT IN THE VIRGINIA LEGISLATURE OF 1832
TO ABOLISH SLAVERY IN THE STATE

The Southampton Insurrection, which occurred in August, 1831, was one
of those untoward incidents which so often marked the history of
slavery. Under the leadership of one Nat Turner, a negro preacher, of
some education, who felt that he had been called of God to deliver his
race from bondage, the negroes attacked the whites at night and before
the assault could be suppressed fifty-seven whites, principally women
and children, had been killed. This deplorable event assumed an even
more portentous aspect when it was realized that the leader was a
slave to whom the privilege of education had been accorded and that
one of his lieutenants was a free negro. In addition there existed a
widespread belief among the whites that influences and instigations
from without the state were responsible for the insurrection.

The General Assembly of Virginia met in regular session in December,
1831, and the effect upon the popular mind of this tragic occurrence
was evidenced in the numerous petitions presented praying for the
removal beyond the state of all free negroes, or the enactment of such
laws as should provide for the abolition of slavery. The institution
itself, the feasibility of its abolition, the status of the free
negroes, the danger to the state from their presence, were thus
brought before the Legislature. It was a body containing many able men
but elected without reference to this great subject, and with no
previous interchange of views or formulation of plans among the
advocates of reform. The discussions which followed were more notable
for the fierce arraignment of the institution than for the
presentation of practical plans for its abolition.

Henry Wilson, in his _Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America_,
says of this discussion:

"It was one of the ablest, most eloquent and brilliant debates that
ever took place in the Legislature of any of the states. Most of
those who participated in it were young and rising men who afterward
achieved high positions and commanding influence."[57]

Mr. Ballagh records that:

"Day after day multitudes thronged the Capitol to hear the speeches.
The Assembly in its zeal for the discussion set aside all prudential
considerations, such as the possible effect of incendiary utterances
that might make the slave believe his lot one of injustice and
cruelty, and so give him the excuse of a revolt, or might encourage
further aggressions by Northern Abolitionists."[58]

LEADERS OF THE MOVEMENT

Thomas Jefferson Randolph, Mr. Jefferson's grandson; Thomas Marshall,
son of the Chief Justice; James McDowell, afterward Congressman and
Governor; Charles J. Faulkner, afterward Congressman and Minister to
France, and William Ballard Preston, afterward Congressman and
Secretary of the Navy in President Taylor's Cabinet, were among the
leaders of the anti-slavery men, and some idea may be formed of the
character of their speeches from the extracts hereinafter cited.

The principal discussion revolved around the report of a committee
which declared "that it is inexpedient for the present Legislature to
make any legislative enactment for the abolition of slavery," to which
Mr. Preston moved the substitution of the word "expedient" for
"inexpedient," and Mr. Bryce moved, as a substitute for both, that the
commonwealth should provide for the immediate removal of the negroes
now free and those who may hereafter become free "believing that this
will absorb all of our present means." By a vote of 58 to 73 Mr.
Preston's amendment was defeated,[59] and Mr. Bryce's substitute
adopted by a vote of 65 to 58.[60] In line with this declaration, the
House thereupon passed a bill which provided by a comprehensive and
continuous system for the deportation and colonization of the free
negroes of the commonwealth, and such as thereafter might become free.
The measure carried an appropriation of Thirty-five Thousand Dollars
for the first year (1832) and Ninety Thousand Dollars for the year
1833 and was adopted by a vote of 79 to 41.[61] In urging its passage,
William H. Broadnax insisted that many owners "would manumit their
slaves if means for their removal were furnished by the state, but who
could not if the additional burden of removal were placed upon
them."[62] This bill, so fraught with far-reaching consequences, was
subsequently defeated in the Senate by one vote.

PLANS PROPOSED

Several plans for the gradual emancipation and deportation of the
slaves were brought forward and discussed, but all failed of
enactment. Thomas R. Dew declares that, "no enlarged, wise or
practical plan of operations was proposed by the Abolitionists."[63]
And Mr. Ballagh says, that "will was not wanting but method unhappily
was."[64]

THE EFFECTS OF FAILURE

The failure of this General Assembly to adopt any plan of emancipation
or any comprehensive scheme for the deportation of the free negroes
already in the state had a disastrous effect upon the attitude of
thousands of Virginians towards slavery. Despairing of relief from
either of these sources and yet facing the peril of which the Nat
Turner Insurrection was the warning sign, her lawmakers sought in
repressive legislation to nullify the dangers of slave insurrection.
Many accepted the institution as permanent and busied themselves
marshalling arguments in vindication of its rightfulness and in
refuting with growing bitterness the assaults of its opponents.

ABOLITIONISTS AND PRO-SLAVERY MEN

But in addition to the Southampton Massacre, and the failure of the
Legislature to enact any effective legislation, the contemporary rise
of the Abolitionists in the North came as an even more powerful factor
to embarrass the efforts of the Virginia emancipators. Unlike the
anti-slavery men of former years, this new school not only attacked
the institution of slavery but the morality of slaveholders and their
sympathizers. In their fierce arraignment, not only were the humane
and considerate linked in infamy with the cruel and intolerant, but
the whole population of the slave-owning states, their civilization
and their morals were the object of unrelenting and incessant
assaults. Thus thousands sincerely desiring the abolition of slavery
were driven to silence or into the ranks of its apologists in the
widespread and indignant determination of Virginians to resent these
libels upon their character and defeat these attempts to excite
servile insurrections.

"What have we done to her," said the Rev. Nehemiah Adams of Boston,
"but admonish, threaten and indict her before God, excommunicate her,
stir up insurrection among her slaves, endanger her homes, make her
Christians and ministers odious in other lands."[65]

From this period, too, may be noticed the gradual increase in the
number of pro-slavery men in Virginia. This element did not justify
slavery simply because of the difficulties and dangers attending
emancipation, but they asserted that the institution was good in
itself, sanctioned by religion, a blessing to the blacks and essential
to the well-being of the whites. The growth of this new school in its
aggressiveness and the extreme character of its utterances kept pace
with the like development of the Abolitionists. As the latter
denounced slavery as "man-stealing"—and slaveholders—as "thieves,"
the former marshalled Bible texts to show the divine origin and
Heaven-approved character of the institution. As the Abolitionists
portrayed the "degrading" and "brutalizing" effects of slavery upon
the character of slaveholding communities, the pro-slavery men pointed
to the moral and civic virtues which undoubtedly existed in such
communities, and claimed that these very virtues were attributable to
the institution of slavery. As Abolitionists, relying upon the
insistence that slavery was a "monstrous oppression," justified slave
insurrections to effect freedom, the pro-slavery men sought to drive
into silence their fellow Virginians of anti-slavery sentiments
because any acknowledgment that it was illegal and that the condition
of the slave was at war with the laws of natural right warranted the
slave in killing his master to secure his freedom.

THE GROWTH OF PRO-SLAVERY SENTIMENTS

Thus, from 1833 on to the time of the war, the pro-slavery advocates
grew in influence and aggressiveness, though what proportion of the
population of Virginia they represented it is impossible to determine.
Their extreme utterances undoubtedly gave them great prominence, as
the march of events, in like manner, augmented their power. The
sentiments of the anti-slavery men found little place in the turmoil
of the times. Their position was strongly analogous to that of the
majority of the Northern people, who, in the midst of the war cries of
the Abolitionists, continued in silence their business pursuits.

-----

Footnote 57:

_Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America_, Wilson, Vol. I, p.
195.

Footnote 58:

_History of Slavery in Virginia_, Ballagh, p. 138.

Footnote 59:

_Journal of House of Delegates_, 1832, p. 109.

Footnote 60:

_Idem_, p. 110.

Footnote 61:

_Idem_, p. 158.

Footnote 62:

_Virginian History of African Colonization_, Slaughter, p. 48.

Footnote 63:

_An Essay on Slavery_, Thomas R. Dew, 1849, p. 6.

Footnote 64:

_History of Slavery in Virginia_, Ballagh, p. 138.

Footnote 65:

_South Side View of Slavery_, Adams, p. 127.

IX

THE NORTHERN ABOLITIONISTS AND THEIR REACTIONARY
INFLUENCE UPON ANTI-SLAVERY SENTIMENT
IN VIRGINIA

Thomas Jefferson Randolph was the foremost advocate of gradual
emancipation in the Virginia Legislature of 1832. In a pamphlet
printed in 1870 reviewing political conditions in Virginia he makes
the following statement with reference to the subject of emancipation
and the influences which hindered its accomplishment after the year
1833:

"After the adjournment of the Legislature in 1833, the question was
discussed before the people fairly and squarely, as one of the
abolition of slavery. I was re-elected on that ground in my county.
The feeling extended rapidly from that time in Virginia, Kentucky
and Missouri until Northern abolitionism reared its head. Southern
abolition was reform and an appeal to the master; Northern abolition
was revolution and an appeal to the slave. One was peaceful and the
other mutually destructive of both races by a servile insurrection.
The Southern people feared to trust to the intervention of persons
themselves exempt by position from the imagined dangers of the
transition."[66]

VIEWS OF PROMINENT VIRGINIANS

George Tucker, Professor of Political Economy, in the University of
Virginia, in his work, _The Progress of the United States in
Population and Wealth_, published in 1843, referring to the subject,
writes:

"This is not the place for assailing or defending slavery; but it
may be confidently asserted that the efforts of Abolitionists have
hitherto made the people in the slaveholding states cling to it more
tenaciously. Those efforts are viewed by them as an intermeddling in
their domestic concerns that is equally unwarranted by the comity
due to sister states, and to the solemn pledges of the Federal
compact. In the general indignation which is thus excited, the
arguments in favor of negro emancipation, once open and urgent, have
been completely silenced, and its advocates among the slaveholders,
who have not changed their sentiments, find it prudent to conceal
them.... Such have been the fruits of the zeal of Northern
Abolitionists in those states in which slavery prevails; and the
fable of the Wind and the Sun never more forcibly illustrated the
difference between gentle and violent means in influencing men's
wills."[67]

In 1847, Dr. Henry Ruffner, President of Washington College, delivered
an address upon the subject of slavery in Virginia which attracted
widespread attention. In this speech, made in the midst of the growing
controversy, he refers to the reactionary influence of the
Abolitionists as follows:

"But this unfavorable change of sentiment is due chiefly to the
fanatical violence of those Northern anti-slavery men usually called
Abolitionists.... They have not, by honourable means, liberated a
single slave, and they never will by such a course of procedure as
they have pursued. On the contrary they have created new
difficulties in the way of all judicious schemes of emancipation by
prejudicing the minds of slaveholders, and by compelling us to
combat their false principles and rash schemes in our rear; whilst
we are facing the opposition of men and the natural difficulties of
the case in our front."[68]

If it be thought, that Mr. Randolph, Professor Tucker, and Dr. Ruffner
were influenced by their environment and a desire to shift from the
people of Virginia to the Abolitionists responsibility for the growth
in the state of reactionary sentiments, with regard to slavery, it may
be well to quote the contemporary views of prominent anti-slavery men
of the North.

VIEWS OF CHANNING

Dr. William Ellery Channing, writing in 1835, said:

"The adoption of the common system of agitation by the Abolitionists
has not been justified by success. From the beginning it created
alarm in the considerate and strengthened the sympathies of the free
states with the slaveholder. It made converts of a few individuals
but alienated multitudes.

"Its influence at the South has been almost wholly evil. It has
stirred up bitter passions and a fierce fanaticism which have shut
every ear and every heart against its arguments and persuasions.
These effects are more to be deplored because the hope of freedom to
the slaves lies chiefly in the disposition of his master. The
Abolitionist proposed indeed to convert the slaveholders; and for
this reason he approached them with vituperation and exhausted upon
them the vocabulary of reproach. And he has reaped as he sowed....
Thus, with good purpose, nothing seems to have been gained. Perhaps
(though I am anxious to repel the thought) something has been lost
to the cause of freedom and humanity."[69]

VIEWS OF LINCOLN

In 1837, the Legislature of Illinois adopted a series of resolutions
of a pro-slavery character reprobating the methods of the
Abolitionists. Against the resolutions as adopted, Abraham Lincoln
prepared a memorandum and, together with Daniel Stone, a fellow member
of the body, had the same spread upon its journal as a more accurate
expression of their views. After referring to the resolutions, the
paper declares:

"They believe that the institution of slavery is founded on both
injustice and bad policy, but that the promulgation of abolition
doctrines tends rather to increase than abate its evils."[70]

This declaration of Mr. Lincoln was at once a protest and a prophecy.

It is sometimes urged that because of Mr. Lincoln's youth, at this
time, his estimate of the injuries wrought by the "promulgation of
abolition doctrines" is not entitled to much weight. It is true that
he was then in his twenty-ninth year. A quotation from an even more
notable deliverance, made fifteen years later, will show that
reflection and observation served to confirm his convictions of the
earlier date. In his eulogy on Henry Clay, delivered in the State
House, at Springfield, Illinois, July 16th, 1852, he said:

"Cast into life when slavery was already widely spread and deeply
seated, he did not perceive, as I think no wise man has perceived,
how it could be at once eradicated without producing a greater evil
even to the cause of human liberty itself. His feeling and his
judgment, therefore, ever led him to oppose both extremes of opinion
on the subject. Those who would shiver into fragments the Union of
these states, tear to tatters its now venerated constitution, and
even burn the last copy of the Bible, rather than slavery should
continue a single hour, together with all their more halting
sympathizers, have received, and are receiving their just
execration; and the name and opinion and influence of Mr. Clay are
fully and, as I trust, effectually and enduringly arrayed against
them."[71]

VIEWS OF WEBSTER

This estimate of Mr. Lincoln had already been anticipated by that of
Mr. Webster who, in his speech of March 7th, 1850, in the United
States Senate made a special reference to the disastrous influence
exerted by the Abolitionists upon the cause of emancipation in
Virginia.

"Public opinion," he said, "which in Virginia had begun to be
exhibited against slavery and was opening out for the discussion of
the question, drew back and shut itself up in its castle. I would
like to know whether anybody in Virginia can now talk openly as Mr.
Randolph, Governor McDowell and others talked in 1832, and sent
their remarks to the press? We all know the facts and we all know
the cause; and everything that these agitating people have done has
been not to enlarge but to restrain, not to set free, but to bind
the faster the slave population of the South."[72]

VIEWS OF DOUGLAS

Stephen A. Douglas, speaking at Bloomington, Illinois, July 16, 1859,
said:

"There is but one possible way in which slavery can be abolished and
that is by leaving the state according to the principle of the
Kansas-Nebraska Bill, perfectly free to form and regulate its
institutions in its own way. That was the principle upon which this
Republic was founded.... Under its operations slavery disappeared
from ... six of the twelve original slaveholding states; and this
gradual system of emancipation went on quietly, peacefully and
steadily so long as we in the free states minded our own business
and left our neighbors alone. But the moment the abolition societies
were organized throughout the North, preaching a violent crusade
against slavery in the Southern States, this combination necessarily
caused a counter-combination in the South, and a sectional line was
drawn which was a barrier to any further emancipation. Bear in mind
that emancipation has not taken place in any one state since the
Free-soil Party was organized as a political party in this
country.... The moment the North proclaimed itself the determined
master of the South, that moment the South combined to resist the
attack, and thus sectional parties were formed and gradual
emancipation ceased in all the Northern slaveholding states."[73]

In this speech, Mr. Douglas not only points out the methods by which
slavery had been abolished in six of the twelve original slaveholding
states, but he bears testimony, like his great contemporaries, to the
reactionary influence resulting from the attitude of the Northern
Abolitionists.

This estimate of Senator Douglas was reaffirmed in the frank
declaration of Thomas Ewing, of Ohio, who, speaking in the Peace
Conference, at Washington, February, 1861, declared: "The North has
taken the business of abolition into its own hands and from the day
she did so we hear no more of abolition in Virginia. This was but the
natural effect of the cause."[74]

VIEWS OF LUNT AND CURTIS

If it be urged that the views of Channing, Lincoln, Webster, Douglas
and Ewing were unfair in their estimate of the reactionary influence
of the Abolitionists, because of the temper of the times in which they
lived, it may be well to quote the conclusions of publicists not so
situated. Mr. George Lunt, of Boston, writing in December, 1865, says:

"After the years of 1820-21, during which that great struggle which
resulted in what is called the Missouri Compromise was most active
and came to its conclusion, the States of Virginia, Kentucky and
Tennessee were earnestly engaged in practical movements for the
gradual emancipation of their slaves. This movement continued until
it was arrested by the aggressions of the Abolitionists upon their
voluntary action."[75]

Mr. George Ticknor Curtis, of Boston, writing in 1883, after
describing the discussions in the General Assembly of Virginia in
1831-32, and stating that Thomas Jefferson Randolph, the leader of the
movement for the abolition of slavery, was re-elected in 1833 from
Albemarle, one of the largest slaveholding counties in the state,
because of his position, declares:

"But in the meantime came suddenly the intelligence of what was
doing at the North. It came in an alarming aspect for the peace and
security for the whole South; since it could not be possible that
strangers should combine together to assail the slaveholder as a
sinner and to demand his instant admission of guilt, without
arousing fears of the most dangerous consequences for the safety of
Southern homes, as well as intense indignation against such an
unwarrantable interference. From that time forth emancipation
whether immediate or gradual could not be considered in Virginia or
anywhere else in the South."[76]

VIEWS OF ROOSEVELT AND SMITH

As representative of a later generation and voicing sentiments of one
more removed from the period of controversy, the views of Theodore
Roosevelt are of value. Writing in 1898, he says:

"In 1833 the abolition societies of the North came into prominence;
they had been started a couple of years previously. Black slavery
was such a grossly anachronistic and un-American form of evil that
it is difficult to discuss calmly the efforts to abolish it and to
remember that many of these efforts were calculated to do and
actually did more harm than good.... The cause of the Abolitionists
has had such a halo shed around it by the course of events, which
they themselves in reality did very little to shape, that it has
been usual to speak of them with absurdly exaggerated praise. Their
courage and, for the most part, their sincerity, cannot be too
highly spoken of, but their share in abolishing slavery was far less
than has commonly been represented; any single, non-abolitionist
politician, like Lincoln or Seward, did more than all the
professional Abolitionists combined really to bring about its
destruction."[77]

Writing still later, Mr. William Henry Smith, of Ohio, in his book, _A
Political History of Slavery_, alluding to the work of the
Abolitionists, says:

"What befell is what has always been the experience, which must
needs be ever the experience of society when men 'encounter with
such bitter tongues,' when full play is given to passion, prejudice
and all uncharitableness.... After fifteen years of this commotion,
the testimony of the judicious was 'that the tendency to general
emancipation in the Border States had been checked, and that the
Abolitionists had done more to rivet the chains of the slave and to
fasten the curse of slavery upon the country than all the
pro-slavery men in the world had done or could do in half a
century.'"[78]

EMANCIPATION AND COLONIZATION

Despite, however, the growing embarrassments of the situation, there
remained with the people of Virginia the conviction that in the
dispersion or colonization beyond her borders, of a substantial part
of her negro population, lay the surest road to ultimate emancipation
and relief from the racial problems incident to slavery. The practice,
therefore, of emancipation by deeds and wills continued, and
individually and by concerted action, the various schemes for
colonization were fostered and encouraged. The Legislature at its
session, 1833, passed a bill appropriating $18,000.00 per annum, for a
period of five years to assist in transporting and subsisting "free
persons of color who may desire to migrate from Virginia to
Liberia."[79]

This appropriation, as we shall see, was followed by others of larger
amounts to further colonization; and, in no state of the Union, with
the possible exception of Maryland, did the cause receive greater
assistance, in money and sympathy, than in Virginia.

-----

Footnote 66:

See printed pamphlet T. J. Randolph, September 25th, 1870, on file
with Virginia Historical Society.

Footnote 67:

_Progress of Population and Wealth_, Tucker, p. 108. Note—The
author concludes his review of slavery in Virginia by saying: "As
the same decline in the value of labor once liberated the villeins,
or slaves, of western Europe, and will liberate the serfs of Russia,
so must it put an end to slavery in the United States, should it be
terminated in no other way."

Footnote 68:

_The Ruffner Pamphlet_, Lexington, 1847.

Footnote 69:

_The Works of William E. Channing_, 1889, American Unitarian
Society, p. 735.

Footnote 70:

The following is a full text of the paper:

"Resolutions upon the subject of domestic slavery having passed both
branches of the General Assembly at its present session, the
undersigned hereby protest against the passing of the same.

They believe that the institution of slavery is founded on both
injustice and bad policy, but that the promulgation of abolition
doctrines tends rather to increase than abate its evils.

They believe that the Congress of the United States has no power
under the constitution to interfere with the institution of slavery
in the different states.

They believe that the Congress of the United States has the power
under the constitution to abolish slavery in the District of
Columbia, but that the power ought not to be exercised unless at the
request of the people of the District.

The difference between these opinions and those contained in the
above resolutions, is their reason for entering this protest.

(Signed) DAN STONE,
A. LINCOLN."

Representatives from the County of Sangamon. (_Abraham Lincoln, A
History_, N. & H., Vol. I, p. 140.)

Footnote 71:

_Abraham Lincoln, Speeches, Letters and State Papers_, N. & H, Vol.
I, p. 174.

Footnote 72:

_Webster's Great Speeches_, Whipple, p. 619.

Footnote 73:

_Lincoln-Douglas Debates_, Columbus, 1860, p. 31.

Footnote 74:

_Proceedings of Peace Convention_, Crittenden, p. 142.

Footnote 75:

_The Origin of the Late War_, Lunt, 1865, p. 33.

Footnote 76:

_Life of James Buchanan_, Curtis, 1883, p. 278.

Footnote 77:

_Thomas H. Benton_, Roosevelt, p. 141.

Footnote 78:

_A Political History of Slavery_, William Henry Smith, 1903, Vol. I,
pp. 40-41.

Footnote 79:

_Virginian History of African Colonization_, Slaughter, p. 67.

X

NEGRO COLONIZATION—STATE AND NATIONAL

The idea of colonization seems to have originated with Mr. Jefferson,
who, in 1777, submitted a plan to a committee of the General Assembly
of Virginia.

In 1787, Dr. William Thornton published an address to the free negroes
of the whole country offering to lead them in person back to Africa.

In December, 1800, the General Assembly passed a resolution requesting
the Governor to communicate with the President of the United States
with the view of purchasing lands beyond the limits of Virginia for
colonization purposes. A considerable correspondence ensued between
Mr. Monroe, the Governor, and Mr. Jefferson, the President.

Nothing practical, however, resulted from these negotiations, though
on the 27th of December, 1804, Mr. Jefferson wrote Governor Page: "I
beg you to be assured that, having the object of the House of
Delegates sincerely at heart, I will keep it under my constant
attention, and omit no occasion which may occur of giving it
effect."[80]

EARLY SCHEMES OF COLONIZATION

In January, 1805, the Legislature passed another resolution requesting
Virginia's representatives in Congress to use every effort to secure a
portion of the territory of Louisiana for the colonization "of such
people of color as have been or shall be emancipated in Virginia."

The difficulties with France and England at this time prevented
further prosecution of the subject, but, after the termination of the
war between the United States and England, a resolution was passed by
the General Assembly of Virginia, in December, 1816, requesting the
Governor to correspond with the President with a view of acquiring
upon the coast of Africa, or at some point in the United States, an
asylum "for such persons of color as are now free and desire the
same," or "that may hereafter be emancipated in Virginia."

AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY

About the time of this action of the Virginia Legislature there
assembled at Washington on the 21st of December 1816, a body of
prominent citizens from various states, who effected a tentative
organization, from which resulted the American Colonization Society.
Over this meeting Henry Clay presided, and among the notable persons
present were Daniel Webster, Bushrod Washington and John Randolph of
Roanoke. The Rev. Robert Finley, of New Jersey, and Mr. E. B.
Caldwell, at that time Clerk of the Supreme Court at Washington, were
especially active in bringing about the assemblage. Charles Fenton
Mercer, of Virginia, and Francis Scott Key, of Maryland, were also
among the most zealous friends of the enterprise. In addition to
Randolph and Washington, Bishop William Meade, Rev. William H. Wilmer,
John Taylor, Edmund I. Lee and other Virginians were also present. Mr.
Clay has left upon record that "the original conception of the project
is to be traced to a date long anterior," to the meeting and that "the
State of Virginia, always prominent in works of benevolence, prior to
the formation of the American Colonization Society ... had expressed
her approbation of the plan of colonization."[81]

On the first of January, 1817, the permanent organization of the
society was effected by the selection of Mr. Justice Bushrod
Washington, of Virginia, as President, a position which he held for
thirteen years. Judge Washington was succeeded by Charles Carroll, of
Carrollton, James Madison, Henry Clay and John H. B. Latrobe, the last
named holding office until after the Civil War.

FOUNDING OF COLONY OF LIBERIA

The Society having been organized, immediate steps were taken to
acquire land upon the coast of Africa upon which to establish the
colony. For this purpose Samuel J. Mills, so well known and venerated
for his missionary labors, and Ebenezer Burgess were sent to Africa,
the money to defray their expenses being raised by Charles Fenton
Mercer and Bishop Meade, of Virginia.[82] The report of these
commissioners established the practicability of securing the necessary
land on the coast of Africa and establishing the emigrants in their
new home. The Society, however, was without sufficient means for the
successful initiation of its great work and possessed no relation to
the government, state or National. By a fortuitous train of
circumstances and the zeal of certain of its members, among whom
Virginians bore an active part, all of these objects were in a measure
attained.

Under the terms of the Federal statute prohibiting the foreign slave
trade it was provided that any slave whose importation was attempted
in violation of the act should be seized by the authorities of the
state where the importation occurred, and disposed of at its pleasure.
The State of Georgia had, accordingly, acquired possession of a number
of imported negroes and had advertised them for sale at Milledgeville,
May 4, 1819. Such an event and such a policy would have defeated the
statute, one of whose objects was to prevent the increase of the slave
population. Learning of these facts, Bishop Meade, of Virginia, was
sent as the representative of the Colonization Society, to Georgia,
where he secured the release of the negroes advertised to be sold,
upon condition that the Society would reimburse the state for the
costs incurred in their maintenance.[83] George Washington Parke
Custis, of Virginia, offered an island near Cape Charles, Virginia, as
a place of refuge until they could be transported to Africa.[84]
Knowledge of the foregoing facts induced Charles Fenton Mercer and
John Floyd, of Virginia, to present to Congress, of which they were
members, a bill which became a law in 1819, whereby all negroes
imported since the passage of the act should be returned to their own
country, appointing agents upon the coast of Africa to receive them;
and appropriating $100,000.00 to carry this law into effect. President
Monroe was zealous in enforcing the provisions of this law, and acted
in cordial co-operation with the Colonization Society to effectuate
its purposes. Under the provisions of the act, territory was acquired
upon the coast of Africa, and there the colony of Liberia was
established. In 1824, in recognition of Mr. Monroe's services, the
inhabitants of the colony named their capital Monrovia.

VIRGINIA'S EFFORTS AT COLONIZATION