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.