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Anti-Slavery Opinions
BEFORE THE YEAR 1800
READ BEFORE THE CINCINNATI LITERARY CLUB, NOVEMBER 16, 1872
BY WILLIAM FREDERICK POOLE
Librarian of the Public Library of Cincinnati
TO WHICH IS APPENDED A FAC SIMILE REPRINT OF DR. GEORGE BUCHANAN'S
ORATION ON THE MORAL AND POLITICAL EVIL OF SLAVERY, DELIVERED
AT A PUBLIC MEETING OF THE MARYLAND SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING
THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY, BALTIMORE, JULY 4, 1791
CINCINNATI
ROBERT CLARKE & CO.
1873
ANTI-SLAVERY OPINIONS
Before 1800.
I purpose this evening to call the attention of the Club to the state
of anti-slavery opinions in this country just prior to the year 1800.
In this examination I shall make use of a very rare pamphlet in the
library of General Washington, which seems to have escaped the notice
of writers on this subject; and shall preface my remarks on the main
topic of discussion with a brief description of the Washington
collection.
In the library of the Boston Athenæum, the visitor sees, as he enters,
a somewhat elaborately-constructed book-case, with glass front, filled
with old books. This is the library of George Washington, which came
into possession of the Athenæum in 1849. It was purchased that year
from the heirs of Judge Bushrod Washington--the favorite nephew to
whom the General left all his books and manuscripts--by Mr. Henry
Stevens, of London, with the intention of placing it in the British
Museum. Before the books were shipped, they were bought by Mr. George
Livermore and a few other literary and public-spirited gentlemen
of Boston, and presented to the Athenæum. Mr. Livermore, as
discretionary executor of the estate of Thomas Dowse, the "literary
leather-dresser" of Cambridge, added to the gift one thousand dollars,
for the purpose of printing a description and catalogue of the
collection, which has not yet been done.
The collection numbers about twelve hundred titles, of which four
hundred and fifty are bound volumes, and seven hundred and fifty are
pamphlets and unbound serials. Some books of the original library of
General Washington still remain at Mt. Vernon, and are, or were a few
years since, shown to visitors, with other curiosities.
Separated from association with their former illustrious owner, the
bound volumes, which are mostly English books, present but few
attractions. Among them are a few treatises on the art of war and
military tactics, which evidently were never much read. These were
imported after his unfortunate expedition with Braddock's army, and
before the revolutionary war. There are books on horse and cattle
diseases; on domestic medicine; on farming, and on religious
topics--such works as we might expect to find on the shelves of a
intelligent Virginia planter. It is evident that their owner was no
student or specialist. Many of the books were sent to him as presents,
with complimentary inscriptions by the donors. The bindings are all in
their original condition, and generally of the most common
description. The few exceptions were presentation copies. Col. David
Humphreys, Washington's aid-de-camp during the revolutionary war,
presents his "Miscellaneous Works," printed in 1790, bound, regardless
of expense, by some Philadelphia binder, in full red morocco, gilt and
goffered edges, and with covers and fly-leaves lined with figured
satin. As the book was for a very distinguished man, the patriotic
binder has stamped on the covers and back every device he had in his
shop. Nearly all the volumes have the bold autograph of "Go.
Washington," upon their title pages, and the well-known book-plate,
with his name, armorial bearings, and motto, _Exitus acta probat_,[1]
on the inside of the covers.
There are persons at the present day who have very positive opinions
on the subject of prose fiction, believing that great characters like
Jonathan Edwards and George Washington never read such naughty books
when they were young. Let us see. Here is the "Adventures of Peregrine
Pickle; in which are included the Memoirs of a Lady of Quality," by
Tobias Smollett, in three volumes. On the title page of the first
volume is the autograph of George Washington, written in the cramped
hand of a boy of fourteen. The work shows more evidence of having been
attentively read, even to the end of the third volume, than any in the
library. Here is the "Life and Opinions of John Buncle," a book which
it is better that boarding-school misses should not read. Yet
Washington read it, and enjoyed the fun; for it is one of the few
books he speaks of in his correspondence as having read and enjoyed.
The present generation of readers are not familiar with John Buncle.
Of the book and its author, Hazlitt says "John Buncle is the English
Rabelais. The soul of Francis Rabelais passed into Thomas Amory, the
author of John Buncle. Both were physicians, and enemies of much
gravity. Their great business was to enjoy life. Rabelais indulges his
spirit of sensuality in wine, in dried neats' tongues, in Bologna
sausages, in Botorgas. John Buncle shows the same symptoms of
inordinate satisfaction in bread and butter. While Rabelais roared
with Friar John and the monks, John Buncle gossiped with the ladies."
It is the good fortune of the youth of our age that they are served
with fun in more refined and discreet methods; yet there is a
melancholy satisfaction in finding in the life of a great historical
character like Washington, who was the embodiment of dignity and
propriety, that he could, at some period of his existence, unbend and
enjoy a book like John Buncle. He becomes, thereby, more human; and
the distance between him and ordinary mortals seems to diminish.
Thomas Comber's "Discourses on the Common Prayer," has three
autographs of his father, Augustine Washington, one of his mother,
Mary Washington, and one of his own, written when nine years of age.
The fly-leaves he had used as a practice book for writing his father's
and mother's names and his own, and for constructing monograms of the
family names.[2]
The pamphlets in the collection have intrinsically more value than the
larger works. They were nearly all contemporaneous, and were sent to
Washington by their authors, with inscriptions upon the title pages
in their authors' handwriting, of the most profound respect and
esteem. Some of these pamphlets are now exceedingly rare. In a bound
volume lettered "Tracts on Slavery," and containing several papers,
all of radical anti-slavery tendencies,[3] is the one to which I wish
especially to call your attention. It is so rare that, having shown
this copy for fifteen years to persons especially interested in this
subject, and having made the most diligent inquiry, I have never heard
of another, till within a few days since, when I learn from my friend,
Mr. George H. Moore, the librarian of the New York Historical Society,
that there is a copy in that society's library. Its title is: "An
Oration upon the Moral and Political Evil of Slavery. Delivered at a
Public Meeting of the Maryland Society for Promoting the Abolition of
Slavery and the Relief of Free Negroes and others unlawfully held in
Bondage, Baltimore, July 4, 1791. By George Buchanan, M. D., Member of
the American Philosophical Society. Baltimore: Printed by Philip
Edwards, M,DCC,XCIII." Twenty pages, octavo.
A Fourth-of-July oration in Baltimore, on the moral and political
evils of slavery, only four years after the adoption of the
Constitution, is an incident worthy of historical recognition, and a
place in anti-slavery literature. The following extracts will give an
idea of its style and range of thought:
"God hath created mankind after His own image, and granted them
liberty and independence; and if varieties may be found in their
structure and color, these are only to be attributed to the nature
of their diet and habits, as also to the soil and the climate they
may inhabit, and serve as flimsy pretexts for enslaving them.
"What, will you not consider that the Africans are men? That they
have human souls to be saved? That they are born free and
independent? A violation of these prerogatives is an infringement
upon the laws of God.
"Possessed of Christian sentiments, they fail not to exercise them
when opportunity offers. Things pleasing rejoice them, and
melancholy circumstances pall their appetites for amusements. They
brook no insults, and are equally prone to forgiveness, as to
resentments. They have gratitude also, and will even expose their
lives to wipe off the obligation of past favors; nor do they want
any of the refinements of taste, so much the boast of those who
call themselves Christians.
"The talent for music, both vocal and instrumental, appears
natural to them; neither is their genius for literature to be
despised. Many instances are recorded of men of eminence among
them. Witness Ignatius Sancho, whose letters are admired by all
men of taste. Phillis Wheatley, who distinguished herself as a
poetess; the Physician of New Orleans; the Virginia Calculator;
Banneker, the Maryland Astronomer, and many others, whom it would
be needless to mention. These are sufficient to show, that the
Africans whom you despise, whom you inhumanly treat as brutes, and
whom you unlawfully subject to slavery, are equally capable of
improvement with yourselves.
"This you may think a bold assertion; but it is not made without
reflection, nor independent of the testimony of many who have
taken pains in their education. Because you see few, in comparison
to their number, who make any exertion of ability at all, you are
ready to enjoy the common opinion that they are an inferior set
of beings, and destined to the cruelties and hardships you impose
upon them.
"But be cautious how long you hold such sentiments; the time may
come when you will be obliged to abandon them. Consider the
pitiable situation of these most distressed beings, deprived of
their liberty and reduced to slavery. Consider also that they toil
not for themselves from the rising of the sun to its going down,
and you will readily conceive the cause of their inaction. What
time or what incitement has a slave to become wise? There is no
great art in hilling corn, or in running a furrow; and to do this
they know they are doomed, whether they seek into the mysteries of
science or remain ignorant as they are.
"To deprive a man of his liberty has a tendency to rob his soul of
every spring to virtuous actions; and were slaves to become
fiends, the wonder could not be great. 'Nothing more assimulates a
man to a beast,' says the learned Montesquieu, 'than being among
freemen, himself a slave; for slavery clogs the mind, perverts the
moral faculty, and reduces the conduct of man to the standard of
brutes.' What right have you to expect greater things of these
poor mortals? You would not blame a brute for committing ravages
upon his prey; nor ought you to censure a slave for making
attempts to regain his liberty, even at the risk of life itself.
"Such are the effects of subjecting man to slavery, that it
destroys every human principle, vitiates the mind, instills ideas
of unlawful cruelties, and subverts the springs of government.
"What a distressing scene is here before us? America, I start at
your situation! These direful effects of slavery demand your most
serious attention. What! shall a people who flew to arms with the
valor of Roman citizens when encroachments were made upon their
liberties by the invasion of foreign powers, now basely descend to
cherish the seed and propagate the growth of the evil which they
boldly sought to eradicate? To the eternal infamy of our country
this will be handed down to posterity, written in the blood of
African innocence. If your forefathers have been degenerate enough
to introduce slavery into your country to contaminate the minds of
her citizens, you ought to have the virtue of extirpating it.
"In the first struggles for American freedom, in the enthusiastic
ardor of attaining liberty and independence, one of the most noble
sentiments that ever adorned the human breast was loudly
proclaimed in all her councils. Deeply penetrated with the sense
of equality, they held it as a fixed principle, 'that all men are
by nature, and of right ought to be, free; that they were created
equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable
rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness. Nevertheless, _when_ the blessings of peace were
showered upon them; _when_ they had obtained these rights which
they had so boldly contended for, _then_ they became apostates to
their principles, and riveted the fetters of slavery upon the
unfortunate African.
"Deceitful men! Who could have suggested that American patriotism
would at this day countenance a conduct so inconsistent; that
while America boasts of being a land of freedom, and an asylum for
the oppressed of Europe, she should at the same time foster an
abominable nursery of slaves to check the shoots of her growing
liberty? Deaf to the clamors of criticism, she feels no remorse,
and blindly pursues the object of her destruction; she encourages
the propagation of vice, and suffers her youth to be reared in the
habits of cruelty. Not even the sobs and groans of injured
innocence which reek from every state can excite her pity, nor
human misery bend her heart to sympathy. Cruel and oppressive she
wantonly abuses the rights of man, and willingly sacrifices her
liberty upon the altar of slavery.
"What an opportunity is here given for triumph among her enemies!
Will they not exclaim that, upon this very day, while the
Americans celebrate the anniversary of freedom and independence,
abject slavery exists in all her states but one?
[Note--Massachusetts.] How degenerately base to merit the rebuke!
Fellow countrymen, let the heart of humanity awake and direct your
councils. Combine to drive the fiend monster from your
territories.
"Your laborers are slaves, and they have no incentive to be
industrious; they are clothed and victualed, whether lazy or
hard-working; and, from the calculations that have been made, one
freeman is worth two slaves in the field, which make it in many
instances cheaper to have hirelings; for they are incited to
industry by hopes of reputation and future employment, and are
careful of their apparel and their implements of husbandry, where
they must provide them for themselves; whereas the others have
little or no temptation to attend to any of these circumstances.
"Fellow countrymen, let the hand of persecution be no longer
raised against you; act virtuously; 'do unto all men as you would
that they should do unto you,' and exterminate the pest of slavery
from the land."
The orator then goes on to hold up the horrors of an insurrection. He
reminds his hearers that in many parts of the South the number of
slaves exceeds that of the whites. He reminds them that these slaves
are naturally born free and have a right to freedom; that they will
not forever sweat under the yoke of slavery. "Heaven," he says, "will
not overlook such enormities. She is bound to punish impenitent
sinners, and her wrath is to be dreaded by all. What, then, if the
fire of liberty shall be kindled among them? What if some enthusiast
in their cause shall beat to arms and call them to the standard of
freedom? Led on by the hopes of freedom and animated by the inspiring
voice of their leaders, they would soon find that 'a day, an hour of
virtuous liberty was worth a whole eternity of bondage.'
"Hark! methinks I hear the work begun; the blacks have sought for
allies and have found them in the wilderness, and have called the
rusty savages to their assistance, and are preparing to take revenge
upon their haughty masters."
To this threatening passage the orator has appended a note, in which
he says: "This was thrown out as a conjecture of what possibly might
happen; and the insurrections of San Domingo tend to prove this danger
to be more considerable than has generally been supposed, and
sufficient to alarm the inhabitants of these states."
The contingency, which he thought might possibly happen, did actually
occur thirty-nine years later, when an insurrection broke out, August,
1830, in Southampton county, Virginia, under the lead of Nat Turner, a
fanatical negro preacher, in which sixty-one white men, women, and
children were murdered before it was suppressed.
He recommends immediate emancipation; and if this can not be done,
"then," he says, "let the children be liberated at a certain age, and
in less than half a century the plague will be totally rooted out from
among you; thousands of good citizens will be added to your number,
and gratitude will induce them to become your friends."
This remarkable oration suggests some interesting questions of
historical inquiry. How far do these opinions represent the current
sentiments of that time on the subject of slavery? It will be seen
that they are of the most radical type. I am not aware that Wendell
Phillips or Wm. Lloyd Garrison ever claimed that the negro race was
equal in its capacity for improvement to the white race. While its
rhetoric was more chaste, they certainly never denounced the system in
more vigorous and condemnatory terms.
Forty-four years later (October 21, 1835), Mr. Garrison was waited
upon, in open day, by a mob of most respectable citizens, while
attending a meeting of the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society, dragged
through the streets of Boston with a rope around his body, and locked
up in jail by the Mayor of that sedate city to protect him from his
assailants. On the 4th of July, 1834, a meeting of the American
Anti-Slavery Society was broken up in New York, and the house of Lewis
Tappan was sacked by mob violence. A month later, in the city of
Philadelphia a mob against anti-slavery and colored men raged for
three days and nights. On the 28th of July, 1836, a committee of
thirteen citizens of Cincinnati, appointed by a public meeting, of
whom Jacob Burnet, late United States Senator and Judge of the Supreme
Court of Ohio, was chairman, waited upon Mr. James G. Birney and other
members of the executive committee of the Ohio Anti-Slavery Society,
under whose direction the "Philanthropist," an anti-slavery
newspaper, was printed here, and informed them that unless they
desisted from its publication the meeting would not be responsible for
the consequences. Judge Burnet stated that the mob would consist of
five thousand persons, and that two-thirds of the property holders of
the city would join it. The committee gave Mr. Birney and his friends
till the next day to consider the question, when they decided to make
no terms with the rioters and to abide the consequences. That night
the office was sacked, and the press of the "Philanthropist" was
thrown into the Ohio river.
But here was an oration delivered in the city of Baltimore in the year
1791, advancing the most extreme opinions, and it created not a ripple
on the surface of Southern society.
That the opinions of the oration did not offend those to whom it was
addressed, the official action of the Society, which is printed on the
third page, attests. It is as follows:
"At a special meeting of the 'Maryland Society for Promoting the
Abolition of Slavery and the Relief of Free Negroes and others
Unlawfully held in Bondage,' held at Baltimore, July 4, 1791,
unanimously
"_Resolved_, That the president present the thanks of the Society
to Dr. George Buchanan, for the excellent oration by him delivered
this day, and, at the same time, request a copy thereof in the
name and for the use of the Society.
"Signed--Samuel Sterett, President; Alex. McKim, Vice-President;
Joseph Townsend, Secretary."
The oration has this dedication:
"To the Honorable Thomas Jefferson, Esq., Secretary of State,
whose patriotism since the American Revolution has been uniformly
marked by a sincere, steady, and active attachment to the interest
of his country, and whose literary abilities have distinguished
him amongst the first of statesmen and philosophers--this oration
is respectfully inscribed, as an humble testimony of the highest
regard and esteem, by the Author."
The author was evidently a straight Democrat.
Seven years ago I copied this oration with the intention of reprinting
it, with a brief historical introduction, supposing I could readily
find the few facts I needed. But in this I was disappointed. Who was
Dr. George Buchanan? That he was a member of the American
Philosophical Society at Philadelphia was apparent on the title page;
but that was all I could learn of him from books or inquiry. I then
wrote to a historical friend in Baltimore to make inquiry for me
there, and I received letters from the author's son, McKean Buchanan,
senior paymaster in the United Stares navy, since deceased, and from
two grandsons, Mr. George B. Coale and Dr. Wm. Edw. Coale, giving
full particulars, which I will condense:
Dr. George Buchanan was born on an estate, five miles from Baltimore,
September 19, 1763, and for many years was a practicing physician in
Baltimore. He was a son of Andrew Buchanan, who was also born in
Maryland, and was General in the Continental troops of Maryland during
the Revolution, and was one of the Commissioners who located the city
of Baltimore. Dr. George Buchanan studied medicine and took a degree
at Philadelphia. He then went to Europe and studied medicine at
Edinburgh, and later at Paris, taking degrees at both places.
Returning to Baltimore, he married Letitia, daughter of the Hon.
Thomas McKean, an eminent jurist, who was a member of the Continental
Congress, one of the Signers the Declaration of Independence, and was
Governor of Pennsylvania from 1799 to 1806. In 1806, Dr. Buchanan
removed to Philadelphia, and died the next year of yellow fever, in
the discharge of his official duties as Lazaretto physician. His
eldest son was Paymaster McKean Buchanan, before mentioned. His
youngest son was Franklin Buchanan, captain in the United States navy
till he resigned, April 19, 1861, and went into the so-called
Confederate navy. He was, with the rank of Admiral, in command of the
iron-clad "Merrimac," and was wounded in the conflict of that vessel
with the monitor "Ericsson," at Hampton Roads, March 9, 1862, and was
later captured by Admiral Farragut in Mobile harbor.
"My brother," writes one of the grandsons, "told me that the last time
he saw Henry Clay, Mr. Clay took his hand in both of his and said,
with great emphasis: 'It is to your grandfather that I owe my present
position with regard to slavery. It was he who first pointed out to me
the curse it entailed on the white man, and the manifold evils it
brings with it.'"
In determining how far the sentiments contained in this oration were
the current opinions of the time, it became necessary for me to know
something definite of the "Maryland Society for the Abolition of
Slavery," of the Virginia, the Pennsylvania, and other societies,
which existed at that time. This information I could not obtain from
anti-slavery books, or from the most prominent abolitionists whom I
consulted. The matter seemed to have been forgotten, and it was the
common idea that there was nothing worth remembering of the
anti-slavery movement before 1830, when Mr. Garrison and his radical
friends came upon the stage in Boston. For the want of the facts I
needed, I laid aside the idea of reproducing the tract. The subject
was brought again to mind by hearing the excellent paper, by Mr. S. E.
Wright, our secretary, on the anti-slavery labors of Benjamin Lundy,
which he read to this Club, a few months ago. The labors of Mr. Lundy
began in 1816, and ended with his death in 1839. Quite recently I
have obtained much of the information I needed.
Among the unknown facts to which I could get no clue at the time I
have mentioned, were the names of the "Virginia Calculator" and the
"Physician of New Orleans," whom Dr. Buchanan mentions with Phillis
Wheatley, Ignatius Sancho, and Banneker, the Maryland astronomer, as
being negroes who were distinguished for their literary and
mathematical acquirements. Mr. Phillips had never heard of them, and
he took the trouble to make inquiries among his anti-slavery friends,
but without success.
A year or more after I had abandoned my little project, in looking
over the files of the Columbian Centinal, printed in Boston, for 1790,
I found under the date of December 29th, in the column of deaths, the
following:
"DIED--Negro Tom, the famous African calculator, aged 80 years. He
was the property of Mrs. Elizabeth Cox, of Alexandria. Tom was a
very black man. He was brought to this country at the age of
fourteen, and was sold as a slave with many of his unfortunate
countrymen. This man was a prodigy. Though he could neither read
nor write, he had perfectly acquired the use of enumeration. He
could give the number of months, days, weeks, hours, and seconds,
for any period of time that a person chose to mention, allowing in
his calculations for all the leap years that happened in the
time. He would give the number of poles, yards, feet, inches, and
barley-corns in a given distance--say, the diameter of the earth's
orbit--and in every calculation he would produce the true answer
in less time than ninety-nine out of a hundred men would take with
their pens. And what was, perhaps, more extraordinary, though
interrupted in the progress of his calculations, and engaged in
discourse upon any other subject, his operations were not thereby
in the least deranged; he would go on where he left off, and could
give any and all of the stages through which the calculation had
passed.
"Thus died Negro Tom, this untaught arithmetician, this untutored
scholar. Had his opportunities of improvement been equal to those
of thousands of his fellow-men, neither the Royal Society of
London, the Academy of Science at Paris, nor even a Newton himself
need have been ashamed to acknowledge him a brother in science."
This obituary was doubtless extracted from a Southern newspaper. A
fact once found is easily found again. I have come across the name of
this unlettered negro prodigy many times since, with the substance of
the facts already stated. In a letter which Dr. Benj. Rush, of
Philadelphia, addressed to a gentleman in Manchester, England, he says
that, hearing of the astonishing powers of Negro Tom, he, in company
with other gentlemen passing through Virginia, sent for him. A
gentleman of the company asked Tom how many seconds a man of seventy
years, some odd months, weeks, and days had lived. He told the exact
number in a minute and a half. The gentleman took a pen, and having
made the calculation by figures, told the negro that he must be
mistaken, as the number was too great. "'Top, massa," said the negro
"you hab left out de leap years." On including the leap years in the
calculation, the number given by the negro was found to be correct.[4]
That Dr. Buchanan did not mention his name is explained by the fact
that he died only six months before; and the audience, who had
doubtless read the obituary notice just recited, or a similar one,
knew who was meant. Besides, he was a native African, and had no name
worth having. He was only Negro Tom. In Bishop Grégoire's work,
however, he is ennobled by the by the name of Thomas Fuller, and in
Mr. Needles' Memoir the name of Thomas Tuller.[5]
Why Dr. Buchanan should have omitted to mention the name of "the New
Orleans physician" does not appear, unless it be that he was equally
well known. His name, I have found recently, was James Derham. Dr.
Rush, in the American Museum for January, 1789, gave an account of Dr.
Derham, who was then a practitioner of medicine at New Orleans, and,
at the time the notice was written, was visiting in Philadelphia. He
was twenty-six years of age, married, member of the Episcopal Church,
and having a professional income of three thousand dollars a year. He
was born in Philadelphia a slave, and was taught to read and write,
and occasionally to compound medicines for his master, who was a
physician. On the death of his master he was sold to the surgeon of
the Sixteenth British regiment, and at the close of the war was sold
to Dr. Robert Dove, of New Orleans, who employed him as an assistant
in his business. He manifested such capacity, and so won the
confidence and friendship of his master, that he was liberated on easy
terms after two or three years' service, and entered into practice for
himself. "I have conversed with him," says Dr. Rush, "upon most of the
acute and epidemic diseases of the country where he lives. I expected
to have suggested some new medicines to him, but he suggested many
more to me. He is very modest and engaging in his manners. He speaks
French fluently, and has some knowledge of the Spanish."[6]
It was unfortunate that these incidents had not occurred early enough
to have come to the knowledge of Mr. Jefferson before he wrote his
"Notes on Virginia." These were precisely the kind of facts he was in
quest of. He probably would have used them, and have strengthened the
opinions he there expressed as to the intellectual capacity of the
negro race.
His "Notes on Virginia" were written in 1781-2. His condemnation of
slavery in that work is most emphatic. "The whole commerce between
master and slave," he says, "is a perpetual exercise of the most
boisterous passions; the most unremitting despotism on the one part,
and degrading submission on the other. Our children see this and learn
to imitate it.... The parent storms, the child looks on, catches the
lineaments of wrath, puts on the same airs in the circle of smaller
slaves, gives loose to his worst of passions; and thus nursed,
educated, and daily exercised in tyranny, can not but be stamped by it
with odious peculiarities. The man must be a prodigy who can retain
his manners and morals undepraved by such circumstances. With what
execration should the statesman be loaded, who, permitting one-half
the citizens thus to trample on the rights of the other, transforms
those into despots and these into enemies--destroys the morals of the
one part, and the _amor patriæ_ of the other?... Can the liberties of
a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm
basis--a conviction in the minds of men that these liberties are the
gift of God; that they are not to be violated but with His wrath?
Indeed, I tremble for my country, when I reflect that God is
just--that His justice can not sleep forever." Pp. 270-272, ed. Lond.,
1787.
On the practical question, "What shall be done about it?" Mr.
Jefferson's mind wavered; he was in doubt. How can slavery be
abolished? He proposed, in Virginia, a law, which was rejected, making
all free who were born after the passage of the act. And here again he
hesitated. What will become of these people after they are free? What
are their capacities? He had never seen an educated negro. He had
heard of Phillis Wheatley and Ignatius Sancho. He did not highly
estimate the poetry of the one, or the sentimental letters of the
other. He was willing to admit, however, that a negro could write
poetry and sentimental letters. Beyond this all was in doubt. He
regarded it as highly probable that they could do nothing more. He
says: "Comparing them by their faculties of memory, reason, and
imagination, it appears to me that in memory they are equal to the
whites; in reason much inferior, as I think one could scarcely be
found capable of tracing and comprehending the investigations of
Euclid"--p. 232. He doubtingly adds: "The opinion that they are
inferior in the faculties of reason and imagination must be hazarded
with great diffidence. To justify a general conclusion requires many
observations"--p. 238. The opportunity for making these observations
he had never had.
It so happened that soon after writing this, Banneker, the Maryland
negro astronomer, who had distinguished himself in the very faculty of
mathematical reasoning which Mr. Jefferson had supposed no negro
possessed, sent him his Almanac, with a letter. To the letter Mr.
Jefferson replied as follows:
"I thank you sincerely for your letter of the 19th instant, and
for the Almanac it contained. Nobody wishes more than I do to see
such proofs as you exhibit, that nature has given to our black
brethren talents equal to those of other colors of men, and that
the appearance of a want of them is owing merely to the degraded
condition of their existence, both in Africa and America. I can
add with truth, that nobody wishes more ardently to see a good
system commenced for raising the condition, both of their body and
mind, to what it ought to be, as fast as the imbecility of their
present existence, and other circumstances which can not be
neglected, will admit. I have taken the liberty of sending your
Almanac to Monsieur de Condorcet, Secretary of the Academy of
Sciences at Paris, and member of the Philanthropic Society,
because I consider it a document to which your color had a right
for their justification against the doubts which have been
entertained of them. I am, with great esteem, sir, your most
obedient, humble servant,
"THOS. JEFFERSON."[7]
The next instances of precocious black men which must have come to his
knowledge were, doubtless, Negro Tom, in whom the mathematical faculty
was strangely developed, and James Derham, the New Orleans physician.
If Mr. Jefferson had rewritten his "Notes," he would, probably, have
included mathematics and medicine among the special subjects which
were peculiarly adapted to the capacities of the negro mind.
It was not the question of the natural rights of the negro, the
prejudice of color, nor of the ruinous improvidence of the system of
slavery, that controlled the decision in Mr. Jefferson's mind, as to
the methods by which the system should be terminated. On these points,
he was as radical as the extremest abolitionist; but he could not
satisfy himself as to the mental capacity of the negro--whether he had
the full complement of human capabilities, and the qualifications for
equality of citizenship with the white man; for he saw that
emancipation, without expatriation, meant nothing else than giving the
black man all the rights of citizenship. The theory that the negro is
a decaudalized ape, a progressing chimpanzee, is an invention of the
last forty years, and contemporaneous with the discovery that the
Bible sanctions slavery. He was, on the whole, inclined to the opinion
that they were an inferior race of beings, and that their residence,
in a state of freedom, among white men was incompatible with the
happiness of both. He thought they had better be emancipated, and sent
out of the country. He therefore took up with the colonization scheme
long before the Colonization Society was founded. He did not feel sure
on this point. With his practical mind, he could not see how a half
million of slaves could be sent out of the country, even if they were
voluntarily liberated;[8] where they should be sent to, or how
unwilling masters could be compelled to liberate their slaves. While,
therefore, he did not favor immediate emancipation, he was zealous for
no other scheme.
Bishop Grégoire, of Paris, felt deeply hurt at Mr. Jefferson's low
estimate of the negro's mental capacity, and wrote to him a sharp
letter on the subject. Later, the Bishop sent a copy of his own book
on the Literature of Negroes.[9] Acknowledging the receipt of the
Bishop's book, Mr. Jefferson says:
"Be assured that no person living wishes more sincerely than I do,
to see a complete refutation of the doubts I have myself
entertained and expressed on the grade and understanding allotted
to them by nature, and to find that, in this respect, they are on
a par with ourselves. My doubts were the result of personal
observation on the limited sphere of my own State, where the
opportunities for the development of their genius were not
favorable, and those of exercising it still less so. I expressed
them, therefore, with great hesitation; but whatever be their
degree of talent, it is no measure of their rights. Because Sir
Isaac Newton was superior to others in understanding, he was not
therefore lord of the person and property of others. On this
subject they are gaining daily in the opinions of nations, and
hopeful advances are making toward their re-establishment on an
equal footing with other colors of the human family. I pray you,
therefore, to accept my thanks for the many instances you have
enabled me to observe of respectable intelligence in that race of
men, which can not fail to have effect in hastening the day of
their relief." Works, v, p. 429.
Writing to another person a few months later, he alludes to this
letter and says: "As to Bishop Grégoire, I wrote him a very soft
answer. It was impossible for a doubt to be more tenderly or
hesitatingly expressed than it was in the Notes on Virginia; and
nothing was, or is, further from my intentions than to enlist myself
as a champion of a fixed opinion, where I have only expressed a
doubt." Works, v, p. 476.
Mr. Jefferson never got beyond his doubt; and Bishop Grégoire resented
his passive position by omitting Mr. Jefferson's name from a list of
fourteen Americans, which included Mr. Madison, William Pinkney, Dr.
Benj. Rush, Timothy Dwight, Col. Humphreys, and Joel Barlow, to whom,
with other philanthropists, he dedicated his book.
Washington, Madison, Patrick Henry, George Mason, and nearly all the
public men of Virginia and Maryland of that period were in much the
same state of mind as Jefferson.[10] So was Henry Clay at a later
period.
Mr. Jefferson, in August, 1785, wrote a letter to Dr. Richard Price,
of London, author of a treatise on Liberty, in which very advanced
opinions were taken on the slavery question. Concerning the
prevalence of anti-slavery opinions at that period, he says:
"Southward of the Chesapeake your book will find but few readers
concurring with it in sentiment on the subject of slavery. From the
mouth to the head of the Chesapeake, the bulk of the people will
approve its theory, and it will find a respectable minority, a
minority ready to adopt it in practice; which, for weight and worth of
character, preponderates against the greater number who have not the
courage to divest their families of a property which, however, keeps
their consciences unquiet. Northward of the Chesapeake you may find,
here and there, an opponent to your doctrine, as you find, here and
there, a robber and murderer, but in no greater number. In that part
of America there are but few slaves, and they can easily disincumber
themselves of them; and emancipation is put in such a train that in a
few years there will be no slaves northward of Maryland. In Maryland I
do not find such a disposition to begin the redress of this enormity
as in Virginia. These [the inhabitants of Virginia] have sucked in the
principles of liberty, as it were, with their mothers' milk, and it is
to these I look with anxiety to turn the fate of this question. Be
not, therefore, discouraged. The College of William and Mary in
Williamsburg, since the remodeling of its plan, is the place where
are collected together all the young men of Virginia under preparation
for public life. There they are under the direction (most of them) of
a Mr. George Wythe [Professor of Law from 1779 to 1789], one of the
most virtuous of characters, and whose sentiments on the subject of
slavery are unequivocal. I am satisfied if you could resolve to
address an exhortation to these young men, with all the eloquence of
which you are master, that its influence on the future decision of
this important question would be great, perhaps decisive."[11] Works,
i, p. 377.
There was great progress in anti-slavery sentiment between 1785 and
1791, when Maryland was fully awake, as we see from Dr. Buchanan's
Oration. In proof of this progress, it may be stated that, in 1784,
Mr. Jefferson drew up an ordinance for the government of the Western
territories, in which he inserted an article prohibiting slavery in
the territories after the year 1800. On reporting the ordinance to the
Continental Congress, the article prohibiting slavery was forthwith
stricken out, and the report, as amended, was accepted; but the
ordinance itself was a dead letter. Three years later, the celebrated
Ordinance of 1787, for the organization of the Northwest Territory,
embracing what is now the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan,
and Wisconsin, was reported by a committee consisting of Edward
Carrington of Virginia, Nathan Dane of Massachusetts, Richard Henry
Lee of Virginia, John Kean of South Carolina, and Melanethon Smith of
New York, acting under the advice of Dr. Mannasseh Cutler, citizen of
Massachusetts, who was then in New York, attending the session of
Congress, for the purpose of buying land for the Ohio Company, which
made, the next year, the first English settlement in that Territory,
at Marietta. The Ordinance provided that "there shall be neither
slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said Territory." It was
passed without debate, or the offer (except by the committee) of an
amendment, by the vote of every state. A few years earlier or later,
such a vote would have been impossible.[12] Just before this date,
commenced the great Southern awakening on the subject of slavery, of
which so little is now known, and of which Dr. Buchanan's Oration is
an illustration.
There never has been a time since 1619, when the first slave ship, a
Dutch man-of-war, entered James river, in Virginia, when in our
country there were not persons protesting against the wickedness and
impolicy of the African slave trade and of the domestic slave system.
Slavery was introduced into the American colonies, against the wishes
of the settlers, by the avarice of British traders and with the
connivance of the British government. Just previous to the Revolution,
the Colony of Massachusetts made several attempts to relieve itself
of the incubus, and the acts of the General Court were smothered or
vetoed by three successive Governors, under the plea that they had
such instructions from England. In 1772, the Assembly of Virginia
petitioned the throne of England to stop the importation of slaves,
using language as follows: "We are encouraged to look up to the throne
and implore your Majesty's paternal assistance in averting a calamity
of a most alarming nature. The importation of slaves into the colonies
from the coast of Africa hath long been considered as a trade of great
inhumanity, and under its present encouragement, we have much reason
to fear will endanger the very existence of your Majesty's dominions.
Deeply impressed with these sentiments, we most humbly beseech your
Majesty to remove all restraints on your Majesty's Governors of this
colony, which inhibit to their assisting to such laws as might check
so very pernicious a commerce." No notice was taken of the petition by
the crown. This was the principal grievance complained of by Virginia
at the commencement of the revolutionary war.
The limits allowed me forbid my giving even a sketch of legislative
action, of the opinions of great men, of the labors of Samuel Sewall,
George Keith, Samuel Hopkins, William Burling, Ralph Sandiford,
Anthony Benezet, Benjamin Lay, John Woolman, and others, and of the
literature of the subject, from the beginning of the irrepressible
conflict in 1619 down to the period we are considering.[13]
The revolutionary war, and the questions which then arose, turned the
thoughts of men, as never before, to the injustice and impolicy of
slavery. At the first general Congress of the colonies, held at
Philadelphia in 1774, Mr. Jefferson presented an exposition of rights,
in which he says: "The abolition of slavery is the greatest object of
desire in these colonies, when it was unhappily introduced in their
infant state." Among the "articles of association" adopted by that
Congress, October 20, 1774, was this: "That we will neither import,
nor purchase any slave imported, after the first day of December next,
nor will we hire our vessels, nor sell our commodities or manufactures
to those who are concerned in the slave trade."
The first anti-slavery society, in this or any other country, was
formed April 14, 1775, at the Sun Tavern, on Second street, in
Philadelphia. The original members of this society were mostly, and
perhaps all of them, Friends or Quakers. This religious society had,
for any years earnestly protested against slavery. As early as 1696
the yearly meeting had cautioned its members against encouraging the
bringing in of any more negroes. In 1743, and, again in 1755, the
annual query was made, whether their members were clear of importing
or buying slaves. In 1758, those who disobeyed the advice of the
yearly meeting were placed under discipline; and in 1776, those who
continued to hold slaves over the lawful age, were disowned.[14]
The first anti-slavery society took the name of "The Society for the
Relief of Free Negroes unlawfully held in Bondage."[15] The society
met four times in 1775, and on account of the war no meeting occurred
again until February, 1784. I was so fortunate to find among some
pamphlets, presented to our Public Library a short time since, an
original copy of the "Rules and Regulations" of this society, printed
in 1784, which I have here.[16] Regular meetings were held till
April, 1787, when the constitution was revised and made to include the
"Abolition of Slavery" as well as the "Relief of Free Negroes" and Dr.
Benjamin Franklin was chosen president, and Benjamin Rush, secretary,
both signers of the Declaration of Independence.[17]
The society entered with zeal upon its mission, circulating its
documents, and opening a correspondence with eminent men in the United
States and in Europe.[18]
The New York "Society for Promoting the Manumission of Slaves" was
organized January 25, 1785, and John Jay was the first president. On
being appointed Chief Justice of the United States, he resigned, and
Alexander Hamilton was appointed to his place. This society circulated
gratuitously Dr. Samuel Hopkins's Dialogue on Slavery, and Address to
Slaveholders, and other documents. In 1787, the Society offered a
gold medal for the best discourse, at the public commencement of
Columbia College, on the injustice and cruelty of the slave-trade, and
the fatal effects of slavery. The London Society was organized July
17, 1787; the Paris Society in February, 1788;[19] and the Delaware
Society the same year.[20] The Maryland Society was formed September
8, 1789,[21] and the same year the Rhode Island Society was organized
in the house of Dr. Hopkins, at Newport. In 1790, the Connecticut
Society was formed, of which Dr. Ezra Stiles, President of Yale
College, and Judge Simeon Baldwin, were the president and secretary.
The Virginia Society was formed in 1791; and the New Jersey Society in
1792.
The principal officers of these societies were not fanatics; they were
most eminent men in the land--judges of the courts, members of the
Constitutional Convention and of the Continental and United States
Congress.