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AMERICAN ABOLITIONISM,
FROM 1787 TO 1861.
A COMPENDIUM OF HISTORICAL FACTS,
EMBRACING LEGISLATION IN CONGRESS
AND AGITATION WITHOUT.
(ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE NEW YORK HERALD.)
BY F. G. DE FONTAINE.
NEW YORK:
D. APPLETON & CO.
1861.
PRICE, TWENTY-FIVE CENTS.
HISTORY OF AMERICAN ABOLITIONISM;
Its Four Great Epochs,
EMBRACING NARRATIVES OF THE
ORDINANCE OF 1787,
COMPROMISE OF 1820,
ANNEXATION OF TEXAS,
MEXICAN WAR,
WILMOT PROVISO,
NEGRO INSURRECTIONS,
ABOLITION RIOTS,
SLAVE RESCUES,
COMPROMISE OF 1850,
KANSAS BILL OF 1854,
JOHN BROWN INSURRECTION, 1859,
VALUABLE STATISTICS,
&c., &c., &c.
TOGETHER WITH A
HISTORY OF THE SOUTHERN CONFEDERACY.
(ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE NEW YORK HERALD.)
BY F. G. DE FONTAINE.
_NEW YORK_:
D. APPLETON & Co.
1861.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year
one thousand eight hundred and sixty-one,
BY F. G. DE FONTAINE,
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States,
for the Southern District of New York.
CHAS. CRASKE,
STEREOTYPER.
BARTON & SON,
PRINTERS,
111 Fulton Street, N. Y.
INTRODUCTION.
The following pages originally appeared in the NEW YORK HERALD, of
February 2d, 1861. By request, they have been reproduced in their present
shape, with the view of preserving, in a form more compact than that of a
newspaper, the valuable facts embraced.
Without an extensive range of research it is almost impossible to acquire
the information which is thus compiled, and, at the present time,
especially, it is believed that the publication of these facts will be
desirable to the reading community.
F. G. DE F.
HISTORY OF AMERICAN ABOLITIONISM.
CHAPTER I.
The Spirit of the Age--Two Classes of Abolitionists--Their Objects--The
Sources of their Inspiration--Influences upon Church and State--Proposed
Invasions upon the Constitution--Effect upon the Slave States, &c., &c.
One of the commanding characteristics of the present age is the spirit of
agitation, collision and discord which has broken forth in every
department of social and political life. While it has been an era of
magnificent enterprises and unrivalled prosperity, it has likewise been an
era of convulsion, which has well nigh upturned the foundations of the
government. Never was this truth more evident than at the present moment.
A single topic occupies the public mind--Union or Disunion--and is one of
pre-eminently absorbing interest to every citizen. Upon this issue the
entire nation has been involved in a moral distemper, that threatens its
utter and irrevocable dissolution. Union--the child of compact, the
creature of social and political tolerance--stands face to face with
Disunion, the natural off-spring of that anti-slavery sentiment, which has
ever warred against the interests of the people and the elements of true
government, and struggles for the maintenance of that sacred pledge by
which the United States have heretofore been bound in a common
brotherhood. Like the marvellous tent given by the fairy Banou to Prince
Achmed, which, when folded up, became an ornament in the delicate hands of
women, but, spread out, afforded encampment to mighty armies; so is this
question of abolitionism, to which the present overwhelming trouble of our
land is to be traced, in its capacity to encompass all things, and its
ability to attach itself even to the amenities and refinements of life. It
has entered into everything, great and small, high and low, political,
theological, social and moral, and in one section has become the standard
by which all excellence is to be judged. Under the guise of philanthropic
reform, it has pursued its course with energy, boldness and unrelenting
bitterness, until it has grown from "a cloud no bigger than a man's hand"
into the dimensions of the tempest which is to-day lowering over the land
charged with the elements of destruction. Commencing with a pretended love
for the black race, it has arrived at a stage of restless, uncompromising
fanaticism which will be satisfied with nothing short of the consummation
of its wildest hopes. It has become the grand question of the day--of
politics, of ethics, of expediency, of justice, of conscience, and of law,
covering the whole field of human society and divine government.
In this view of the subject, and in view also of the surrounding unhappy
circumstances of the country which have their origin in this agitation, we
give below a history of abolition, from the period it commenced to exist
as an active element in the affairs of the nation down to the present
moment.
ABOLITIONISTS AND THEIR OBJECTS.
There are two classes of persons opposed to the continued existence of
slavery in the United States. The first are those who are actuated by
sentiments of philanthropy and humanity, but are at the same time no less
opposed to any disturbance of the peace or tranquility of the Union, or to
any infringement of the powers of the States composing the confederacy.
Among these may be classed the society of "Friends," one of whose
established principles is an abhorrence of war in all its forms, and the
cultivation of peace and good will amongst mankind. As far back as 1670,
the ancient records of their society refer to the peaceful and exemplary
efforts of the sect to prevent the holding of slaves by any of their
number; and a quaint incident is related of an eccentric "Friend," who, at
one of their monthly meetings, "seated himself among the audience with a
bladder of bullock's blood secreted under his mantle, and at length broke
the quiet stillness of the worship by rising in full view of the
congregation, piercing the bladder, spilling the blood upon the floor and
seats, and exclaiming with all the solemnity of an inspired prophet, 'Thus
shall the Lord spill the blood of those that traffic in the blood of their
fellow men.'"
The second class are the real ultra abolitionists--the "reformers" who, in
the language of Henry Clay, are "resolved to persevere at all hazards, and
without regard to any consequences, however calamitous they may be. With
them the rights of property are nothing; the deficiency of the powers of
the general government is nothing; the acknowledged and incontestible
powers of the State are nothing; civil war, a dissolution of the Union,
and the overthrow of a government in which are concentrated the fondest
hopes of the civilized world, are nothing. They are for the immediate
abolition of slavery, the prohibition of the removal of slaves from State
to State, and the refusal to admit any new State comprising within its
limits the institution of domestic slavery--all these being but so many
means conducive to the accomplishment of the ultimate but perilous end at
which they avowedly and boldly aim--so many short stages, as it were, in
the long and bloody road to the distant goal at which they would
ultimately arrive. Their purpose is abolition, 'peaceably if it can,
forcibly if it must.'"
Utterly destitute of Constitutional or other rightful power; living in
totally distinct communities, as alien to the communities in which the
subject on which they would operate resides, as far as concerns political
power over that subject, as if they lived in Asia or Africa, they
nevertheless promulgate to the world their purpose to immediately convert
without compensation four millions of profitable and contented slaves into
four millions of burdensome and discontented negroes.
This idea, which originated and still generally prevails in New England,
is the result of that puritanical frenzy which has always characterized
that section of the country, and made it the natural breeding ground of
the most absurd "isms" ever concocted. The Puritans of to-day are not less
fanatical than were the Puritans of two centuries ago. In fact, they have
progressed rather than retrograded. Their god then was the angry,
wrathful, jealous god of the Jews--the Supreme Being now is the creation
of their own intellects, proportioned in dimensions to the depth and
fervor of their individual understandings. Then the Old Testament was
their rule of faith. Now neither old nor new, except in so far as it
accords with their consciences, is worth the paper upon which it is
written. Their creeds are begotten of themselves, and their high priests
are those who best represent their peculiar "notions." The same spirit
which, in the days of Robespierre and Marat, abolished the Lord's day and
worshipped Reason, in the person of a harlot, yet survives to work other
horrors. In this age, however, and in a community like the present, a
disguise must be worn; but it is the old threadbare advocacy of human
rights, which the enlightenment of the age condemns as impracticable. The
decree has gone forth which strikes at God, by striking at all
subordination and law, and under the specious cry of reform it is demanded
that every pretended evil shall be corrected, or society become a
wreck--that the sun must be stricken from the heavens if a spot is found
upon his disc.
The abolitionist is a practical atheist. In the language of one of their
congregational ministers--Rev. Henry Wright, of Massachusetts:--
"The God of humanity is not the God of slavery. If so, shame upon
such a God. I scorn him. I will never bow to his shrine; my head
shall go off with my hat when I take it off to such a God as that. If
the Bible sanctions slavery, the Bible is a self-evident falsehood.
And, if God should declare it to be right, I would fasten the chain
upon the heel of such a God, and let the man go free. Such a God is a
phantom."
The religion of the people of New England is a peculiar morality, around
which the minor matters of society arrange themselves like ferruginous
particles around a loadstone. All the elements obey this general law.
Accustomed to doing as it pleases, New England "morality" has usually
accomplished what it has undertaken. It has attacked the Sunday mails,
assaulted Free Masonry, triumphed over the intemperate use of ardent
spirits, and finally engaged in an onslaught upon the slavery of the
South. Its channels have been societies, meetings, papers, lectures,
sermons, resolutions, memorials, protests, legislation, private
discussion, public addresses; in a word, every conceivable method whereby
appeal may be brought to mind. Its spirit has been agitation!--and its
language, fruits and measures have partaken throughout of a character that
is thoroughly warlike.
"In language no element ever flung out more defiance of authority,
contempt of religion, or authority to man. As to agency, no element
on earth has broken up more friendships and families, societies and
parties, churches and denominations, or ruptured more organizations,
political, social or domestic. And as to measures! What spirit of man
ever stood upon earth with bolder front and wielded fiercer weapons?
Stirring harangues! Stern resolutions! Fretful memorials! Angry
protests! Incendiary pamphlets at the South! Hostile legislation at
the North! Underground railroads at the West! Resistance to the
Constitution! Division of the Union! Military contribution! Sharpe's
rifles! Higher law! If this is not belligerence enough, Mohammed's
work and the old Crusades were an appeal to argument and not to
arms."
What was philanthrophy in our forefathers has become misanthrophy in their
descendants, and compassion for the slave has given way to malignity
against the master. Consequences are nothing. The one idea preeminent
above all others is abolition!
It is worthy of notice in this connection that most abolitionists know
little or nothing of slavery and slaveholders beyond what they have
learned from excited, caressed and tempted fugitives, or from a
superficial, accidental or prejudiced observation. From distorted facts,
gross misrepresentations, and frequently malicious caricatures, they have
come to regard Southern slaveholders as the most unprincipled men in the
Universe, with no incentive but avarice, no feeling but selfishness, and
no sentiment but cruelty.
Their information is acquired from discharged seamen, runaway slaves,
agents who have been tarred and feathered, factious politicians, and
scurrilous tourists; and no matter how exaggerated may be the facts, they
never fail to find willing believers among this class of people.
In the Church, the missionary spirit with which the men of other times and
nobler hearts intended to embrace all, both bond and free, has been
crushed out. New methods of Scriptural interpretation have been
discovered, under which the Bible brings to light things of which Jesus
Christ and his disciples had no conception. Assemblings for divine worship
have been converted into occasions for the secret dissemination of
incendiary doctrines, and thus a common suspicion has been generated of
all Northern agency in the diffusion of religious instruction among the
slaves. Of the five broad beautiful bands of Christianity thrown around
the North and the South--Presbyterian, old school and new, Episcopalian,
Methodist and Baptist, to say nothing of the divisions of Bible, tract and
missionary societies--three are already ruptured--and whenever an
anniversary brings together the various delegates of these organizations,
the sad spectacle is presented of division, wrangling, vituperation and
reproach, that gives to religion and its professors anything but that
meekness of spirit with which it is wont to be invested.
Politically, the course of abolition has been one of constant aggression
upon the South.
At the time of the Old Confederation, the amount of territory owned by the
Southern States was 647,202 square miles; and the amount owned, by the
Northern States, 164,081. In 1783, Virginia ceded to the United States,
for the _common benefit_, all her immense territory northwest of the river
Ohio. In 1787, the Northern States appropriated it to their own exclusive
use by passing the celebrated ordinance of that year, whereby Virginia and
all her sister States were excluded from the benefits of the territory.
This was the first in the series of aggressions.
Again, in April, 1803, the United States purchased from France, for
fifteen millions of dollars, the territory of Louisiana, comprising an
area of 1,189,112 square miles, the whole of which was slaveholding
territory. In 1821, by the passage of the Missouri Compromise, 964,667
square miles of this was converted into free territory.
Again, by the treaty with Spain, of February, 1819, the United States
gained the territory from which the present State of Florida was formed,
with an area of 59,268 square miles, and also the Spanish title of Oregon,
from which they acquired an area of 341,463 square miles. Of this cession,
Florida only has been allowed to the Southern States, while the
balance--nearly six-sevenths of the whole--was appropriated by the North.
Again, by the Mexican cession, was acquired 526,078 square miles, which
the North attempted to appropriate under the pretence of the Mexican laws,
but which was prevented by the measures of the Compromise of 1850. Of
slave territory cut off from Texas, there have been 44,662 square miles.
To sum this up, the total amount of territory acquired under the
Constitution has been, by the
Northwest cession 286,681 square miles.
Louisiana cession 1,189,112 do.
Florida and Oregon cession 400,731 do.
Mexican cession 526,078 do.
---------
Total 2,377,602 do.
Of all this territory the Southern States have been permitted to enjoy
only 283,713 square miles, while the Northern States have been allowed
2,083,889 square miles, or between seven and eight times more than has
been allowed to the South.
The following are some of the invasions that have been from time to time
proposed upon the Constitution in the halls of Congress by these
agitators:
1. That the clause allowing the representation of three-fifths of the
slaves shall be obliterated from the Constitution; or, in other words,
that the South, already in a vast and increasing minority, shall be still
further reduced in the scale of insignificance, and thus, on every
attempted usurpation of her rights, be far below the protection of even a
Presidential veto.
Next has been demanded the abolition of slavery in the District of
Columbia, in the forts, arsenals, navy yards and other public
establishments of the United States. What object have the abolitionists
had for raising all this clamor about a little patch of soil ten miles
square, and a few inconsiderable places thinly scattered over the land--a
mere grain of sand upon the beach--unless it be to establish the precedent
of Congressional interference, which would enable them to make a wholesale
incursion upon the constitutional rights of the South, and to drain from
the vast ocean of alleged national guilt its last drop? Does any one
suppose that a mere microscopic concession like this would alone appease a
conscience wounded and lacerated by the "sin of slavery?"
Another of these aggressions is that which was proposed under the pretext
of regulating commerce between the States--namely, that no slave, for any
purpose and under any circumstances whatever, shall be carried by his
lawful owner from one slaveholding State to another; or, in other words,
that where slavery now is there it shall remain forever, until by its own
increase the slave population shall outnumber the white race, and thus by
a united combination of causes--the fears of the master, the diminution in
value of his property and the exhausted condition of the soil--the final
purposes of fanaticism may be accomplished.
Still another in the series of aggressions was that attempted by the
Wilmot Proviso, by which Congress was called upon to prohibit every
slaveholder from removing with his slaves into the territory acquired
from Mexico--a territory as large as the old thirteen States originally
composing the Union. It appears to have been forgotten that whether
slavery be admitted upon one foot of territory or not, it cannot affect
the question of its sinfulness in the slightest degree, and that if every
nook and corner of the national fabric were open to the institution, not a
single slave would be added to the present number, or that, if excluded,
their number would not be a single one the less.
We might also refer to the armed and bloody opposition to the Fugitive
Slave Law, to the passage of Personal Liberty Bills, to political schemes
in Congress and out, and to systematic agitation everywhere, with a view
to stay the progress of the South, contract her political power, and
eventually lead, at her expense, if not of the Union itself, to the utter
expurgation of this "tremendous national sin."
In short, the abolitionists have contributed nothing to the welfare of the
slave or of the South. While over one hundred and fifty millions have been
expended by slaveholders in emancipation, except in those sporadic cases
where the amount was capital invested in self-glorification, the
abolitionists have not expended one cent.
More than this: They have defeated the very objects at which they have
aimed. When Virginia, Maryland, Kentucky, or some other border State has
come so near to the passage of gradual emancipation laws that the hopes of
the real friends of the movement seemed about to be realized, abolitionism
has stepped in, and, with frantic appeals to the passions of the negroes,
through incendiary publications, dashed them to the ground, tightening the
fetters of the slave, sharpening authority, and producing a reaction
throughout the entire community that has crushed out every incipient
thought of future manumission.
Such have been the obvious fruits of abolition. Church, state and society!
Nothing has escaped it. Nowhere pure, nor peaceable, nor gentle, nor
easily entreated, nor full of mercy and good fruits; but everywhere
forward, scowling, uncompromising, and fierce, breaking peace, order and
structure at every step, crushing with its foot what would not bow to its
will; defying government, despising the Church, dividing the country, and
striking Heaven itself if it dared to obstruct its progress; purifying,
pacifying, promising nothing, but marking its entire pathway by disquiet,
schism and ruin.
We come now to the train of historical facts upon which we rely in proof
of the foregoing assertions.
THE FIRST EPOCH.
FROM 1787 to 1820.