Chapter III: Part 3

In the great work of the American Colonization Society, the leading
people of Virginia took a most active and sympathetic interest. This
was evinced in the organization of Auxiliary Societies at Richmond,
Norfolk, Fredericksburg, Petersburg, Alexandria, Lynchburg, Wheeling,
Charlestown, Shepherdstown, Hampton and Harper's Ferry and in the
Counties of Isle of Wight, Sussex, Albemarle, King William, Dinwiddie,
Amherst, Berkeley, Nansemond, Buckingham, Nelson, Fluvanna, Frederick,
Augusta, Kanawha, Powhatan, Loudoun, Rockingham, Mecklenburg,
Campbell, and others. The officials of these Societies numbered many
of the most prominent men of Virginia; John Marshall, then Chief
Justice of the United States, was President of the Richmond branch.

The Virginia Auxiliary Societies collected money by private
subscription, and facilitated in every way the transportation of such
free negroes as desired to emigrate. In 1826, upon the petition of the
Societies, the Legislature of Virginia made its first appropriation to
assist in their work. In addition to those in Virginia, Auxiliary
Societies were organized in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New
Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Kentucky.

In 1828 the Colonization Society of Virginia was established and
thereafter Virginians directed their energies largely through this
Virginia organization. John Marshall was elected President of the
Virginia Society, and James Madison, James Monroe, John Tyler and
William H. Broadnax, were among its Vice-Presidents.

By an act passed in 1850 the General Assembly of Virginia appropriated
the sum of $30,000.00 per annum for five years for the transportation
and sustenance of free negroes who desired to emigrate. Certain
qualifications of the measure limited its effectiveness, and in 1853,
the Virginia Colonization Society secured its repeal and the enactment
of a new law appropriating $30,000.00 per annum for five years, with
much more liberal provisions as to the method of its expenditure.
Private benevolence supplemented the state. The reports of the Society
show that during the years 1850-51-52 private contributions from the
people of Virginia aggregated over $21,000.00.[85]

The work of the Society was endorsed by the churches and more and more
it assumed the character of a Christian enterprise. It was commended
because it brought relief to Virginia, blessings to the ex-slaves,
greater hope of freedom to those still in bondage, and carried
Christianity and civilization to Africa. Among the first of many white
men who gave their lives to the cause of colonization was Samuel J.
Mills, who died at sea on his way home from Africa. Mills was the
leader in the band of students at Williams College, Massachusetts, so
well known for their missionary zeal and labours, and hence has a
double claim upon our gratitude.

ABOLITIONISTS AND PRO-SLAVERY MEN

The problems and difficulties of colonization, admittedly great, were
seriously augmented by the active opposition of the extreme
pro-slavery men at the South and the Abolitionists at the North. Each
of these two antagonistic forces strenuously opposed the work of
colonization, the first because it facilitated eventual emancipation,
the second, among other reasons, because it rendered conditions more
tolerable and thus postponed the day of the universal and immediate
abolition of slavery.

In addition to the colonizations made through the aid of the
colonization societies, many Virginia slaveholders emancipated their
slaves and at their own expense colonized them in some of the free
states. A few instances will illustrate the custom and the
difficulties often encountered by these emancipators and their
ex-slaves.

-----

Footnote 80:

_Virginian History of African Colonization_, Slaughter, pp. 1-6.

Footnote 81:

_The African Repository and Colonial Journal_—Vol. VI, No. 1, p.
13.

Footnote 82:

_Liberia Bulletin. No. 16_—February, 1900, p. 21.

Footnote 83:

_Memoir of Bishop Meade_, Johns, 1867, p. 120.

Footnote 84:

_History of United States_, McMaster, Vol. IV, p. 65.

Footnote 85:

_Virginian History of African Colonization_, Slaughter, p. 100.

XI

INSTANCES OF COLONIZATIONS BY INDIVIDUAL SLAVEHOLDERS

By the will of Samuel Gist, his slaves were emancipated and William F.
Wickham and Carter B. Page, of Richmond, appointed trustees to acquire
land in some one of the free states on which to provide homes for the
newly manumitted freedmen. Accordingly, these trustees purchased two
tracts of land in Brown County, Ohio, one containing one thousand and
the other twelve hundred acres at a cost of $4400.00.[86]

In 1819, the freedmen, consisting of one hundred and thirteen from
Hanover County and one hundred and fifty from Goochland and Amherst
Counties, were transported to Ohio and settled on the lands purchased,
as above indicated, by the trustees.

The facts are meagre with respect to the reception accorded these
negroes and the measure of success which attended the colonization.
From the best information obtainable, it seems that they were treated
in no very friendly manner and that, in time, the negroes lost most of
the lands provided for them by their former owner.

Edward Coles, of Albemarle County, inherited from his father a large
number of slaves. Determining to give them their freedom, he conducted
them in April, 1819, to Illinois, where he established them in their
own homes near the town of Edwardsville, giving to each head of a
family a tract of one hundred and sixty acres of land.[87] Mr. Coles,
like many other Virginians, who attempted a like emancipation, not
only incurred the great pecuniary loss resulting from the liberation
of his slaves and the expenses of their removal and establishment, but
he incurred the ill will and opposition of the inhabitants of the
state in which they settled.

The biographers of Abraham Lincoln, Nicolay and Hay, referring to the
attitude of the people of Illinois towards free negroes, record:

"Even Governor Coles, the public-spirited and popular politician,
was indicted and severely fined for having brought his own freedmen
into this state and having assisted them in establishing themselves
around him upon farms of their own."[88]

Mr. Coles was a neighbor and friend of Jefferson, Madison and Monroe.
He was Madison's private secretary and was appointed by President
Monroe Registrar of the Land Office at Edwardsville, Ill., in March,
1819, a position of influence and importance. Three years later he was
elected Governor of the state and his career as such was notable for
the great part he bore in defeating the movement to change the state
constitution of Illinois so as to permit the introduction and
maintenance of slavery within that state. In 1832 Governor Coles
removed to Philadelphia where he lived until his death. When Virginia
seceded, his son, Roberts Coles, volunteered in her service and was
killed at the Battle of Roanoke Island.

By his will, admitted to probate on the 20th of November, 1826, John
Ward, Sr., of Pittsylvania, emancipated all of his slaves, giving to
each of them over fifteen years of age twenty dollars, except to
certain enumerated ones, to whom the sum of one hundred and fifty
dollars each was bequeathed.[89] In April, 1827, these freedmen,
emancipated under the will of Ward (seventy in number), were
transported to Ohio and settled in Lawrence County.[90]

By his will, John Randolph of Roanoke, who died in 1833, emancipated
all of his slaves and directed his executor, Judge William Leigh, to
transport them to some one of the free states and settle them upon
lands which he was directed to purchase for the purpose. The will
bequeathed the sum of thirteen thousand dollars to defray the expenses
incident to their colonization and to pay for the land.

Howe in his _Historical Collections of Ohio_ (Edition of 1891) says:

"In 1846 Judge Leigh, of Virginia, purchased 3200 acres of land in
this settlement for the freed slaves of John Randolph of Roanoke.
These arrived in the Summer of 1846 to the number of about four
hundred but were forcibly prevented from making a settlement by a
portion of the inhabitants of the county. Since then acts of
hostility have been commenced against the people of this settlement
and threats of greater held out if they do not abandon their lands
and homes."

"From a statement in the county history issued in 1882 we see that a
part of the Randolph negroes succeeded in effecting a settlement at
Montezuma, Franklin Township, just south of the reservoir."[91]

By his will which was probated March 23, 1848, John Warwick, of
Amherst County, Virginia, emancipated all his slaves, and in like
manner bequeathed his whole estate to create a fund for removing them
to one of the free states, purchasing farms, and establishing them in
their new homes. The testator indicated that he preferred Indiana as
the place of residence for his slaves.[92] Dr. David Patteson, of
Buckingham County, was appointed executor and charged with the duties
of settling the estate and removing the freedmen to their new homes.
Before arrangements for their removal to Indiana could be perfected,
that state adopted its constitution of 1851, whereby free negroes and
mulattoes were inhibited from coming into the state. Accordingly Dr.
Patteson purchased for the ex-slaves a large tract of land in Ohio,
near Kenton, and thither they were transported and settled in their
new homes. The inventory of Mr. Warwick's estate shows that at the
time of his death he owned seventy-four slaves.[93]

By his will, admitted to probate July 9th, 1849, Sampson Sanders, of
Cabell County, emancipated all of his slaves and directed his
executors to provide for their colonization "in the State of Indiana,
or some one of the free states of the United States."[94] The testator
bequeathed to these slaves the sum of fifteen thousand dollars, out of
which fund should be paid the amount necessary for the purchase of
land for their homes, the balance to be distributed among them. Before
the intentions of the testator could be carried into effect, Indiana
enacted a law denying to freed negroes the privileges of settling in
that state. Accordingly these freedmen were carried to Cass County,
Mich., where they were settled in homes purchased for them under the
provisions of the will of their former owner. This colony seems to
have succeeded, and many of the descendants of the former slaves of
Sanders are to-day living upon the lands purchased by his bounty.[95]

SENTIMENTAL DIFFICULTIES

In addition to the many difficulties already enumerated, that invested
colonization, there were other deterrent causes only less real. Was it
right to send these newly manumitted slaves off, upon the hazard of
maintaining themselves in the face of difficulties for which they had
had so little training? This was the question for the master. What of
their future in the far away and unknown land? That was the question
for the slave. Then too, there came to both a genuine reluctance to
meet the pain of separation. Of the fact of the existence of a strong
affection between masters and slaves, in a great majority of the homes
in Virginia where the institution of slavery existed, there can be no
question. From the great number of instances illustrating the sorrows
of masters and servants in the hour of separation, we select two.

INSTANCES ILLUSTRATING DIFFICULTIES

David W. Barton, of Winchester, Virginia, emancipated many of his
slaves a short time prior to the Civil War. Some of these were sent to
Liberia, and others, who from age or youth were not regarded as equal
to the trials of the trip, were settled in this country. Robert T.
Barton, Esq., a son of the emancipator, in a letter to the author
bears testimony to the fact of the affection which subsisted between
the members of his father's family and these freedmen. "I was quite a
small boy at the time," he writes, "but I remember the incident
perfectly. I recall the weeping family that parted with these
servants, who were very dear to us."[96]

Traverse Herndon, of Fauquier, who died in 1854, by his last will
emancipated his slaves, some fifty in number, and made provision for
their transportation to Liberia. Two years later his brother, Thaddeus
Herndon, emancipated his slaves, some twenty in number, and the two
groups of freedmen, except such as were too old to bear the dangers of
the voyage and life in the new country, were sent to Liberia in the
fall of 1857, under the care of an agent of the American Colonization
Society.

The Rev. Charles T. Herndon, of Salem, Virginia, has furnished the
author with an account of the parting between these freedmen and his
father, Thaddeus Herndon, which occurred on board of the ship
"Euphrasia," written by the Rev. John Seys,[97] a former missionary to
Liberia, who was present on the occasion. The subjoined extract from
Mr. Seys' account of the separation, which was published soon
afterwards in the _Maryland Colonization Journal_, presents in the
most vivid manner the sorrow attending the parting of Thaddeus Herndon
and his former slaves, and the reverence and affection with which the
slaves of Traverse Herndon regarded their dead master.

OPPOSITION OF FREEDMEN TO COLONIZATION

Not infrequently the many difficulties which embarrassed the efforts
of Virginia slaveholders to colonize their ex-slaves at points beyond
the state were increased by the attitude of the slaves themselves. The
experience of John Thom, of Berry Hill, Culpeper County, as related in
a letter to the author under date of July 15th, 1908, by his son
Cameron E. Thom, of Los Angeles, Cal., will serve as an illustration.
Mr. Cameron Thom is at present a man of venerable years who seems to
retain a vivid impression of the scenes incident to the attempt at
colonization made by his father in the later thirties. Mr. Thom, after
narrating that his father was a soldier in the War of 1812, where he
gained his title as commander of a Virginia regiment, and was for
thirty years a member of the State Senate, proceeds to write with
reference to his father's attitude towards slavery as follows:

"He was not satisfied with it, and was restive under it. In his
discussions of the subject he often quoted as expressive of his
views Mr. Jefferson, who declared that 'We have the wolf by the
ears, and it is as dangerous to let go as it is to hold on.' I
believe they were both gradual emancipationists. The idea of
practical and immediate emancipation through the medium of
colonization seems to have crystallized in his mind and stimulated
him to action. He sent my eldest brother, Catesby Thom, to
Pennsylvania to spy out the land and to make definite arrangements
for the location, settlement and comfort of the proposed colony.
After an absence of several weeks, he returned and reported that he
had selected an ideal location for the experiment. Every desideratum
seems to have been taken into consideration, climate, wood, water,
fertility of the soil, products, neighbors, etc.

"To carry out my father's plan, the next step was to call for
eighteen volunteers to make up the colony. Here came a great
disappointment. Of the number called for only one suitable man
responded.... The volunteer idea was abandoned and conscription was
resorted to. When the names of the eighteen chosen ones were
announced the plantation was indeed a house of mourning. Prayers,
protests and petitions came up, but were of no avail. A complete
outfit was made up of three wagons, twelve oxen, three cows, tools,
farming utensils, provisions, clothing, &c. The expedition got off
all right, my brother Catesby being chief in command, and Uncle
Billy Guinn, the only volunteer, a full second. Before the
expiration of a week from the time of departure, two of the
colonists had deserted and were back at Berry Hill, and in less than
a year nearly all the others had found their way back. My brother,
after some two months' absence, got back and reported that he would
not go through with his experience again for all the negroes in
Virginia.

"I left Virginia for the South in 1848; returning in a few weeks, I
took my final departure from the state in the early Spring of 1849
for California where I have resided ever since, never having seen my
father again. I believe he manumitted all or nearly all of the
servants by deed or will."

-----

Footnote 86:

See _Record of Deeds_, Vol. A., p. 230, Recorder's Office, Brown
County, Ohio.

Footnote 87:

_Sketch of Edward Coles_, Washburne, pp. 47-52.

Footnote 88:

_Abraham Lincoln, A History_, N. & H., Vol. I, p. 145.

(Note. The fine imposed upon Governor Coles was subsequently
remitted by an act of the Legislature because the law under which he
was fined had not been published at the date of his offense.)

Footnote 89:

See _Will Book No. 1_, p. 109, Clerk's Office, Pittsylvania County,
Va.

Footnote 90:

See _Public Ledger of Philadelphia_, April 14, 1827.

Footnote 91:

_Historical Collections of Ohio, History of Mercer County, Ohio_, by
Henry Howe, 1891, Vol. II, p. 505.

Footnote 92:

See _Will Book No. 11_, p. 575, Clerk's Office, Amherst County, Va.

Footnote 93:

John Warwick was the great-uncle of the Hon. John Warwick Daniel,
now (1908) and for many years past a member from Virginia in the
United States Senate.

Footnote 94:

See _Will Book A._, p. 391, in the Clerk's Office of Cabell County,
West Virginia.

Footnote 95:

See _Outlook Magazine_, N. Y., February 9th, 1903.

Footnote 96:

Under date of March 19, 1907, Mr. Barton writes the author: "My
father manumitted his slaves, or rather, certain of them, before the
war. Under the law as I remember it, it was not necessary to put on
record a deed of manumission of a slave who was sent out of the
state.... I was quite a small boy at the time, but I remember the
incident perfectly. I recall the weeping family that parted with
these servants, who were very dear to us.... Many years after that I
received a visit from one of the women who had been the assistant in
the nursery, and to whom, as a child, I remember I was very devoted.
I do not believe that two near relations could have had a more
affecting greeting. She stayed in Winchester for nearly a week,
coming to my house every day, and finally went away without bidding
us good bye, writing back from her home that she had done so because
she could not stand the parting. The other servants who went away
also kept up with our family the most affectionate relations for
many years, and the old ones, who could not get away, were supported
by my brothers and myself after the war until they died."

Footnote 97:

Mr. Seys records that his experience as a missionary in Liberia
prompted him to visit these emigrants on board ship, just
preparatory to their departure, and at the request of Mr. Herndon,
make them a short address. He then writes: "I closed my remarks and
Mr. Herndon followed me." The latter said: "I may not see you again,
I may as well say all I have to say now." And then he became so
choked for utterance, and tears fell so fast that a silence ensued
only broken by sighs and sobs of the entire party. Again he
continued:

"My heart is too full. I can hardly speak. You know how we have
lived together. Servants, hear me, we have been brothers and
sisters, we have grown up together. We have done the best for you.
For two or three years this has been contemplated and you are now on
the point of starting for the land of your ancestors. Besides your
freedom, we have spent $2,000.00 in procuring everything we could
think of to make you comfortable—clothing, bedding, implements of
husbandry, mechanics' tools, books for the children, Bibles, a
family Bible for each family, all these have been provided, and when
you have been there some few months, we will send you out another
supply of provisions and will continue to do so. And now, you three
brethren, who formed the committee appointed by the church to watch
over your brethren, a word to you. You are chosen to admonish,
guide, counsel the others, not to lord it over them, but gently and
kindly to watch over their souls; and now, may God bless you. I can
never forget you. Write to me, Washington, you can write; I have
provided you with paper. Keep a journal, put all of your names down,
even the children, and write opposite to each one everything that
happens concerning you. I shall feel much interested in hearing from
you—especially will your Miss Frances. (Here the bare mention of
their almost adored mistress started their grief afresh.) Now, as we
may never meet again, let us part with prayer, let all kneel down,
and Brother Seys will lead in prayer to Almighty God for you all."
We knelt there, and under feelings words but poorly express, engaged
in prayer as best we could amid cries and sobs and tears.

XII

EMANCIPATION AND COLONIZATION:
VIEWS OF JEFFERSON, CLAY AND LINCOLN

If it be urged that Virginia had reached the conclusion that without
the dispersion or colonization of the whole or a large portion of her
slave population emancipation was impracticable, it may be
acknowledged that to a qualified extent this was true. The position,
however, did not involve an abandonment of the principle of
emancipation, but rather the insistence that with emancipation should
go the work of solving the race problem by a method which gave some
assurance of complete success.

That this attitude of Virginia cannot be regarded as wholly
unreasonable or reactionary will appear when we consider the views of
some of the leading friends of negro emancipation. From the number of
those whose sanity kept pace with their zeal, we select Thomas
Jefferson, Henry Clay and Abraham Lincoln.

VIEWS OF JEFFERSON AND CLAY

Mr. Jefferson in 1820 wrote:

"Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that
these people are to be free; nor is it less certain than that the
two races, equally free, cannot live in the same government. Nature,
habit, opinion, have drawn indelible lines of distinction between
them."[98]

Writing to Jared Sparks, President of Harvard College, in 1824, he
said:

"In the disposition of these unfortunate people there are two
rational objects to be distinctly kept in view. First, the
establishment of a colony on the coast of Africa, which may
introduce among the aborigines the arts of cultivated life and the
blessings of liberty and science. By doing this, we may make them
some retribution for the long course of injuries we have been
committing on their population.... Second object, and the most
interesting to us, as coming home to our physical and moral
characters, to our happiness and safety, is to provide an asylum to
which we can, by degrees, send the whole of that population from
among us, and establish them under our patronage and protection, as
a separate, free, and independent people, in some country and
climate friendly to human life and happiness."[99]

VIEWS OF CLAY

Mr. Clay's attitude with respect to the institution of slavery will
appear from his oft-quoted declaration:

"Those who would repress all tendencies to liberty and ultimate
emancipation must do more than put down the benevolent efforts of
the Colonization Society, they must go back to the era of our
liberty and independence, and muzzle the cannon that thunders its
annual joyous return—they must blot out the moral lights around
us—they must penetrate the human soul, and eradicate the light of
reason and the love of liberty."[100]

His sentiments, however, with respect to the wisdom and necessity for
colonizing the manumitted slaves were equally decided. In an address
before the Colonization Society of Kentucky at Frankfort, December 17,
1829, Mr. Clay presented at length his reasons for supporting the
movement to colonize all ex-slaves in the Republic of Liberia. In the
course of this address he said:

"If the question were submitted, whether there should be either
immediate or gradual emancipation of all the slaves in the United
States, without their removal or colonization, painful as it is to
express the opinion, I have no doubt that it would be unwise to
emancipate them. For I believe, that the aggregate of the evils
which would be engendered in society upon the supposition of such
general emancipation, and of the liberated slaves remaining
promiscuously among us, would be greater than all the evils of
slavery."[101]

Continuing, he said:

"Is there no remedy I again ask for the evils of which I have
sketched a faint and imperfect picture? Is our posterity doomed to
endure forever not only all the ills flowing from the state of
slavery, but all which arise from incongruous elements of
population, separated from each other by invincible prejudices and
by natural causes? Whatever may be the character of the remedy
proposed, we may confidently pronounce it inadequate, unless it
provides efficaciously for the total and absolute separation, by an
extensive space of water or of land, at least of the white portion
of our population from that which is free of the colored."[102]

In conclusion he said:

"If we were to invoke the greatest blessing on earth, which Heaven,
in its mercy, could now bestow on this nation, it would be the
separation of the two most numerous races of its population and
their comfortable establishment in distinct and different
countries."[103]

VIEWS OF LINCOLN

The biographers of Abraham Lincoln, Nicolay and Hay, declare:

"The political creed of Abraham Lincoln embraced among other tenets,
a belief in the value and promise of colonization as one means of
solving the great race problem involved in the existence of slavery
in the United States.... Without being an enthusiast, Lincoln was a
firm believer in colonization."[104]

Speaking at Springfield, Illinois, June 26, 1857, Mr. Lincoln said:

"I have said that the separation of the races is the only perfect
prevention of amalgamation. I have no right to say that all the
members of the Republican Party are in favor of this nor to say that
as a party they are in favor of it. There is nothing in their
platform directly on the subject. But I can say a very large
proportion of its members are for it and that the chief plank in
that platform—opposition to the spread of slavery—is most
favorable to that separation. Such separation, if ever effected at
all, must be effected by colonization.... The enterprise is a
difficult one but where there is a will there is a way; and what
colonization needs most is a hearty will. Will springs from the two
elements of moral sense and self-interest. Let us be brought to
believe it is morally right, and at the same time favorable to, or,
at least, not against our interests, to transfer the African to his
native clime, and we shall find a way to do it, however great the
task may be."[105]

Upon his assumption of the office of President Mr. Lincoln sought to
carry into effect his colonization views. In his first annual message
to Congress—December, 1861—after alluding to the act "to confiscate
property used for insurrectionary purposes," enacted by Congress at
its extra session, under the operations of which thousands of slaves
had come into the custody of the Federal authorities and the further
fact that some of the states might adopt similar statutes with similar
results, he proceeds to say:

"In such cases I recommend that Congress provide for accepting such
persons from such states according to some mode of valuation in lieu
_pro tanto_ of direct taxes, or upon some other plan to be agreed on
with such states respectively; that such persons, on such
acceptance, by the General Government, be at once deemed free, and
that in any event steps be taken for colonizing both classes (or the
first mentioned if the other shall not be brought into existence) at
some place or places in a climate congenial to them. It might be
well to consider too whether the free colored people already in the
United States could not, so far as individuals may desire, be
included in such colonization.

"To carry out the plan of colonization may involve the acquiring of
territory, and also the appropriation of money beyond that to be
expended in the territorial acquisition. Having practised the
acquisition of territory for nearly sixty years the question of
constitutional power to do so is no longer an open one with us....

"If it be said that the only legitimate object of acquiring
territory is to furnish homes for white men this measure effects
their object, for the emigration of colored men leaves additional
room for white men remaining or coming here. Mr. Jefferson however
placed the importance of procuring Louisiana more on political and
commercial grounds than on providing room for population. On this
whole proposition, including the appropriation of money with the
acquisition of territory, does not expediency amount to absolute
necessity—that without which the government itself cannot be
perpetuated."[106]

As a result of these urgent representations Congress, at its session
of 1862, placed at the disposal of the President the sum of
$600,000.00 to be expended at his discretion in colonizing with their
consent free persons of African descent in some country adapted to
their condition and necessities.[107]

Mr. Lincoln, with a view of carrying out this act of Congress, invited
a number of prominent colored men to meet him at the White House on
the 14th of August, 1862, and then and there urged upon them the
wisdom of availing themselves of the opportunity thus offered to make
for themselves a home beyond the borders of this country. Mr. Lincoln
said that the action of Congress in placing at his disposal a sum of
money for the purpose of aiding the colonization of the people of
African descent made it his duty, as it had for a long time been his
inclination, to favor that cause. Continuing, he said:

"And why should the people of your race be colonized, and where? Why
should you leave this country? This is perhaps the first question
for proper consideration. You and we are different races. We have
between us a broader difference than exists between almost any other
two races. Whether it is right or wrong I need not discuss; but this
physical difference is a great disadvantage to us both as I think.
Your race suffer very greatly, many of them by living among us,
while ours suffer from your presence. In a word, we suffer on each
side. If this be admitted, it affords a reason, at least, why we
should be separated.

"The aspiration of men is to enjoy equality with the best when free,
but on this broad continent not a single man of your race is made
the equal of a single man of ours. Go where you are treated the
best, and the ban is still upon you. I do not propose to discuss
this, but to present it as a fact with which we have to deal. I
cannot alter it if I would."

In conclusion he said:

"I ask you then to consider seriously not pertaining to yourselves
merely, nor for your race and ours for the present time but as one
of the things if successfully managed, for the good of mankind—not
confined to the present generation."[108]

In his special message to Congress April 16th, 1862, after alluding to
the passage of the bill abolishing slavery in the District of
Columbia, he approves the same and declares: "I am grateful that the
principles of compensation and colonization are both recognized and
practically applied in this act."[109]

-----

Footnote 98:

_Jefferson Manuscript_, Raynor, p. 64.

Footnote 99:

_Writings of Jefferson_, Ford, Vol. X, p. 290

Footnote 100:

_Lincoln and Slavery_, Arnold, p. 124.

Footnote 101:

_The African Repository and Colonial Journal_, Vol. II, No. 1, p. 5.

Footnote 102:

_The African Repository and Colonial Journal_, Vol. II, p. 12.

Footnote 103:

_Idem_, p. 23.

Footnote 104:

_Abraham Lincoln, A History_, N. & H., Vol. VI, p. 355.

Footnote 105:

_Abraham Lincoln, Speeches, Letters and State Papers_, N. & H., Vol.
I, p. 235.

Footnote 106:

_Messages and Papers of the Presidents_, Vol. VI, p. 64.

Footnote 107:

_The Life, Public Services and State Papers of Abraham Lincoln_,
Raymond, p. 504.

Footnote 108:

_The Life, Public Services and State Papers of Abraham Lincoln_,
Raymond, p. 504.

Footnote 109:

_Messages and Papers of the Presidents_, Vol. VI, p. 73.

XIII

ANTI-SLAVERY SENTIMENTS OF PROMINENT VIRGINIANS

No account of Virginia's record in regard to slavery would be complete
which failed to set forth the position of her foremost men with
respect to the institution. From a mass of data we have selected the
following declarations as fairly expressive of their sentiments. We
have not recorded the views of Virginians, however worthy, who were
not by birth, training and sympathies, representative of the dominant
element of her people.

ANTI-SLAVERY SENTIMENTS PRIOR TO 1810

Richard Henry Lee, speaking in the Virginia House of Burgesses 1772,
in support of a bill prohibiting the slave trade, said:

"Nor, sir, are these the only reasons to be urged against the
importation. In my opinion not the cruelties practised in the
conquest of South America, not the savage barbarity of a Saracen,
can be more big with atrocity than our cruel trade to Africa. There
we encourage those poor ignorant people to wage eternal war against
each other; ... that by war, stealth or surprise, we Christians may
be furnished with our fellow-creatures, who are no longer to be
considered as created in the image of God as well as ourselves and
equally entitled to liberty and freedom by the great law of Nature,
but they are to be deprived forever of all the comforts of life and
to be made the most wretched of the human kind."[110]

Patrick Henry, writing on the 18th day of January, 1773, said:

"Is it not a little surprising that Christianity, whose chief
excellency consists in softening the human heart, cherishing and
improving its finer feelings, should encourage a practice so totally
repugnant to the first impressions of right and wrong? What adds to
the wonder is that this abominable practice has been introduced in
the most enlightened ages....

"Would any one believe I am the master of slaves of my own purchase!
I am drawn along by the general inconvenience of living here without
them. I will not, I cannot justify it.... I believe the time will
come when an opportunity will be offered to abolish this lamentable
evil. Everything we can do is to improve it, if it happens in our
day; if not, let us transmit to our descendants, together with our
slaves, a pity for their unhappy lot and an abhorrence for
slavery."[111]

At another time he wrote: "Our country will be peopled. The question
is, shall it be with Europeans, or Africans?... Is there a man so
degenerate as to wish to see his country the gloomy retreat of
slavery?"[112]

George Washington, writing in 1786, to Robert Morris, of Philadelphia,
after alluding to an Anti-slavery Society of Quakers in that city and
suggesting that unless their practices were discontinued, "None of
those whose misfortune it is to have slaves as attendants will visit
the city if they can possibly avoid it," continues:

"I hope it will not be conceived from these observations that it is
my wish to hold the unhappy people, who are the subjects of this
letter, in slavery. I can only say that there is not a man living
who wishes more sincerely than I do to see a plan adopted for the
abolition of it. But there is only one proper and effectual mode by
which it can be accomplished, and that is by legislative authority;
and this, as far as my suffrage will go, shall never be wanting."

Writing in the same year to John F. Mercer, he said:

"I never mean, unless some particular circumstance shall compel me
to it, to possess another slave by purchase, it being among my first
wishes to see some plan adopted by which slavery in this country may
be abolished by law."[113]

George Mason, speaking in the Virginia Convention of 1788 having the
adoption of the Federal Constitution under consideration, said:

"Mr. Chairman, this is a fatal section (Article 1, Section 9) which
has created more dangers than any other. The first clause allows the
importation of slaves for twenty years. Under the royal government
this evil was looked upon as a great oppression, and many attempts
were made to prevent it; but the interest of the African merchants
prevented its prohibition. No sooner did the Revolution take place
than it was thought of. It was one of the great causes of our
separation from Great Britain. Its exclusion has been a principal
object of this state, and most of the states in the Union. The
augmentation of slaves weakens the state; and such a trade is
diabolical in itself and disgraceful to mankind; yet by this
constitution, it is continued for twenty years. I have ever looked
upon this as a most disgraceful thing to America. I cannot express
my detestation of it."[114]

John Tyler, Sr., speaking in the same Convention in condemnation of
the clause permitting the slave trade:

"Warmly enlarged on the impolicy, iniquity and disgracefulness of
this wicked traffic. He thought the reasons urged by gentlemen in
defense of it were inconclusive and ill-founded. It was one cause of
the complaints against British tyranny that this trade was
permitted. The Revolution had put a period to it; but now it was to
be revived. He thought nothing could justify it.... His earnest
desire was that it should be handed down to posterity that he had
opposed this wicked cause."[115]

Edmund Randolph, in 1789, wrote to Madison that he desired to go to
Philadelphia to practise law, saying, "For if I found that I could
live there I could emancipate my slaves, and thus end my days without
undergoing any anxiety about the injustice of holding them."[116]

St. George Tucker,[117] in his edition of Blackstone's Commentaries,
reviewing the origin of slavery in Virginia, and the status of the
institution at the time he writes, 1803, declares:

"Among the blessings which the Almighty hath showered on these
states, there is a large portion of the bitterest draught that ever
flowed from the cup of affliction. Whilst America hath been the land
of promise to Europeans and their descendants, it hath been the vale
of death to millions of the wretched sons of Africa.... Whilst we
adjured the God of Hosts to witness our resolution to live free, or
die; and imprecated curses on their heads who refused to unite with
us in establishing the empire of freedom, we were imposing upon our
fellowmen who differ in complexion from us, a slavery ten thousand
times more cruel than the utmost extremity of those grievances and
oppressions of which we complained."[118]

At the conclusion of his carefully prepared article showing the
efforts made by the people of Virginia during the period of British
rule to suppress the slave trade, their prompt prohibition of the
traffic immediately upon the assertion of their independence, and the
various statutes enacted to mitigate the hardships of the institution,
he uses these earnest yet almost pathetic words:

"Tedious and unentertaining as this detail may appear to all others,
a citizen of Virginia will feel some satisfaction in reading a
vindication of his country from the opprobrium, but too lavishly
bestowed upon her, of fostering slavery in her bosom, whilst she
boasts a sacred regard for the liberty of her citizens, and of
mankind in general."[119]

The foregoing quotations express the sentiments of the leading
Virginians of the Revolutionary period with respect to slavery.

ANTI-SLAVERY SENTIMENTS FROM 1810-1831

The following quotations, taken from speeches and letters of the
period between 1810 and 1831, express the sentiments of men, many of
whom, though contemporaries of Washington and Mason and Henry, yet
survived them by a quarter of a century.

Jefferson, in his _Notes on Virginia_, wrote:

"Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have
removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the
people that these liberties are of the gift of God; that they are
not violated but with His wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country
when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep
forever."[120]

Writing in 1820 to John Holmes, he said:

"I can say with conscious truth that there is not a man on earth who
would sacrifice more than I would to relieve us from this heavy
reproach, in any practicable way. The cession of that kind of
property—for so it is misnamed—is a bagatelle which would not cost
me a second thought if, in that way, a general emancipation and
expatriation could be effected; and gradually, and with due
sacrifice, I think it might be; but as it is, we have the wolf by
the ears and can neither hold him nor safely let him go. Justice is
in one scale, and self-preservation in the other."[121]

John Tyler, in February, 1820, speaking in Congress as a
Representative from Virginia when the bill for the admission of
Missouri was under discussion, together with the amendment prohibiting
the admission of slaves into the territories, said:

"Slavery has been represented on all hands as a dark cloud and the
candor of the gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. Whitman, drove him
to the admission that it would be well to disperse this cloud. In
this sentiment I entirely concur with him. How can you otherwise
disarm it? Will you suffer it to increase in its darkness over one
particular portion of this land till its horrors shall burst upon
it?... How is the North interested in pursuing such a course? The
man of the North is far removed from its influence; he may smile and
experience no disquietude. But exclude this property from Missouri
by the exercise of an arbitrary power; shut it out from the
territories; and I maintain that you do not consult the interests of
this Union.

"The gentleman from Massachusetts also conceded that for which we
contend—that by diffusing this population extensively you increase
the prospects of emancipation. What enabled New York, Pennsylvania
and other states to adopt the language of universal emancipation?
Rely on it, nothing but the paucity of the number of their slaves.
That which would have been criminal in those states not to have done
would be an act of political suicide in Georgia or South Carolina to
do. By this dispersion you also ameliorate the condition of the
black man."[122]

John Randolph of Roanoke, speaking in Congress, March 2, 1826, said:

"My feelings and instincts were in opposition to slavery in every
shape; to the subjugation of one man's will to that of another; and,
from the time I read Clarkson's celebrated pamphlet, I was, I am
afraid, as mad as Clarkson himself. I read myself into this madness,
as I have read myself into some agricultural improvements; but, as
with these last, I worked myself out of them.... The disease will
run its course. It has run its course in the Northern States; it is
beginning to run its course in Maryland. The natural death of
slavery is the unprofitableness of its most expensive labor."[123]

Replying to a Northern member in Congress, in 1826, he said: "Sir, I
envy neither the head nor the heart of the man from the North who
arises here to defend slavery upon principle."[124]

Francis W. Gilmer, writing to William Wirt, from England in July,
1824, said:

"I begin to be impatient to see Virginia once more. It's more like
England than any other part of the United States—slavery _non
obstanti_. Remove the stain—blacker than the Ethiopian's skin, and
annihilate our political schemers and it would be the fairest realm
on which the sun ever shone."[125]

John Marshall, writing in 1826, said:

"I concur with you that nothing portends more calamity and mischief
to the Southern States than their slave population. Yet, they seem
to cherish the evil, and to view with immovable prejudice and
dislike everything which may tend to diminish it. I do not wonder
that they should resent any attempt, should one be made, to
interfere with the rights of property, but they have a feverish
jealousy of measures which may do good without the hazard of harm,
that I think very unwise."[126]

James Monroe, speaking in the Virginia Constitutional Convention on
the 2nd of November, 1829, said:

"What has been the leading spirit of this state ever since our
independence was attained? She has always declared herself in favor
of the equal rights of man. The Revolution was conducted on that
principle. Yet there was at that time a slavish population in
Virginia. We hold it in the condition in which the Revolution found
it, and what can be done with this population?... As to the
practicability of emancipating them, it can never be done by the
state itself, nor without the aid of the Union....

"Sir, what brought us together in the Revolutionary War? It was the
doctrine of equal rights. Each part of the country encouraged and
supported every other part. None took advantage of the other's
distresses. And if we find that this evil has preyed upon the vitals
of the Union and has been prejudicial to all the states where it has
existed, and is likewise repugnant to their several state
constitutions and Bills of Rights, why may we not expect that they
will unite with us in accomplishing its removal?"[127]

Benjamin Watkins Leigh, speaking in the Virginia Constitutional
Convention of 1829-30, said:

"I wish indeed that I had been born in a land where domestic and
negro slavery is unknown—no, sir,—I misrepresent myself—I do not
wish so. I shall never wish that I had been born out of
Virginia—but I wish that Providence had spared my country this
moral and political evil. It is supposed that our slave labor
enables us to live in luxury and ease, without industry, without
care. Sir, the evil of slavery is greater to the master than to the
slave. He is interested in all their wants, all their distresses,
bound to provide for them, to care for them, to labor for them,
while they labor for him, and his labor is by no means the less
severe of the two. The relation between master and slave imposes on
the master a heavy and painful responsibility."[128]

James Madison, in 1831 wrote concerning slavery and the American
Colonization Society:

"Many circumstances of the present moment seem to concur in
brightening the prospects of the Society and cherishing the hope
that the time will come when the dreadful calamity which has so long
afflicted our country and filled so many with despair, will be
gradually removed, and by means consistent with justice, peace, and
general satisfaction; thus giving to our country the full enjoyment
of the blessings of liberty, and to the world the full benefit of
its great example."[129]

-----

Footnote 110:

_Life of R. H. Lee_, Lee, Vol. I, p. 18.

Footnote 111:

_The True Patrick Henry_, Morgan, p. 246.

Footnote 112:

_Life of Patrick Henry_, William Wirt Henry, Vol. I, p. 114.

Footnote 113:

_The Writings of Washington_, Marshall, Vol. II, p. 159.

Footnote 114:

_Madison Papers_, Vol. II, p. 1391.

Footnote 115:

_Letters and Times of the Tylers_, Tyler, Vol. I, p. 154.

Footnote 116:

_Life of Edmund Randolph_, Conway, p. 125.

Footnote 117:

Judge Tucker, who was professor of law at William & Mary College,
made it a part of his course of lectures to demonstrate the moral
and economic objections to slavery.

Mr. Roosevelt points out that Thomas H. Benton acquired his
deep-rooted antagonism to the institution while studying Blackstone
"as edited by the learned Virginian Judge Tucker who in an appendix
treated of and totally condemned black slavery in the United
States." (_Thomas H. Benton_, Roosevelt, p. 297).

Footnote 118:

_Tucker's Blackstone_, Vol. II, Appendix, note H., p. 31.

Footnote 119:

_Idem_, p. 53.

Footnote 120:

_Writings of Jefferson_, Ford, Vol. III, p. 267.

Footnote 121:

_Idem_, Vol. VII, p. 157.

Footnote 122:

_Letters and Times of the Tylers_, Tyler, Vol. I, p. 312.

Footnote 123:

_Abridgment of Debates in Congress 1789-1856_, Vol. VIII, p. 40.

Footnote 124:

_American Conflict_, Greeley, Vol. I, p. 109.

Footnote 125:

_Kennedy's Life of Wirt_, Kennedy, Vol. II, p. 188.

Footnote 126:

_John Marshall, Life, Character and Judicial Services_, Dillon, Vol.
I, p. 216.

Footnote 127:

_Debates of Virginia Convention of 1829-30_, p. 149.

Footnote 128:

_Idem_, p. 173.

Footnote 129:

_Life of James Madison_, Hunt, p. 369.

XIV

ANTI-SLAVERY SENTIMENTS OF PROMINENT VIRGINIANS (Continued)

ANTI-SLAVERY SENTIMENTS, 1832

The anti-slavery sentiments of prominent Virginians, expressed in the
speeches delivered in the notable debate which occurred in the
Virginia Legislature of 1832, may well be considered in a group by
themselves. The speakers were all young men and represented a later
generation than those from whom quotations have already been given.
Many of them were destined to fill important roles in the political
life of the state and some of them, with undiminished influence,
survived the period of the Civil War. McDowell became Governor of the
state and a member of Congress; Preston was a member of Congress, a
member of President Taylor's Cabinet, and one of the leading spirits
in the Virginia Convention of 1861; Randolph was repeatedly returned
to the Legislature and was a prominent member of the Reform Convention
of 1850-51, and Faulkner was for years a member of Congress and also
Minister to France.

The position of these Virginians was significant as representative of
the widespread anti-slavery sentiments which pervaded the state.
Chandler, of Norfolk County, represented the largest slaveholding
county in Tide-water Virginia; Broadnax and Bolling, two large
slaveholding counties in the Black Belt; Randolph and Marshall,
counties in the Piedmont section; Preston, the Southwest; McDowell,
the Upper Valley, and Berry and Faulkner, the two counties in the
extreme lower end of the valley.

Thomas Marshall, of Fauquier County, speaking in the Virginia House of
Delegates, January 14th, 1832, when the subject of the gradual
abolition of slavery was under discussion, said:

"Wherefore, then, object to slavery? Because it is ruinous to the
whites, retards improvements, roots out an industrious
population—banishes the yeomanry of the country—deprives the
spinner, the weaver, the smith, the shoemaker, the carpenter, of
employment and support. The evil admits of no remedy, and it is
increasing and will continue to increase until the whole country
will be inundated by one black wave covering its whole extent, with
a few white faces here and there floating on the surface."[130]

John A. Chandler, a representative from Norfolk County, speaking on
the 17th of January in the same debate, said:

"It will be recollected, sir, that when the memorial from Charles
City was presented by the gentleman from Hanover, and when its
reference was opposed, I took occasion to observe that I believed
the people of Norfolk County would rejoice could they even in the
vista of time see some scheme for the general removal of this
_curse_ from our land. I should have voted, sir, for its rejection
because I was desirous to see a report from the committee declaring
the slave population an evil and recommending to the people of this
commonwealth the adoption of some plan for its riddance."[131]

William H. Broadnax, speaking as a representative from the County of
Dinwiddie, on the 19th of January, in the same debate, said:

"That slavery in Virginia is an evil and a transcendent evil it
would be idle and worse than idle for any human being to doubt or
deny. It is a mildew which has blighted in its course every region
it has touched from the creation of the world. Illustrations from
the history of other countries and other times might be instructive
and profitable had we time to review them, but we have evidence
tending to the same conviction nearer at hand in the short histories
of the different states of this great confederacy which are
impressive in their admonitions and conclusive in their
character."[132]

Henry Berry, speaking as a representative from Jefferson County, on
the 20th of January, in the same debate, said:

"Sir, I believe that no cancer on the physical body was ever more
certain, steady and fatal in its progress than is this cancer on the
political body of the State of Virginia. It is eating into her very
vitals. And shall we act the part of a puny patient, suffering under
the ravages of a fatal disease, who would say the remedy is too
painful, the dose is too nauseous, I cannot bear it; who would close
his eyes in despair and give himself up to death? No, sir, I would
bear the knife and the cautery, for the sake of health. I would
never despair of the Republic. For myself, I would abandon hope on
this subject and the state together."[133]

Charles James Faulkner, speaking as a representative from Berkeley
County, on the 20th of January, in the same debate, said: