The Ordinance of 1787--The Slave Population of 1790--Abolitionism at that
time--The Importation of Slaves the Work of Northerners--Statistics of the
Port of Charleston, S. C., from 1804 to 1808--Anecdote of a Rhode Island
Senator, &c., &c.
The first great epoch in the history of our country at which the spirit of
abolitionism displayed itself was immediately preceding the formation of
the present government. From the close of the Revolutionary War, in 1783,
to the sitting of the Constitutional Convention, was a space of only four
years. Two years more brings us to the adoption of the Constitution, in
1789. It was in the summer of 1787, and at the very time the Convention in
Philadelphia was framing that instrument, that the Congress in New York
was framing the ordinance which was passed on the 13th of July, 1787, by
which slavery was forever excluded from all the territory northwest of the
river Ohio, which, three years before, had been generously ceded to the
United States by Virginia, and out of which have since been organised the
States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota and
Iowa.
According to the first census, taken in 1790, under the Constitution, when
every State in the Union, with one exception, was a slave State, the
number of slaves was as follows:--
STATES. NO. OF SLAVES.
1 Massachusetts
2 New Hampshire 158
3 Rhode Island 948
4 Connecticut 2,764
5 New York 21,340
6 New Jersey 11,423
7 Pennsylvania 3,737
8 Delaware 8,887
9 Maryland 103,036
10 Virginia 305,057
11 North Carolina 100,571
12 South Carolina 107,094
13 Georgia 29,264
Territory of Ohio 3,417
-------
Total 697,696
In 1820, New York had 10,088 slaves. In 1827, however, by virtue of an
Act, passed in 1817, they were declared free, and emancipated, without
compensation to their owners. Even in 1830, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New
Jersey and Pennsylvania had slaves: New Jersey containing 2,254. Since
1790, the increase of slaves has been at the rate of thirty per cent. each
decade.
At this period numerous emancipation societies were formed, comprised
principally of the Society of Friends, and petitions were presented to
Congress, praying for the abolition of slavery. These were received with
but little comment, referred, and reported upon by a committee. The
reports stated that the general government had no power to abolish slavery
as it existed in the several States, and that the States themselves had
exclusive jurisdiction over the subject. This sentiment was generally
acquiesced in, and satisfaction and tranquility ensued, the abolition
societies thereafter limiting their exertions, in respect to the black
population, to offices of humanity within the scope of existing laws.
In fact, if we carry ourselves by historical research back to that day,
and ascertain men's opinions by authentic records still existing among us,
it will be found that there was no great diversity of opinion between the
North and the South upon the subject of slavery. The great ground of
objection to it then was political; that it weakened the social fabric;
that, taking the place of free labor, society was less strong and labor
less productive; and both sections, with an exhibition of no little
acerbity of temper and violence of language, ascribed the evil to the
injurious and aggrandizing policy of Great Britain, by whom it was first
entailed upon the Colonies. The terms of reprobation were then more severe
in the South than the North. It is a notorious fact that some of our
Northern forefathers were then the most aggravated slave dealers. They
transported the miserable captives from Africa, sold them at the South,
and were well paid for their work; and, when emancipation laws forbade the
prolongation of slavery at the North, there are living witnesses who saw
the crowds of negroes assembled along the shores of the New England and
the Middle States to be shipped to latitudes where their bondage would be
perpetual. Their posterity toil to-day in the fields of the Southern
planter.
It is a remarkable fact, also, that of the slaves imported into the United
States during a period of eighteen years, from 1790 to 1808, not less than
nine-tenths were imported for and by account of citizens of the Northern
States and subjects of Great Britain--imported in Northern and British
vessels, by Northern and British men, and delivered to Northern born and
British born consignees.
The trade was thus carried on, with all its historic inhumanity, by the
sires and grandsires of the very men and women, who, for thirty years,
have been denouncing slavery as a sin against God, and slaveholders as the
vilest class of men and tyrants who ever disgraced a civilised community;
and the very wealth in which, in a large degree, these agitators now
revel, has descended to them as the fruit of the slave trade in which
their fathers grew fat.
The following statistics of the port of Charleston, S. C., from the year
1804 to 1808, will more plainly illustrate this remark:--
Imported into Charleston from Jan. 1, 1804, to
Jan. 1, 1808, slaves 39,075
By British subjects 19,649
" French subjects 1,078
" Foreigners in Charleston 5,107
" Rhode Islanders 8,238
" Bostonians 200
" Philadelphians 200
" Hartford, citizens of 250
" Charlestonians 2,006
" Baltimoreans 750
" Savannah, citizens of 300
" Norfolk, citizens of 587
" New Orleans, citizens of 100
------ 39,075
" British, French and Northern people 35,532
" Southern people 3,543
------ 39,075
CONSIGNEES OF THESE SLAVES.
Natives of Charleston 13
Natives of Rhode Island 88
Natives of Great Britain 91
Natives of France 10
---
Total 202
It is related, that during the debate on the Missouri question, a Senator
from South Carolina introduced in the Senate of the United States a
document from the Custom House of Charleston, exhibiting the names and
owners of vessels engaged in the African slave trade. In reading the
document the name of De Wolfe was repeatedly called. De Wolfe, who was the
Senator elect from Rhode Island, was present, but had not been qualified.
The Carolina Senator was called to order. "Order!" "Order!" echoed through
the Senate Chamber. "It is contrary to order to call the name of a
Senator," said a distinguished gentleman. The Senator contended he was not
out of order, for the Senator from Rhode Island had not been qualified,
and consequently was not entitled to a seat. He appealed to the Chair. The
Chair replied, "You are correct, sir; proceed;" and proceed he did,
calling the name of De Wolfe so often, that before he had finished the
document, he had proved the honorable gentleman the importer of
three-fourths of the "poor Africans" brought to the Charleston market, and
the Rhode Island abolitionist bolted, amid the sympathies of his comrades
and the sneers of the auditors.
Such was the aspect of affairs with reference to this question at the time
of the adoption of the Constitution. The spirit of affection created and
fostered by the revolution--the cords binding together a common country in
a common struggle and a common destiny--were too strong in the breasts of
our revolutionary fathers for them to countenance the feeble efforts even
of those prompted by motives of humanity for the immediate emancipation of
the slaves, and by almost the entire North of that period they were
regarded with general disfavor, as an unwarrantable interference with an
already established institution of the country. The consequence was that
they sank into disrepute, and the country was blessed with and prospered
under their comparative cessation for a number of years. This hostile
feeling long lay dormant, and it was not until the year 1818, when
Missouri applied for admission into the Union as a State, that the period
of quiet was interrupted, and the little streams of abolitionism that had
been quietly forming, merged into the foul and noisome current which is
now devastating the land, has undermined and destroyed the Union, and is
exerting its blighting influence upon every department of the political
and social fabric.
SECOND EPOCH.