Massachusetts, which enjoys the reputation of originating all the
radicalism of the land.[22] Slavery had come to an end there, about
the year 1780; but when, or how, nobody is able to say definitely.
Some even say that it was abolished there in 1776, by the Declaration
of Independence declaring that "all men are created equal." Others
claim that, substantially the same clause, "all men are born free and
equal," incorporated into the declaration of rights in the State
Constitution of 1780, abolished slavery. There was no action of the
State Legislature on the subject, and no proclamation by the governor;
yet it was as well settled in 1783, that there was no slavery in
Massachusetts, as it is to-day. This came about by a decision of the
Supreme Court that there was no slavery in the State, it being
incompatible with the declaration of rights. "How, or by what act
particularly," says Chief Justice Shaw, "slavery was abolished in
Massachusetts, whether by the adoption of the opinion in Somerset's
case as a declaration and modification of the common law, or by the
Declaration of Independence, or by the constitution of 1780, it is not
now very easy to determine; it is rather a matter of curiosity than
utility, it being agreed on all hands that, if not abolished before,
it was by the declaration of rights." 18 Pickering, 209.[23]
Mr. Sumner asserted, in a speech in the Senate, June 28, 1854, that
"in all her annals, no person was ever born a slave on the soil of
Massachusetts." Mr. Palfrey, in his History of New England,[24]
says: "In fact, no person was ever born into legal slavery in
Massachusetts;" and Prof. Emory Washburn, in his Lecture, January 22,
1869, on "Slavery as it once prevailed in Massachusetts,"[25] says:
"Nor does the fact that they were held as slaves, where the question
as to their being such was never raised, militate with the position
already stated--that no child was ever born into _lawful_ bondage in
Massachusetts, from the year 1641 to the present hour."
These statements, in substance the same, seem like a technical
evasion. Thousands were born into actual slavery--whether it were
legal or not was poor consolation to the slave--lived as slaves, were
sold as slaves, and died as slaves in Massachusetts. They never knew
they were freemen. The number of slaves in Massachusetts in 1776 was
5,249, about half of whom were owned in Boston, which had then a
population of 17,500. The proportion of slaves to the whole population
of Boston in 1776, was six times as great as the number of colored
persons in Cincinnati to-day is to the whole population, and ten times
as great as the present proportion of colored persons in Boston.[26]
The same declaration, that "all men are created equally free and
independent," is found in the constitutions of New Hampshire and
Virginia; but it did not in these states receive the same
construction as in Massachusetts. In New Hampshire it was construed to
mean that all persons _born_ after 1784--the date of the adoption of
the Constitution--were equally free and independent. In other words,
it brought about gradual emancipation. In Virginia, it was simply a
glittering generality--it had no legal meaning.[27]
In addition to the State Societies already named, there were several
local societies in Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. All the
abolition societies in the country were in correspondence and acted
together. At the suggestion of the New York Society, a convention of
delegates was called for the purpose of deliberating on the means of
attaining their common object, and of uniting in a memorial to
Congress. Delegates from ten of these societies, including the
Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York,
Connecticut, and Rhode Island State Societies, and two local societies
on the eastern shore of Maryland, met on the first day of January,
1794, at the Select Council Chamber in Philadelphia,[28] and drew up a
joint memorial to Congress, asking for a law making the use of vessels
and men in the slave trade a penal offense. Such a law was passed by
Congress without debate.[29] These societies held annual conventions
for many years. The convention recommended that such meetings of
delegates be annually convened; that annual or periodical discourses
or orations be delivered in public on slavery and the means of its
abolition, in order that, "by the frequent application of the force of
reason and the persuasive power of eloquence, slaveholders and their
abettors may be awakened to a sense of their injustice, and be
startled with horror at the enormity of their conduct."
The convention also adopted an address "To the citizens of the United
States," which was drawn up by Dr. Benjamin Rush.[30]
Similar societies were formed in London and Paris, with whom these
societies were in constant correspondence. Pennsylvania passed an act
of gradual emancipation in 1780, and Rhode Island and Connecticut in
1784. A similar act, making all children born thereafter free, did not
pass the Legislature of New York till 1799. In the meantime these
societies were pouring in their memorials to State Legislatures and
Congress, holding meetings, distributing documents, and rousing public
sentiment to the enormities of the slave system.
The Connecticut petitioners say: "From a sober conviction of the
unrighteousness of slavery, your petitioners have long beheld with
grief our fellow-men doomed to perpetual bondage in a country which
boasts of her freedom. Your petitioners are fully of opinion that calm
reflection will at last convince the world that the whole system of
American slavery is unjust in its nature, impolitic in its principles,
and in its consequences ruinous to the industry and enterprise of the
citizens of these states."
The Virginia Society, petitioning Congress, says: "Your memorialists,
fully aware that righteousness exalteth a nation, and that slavery is
not only an odious degradation, but an outrageous violation of one of
the most essential rights of human nature, and utterly repugnant to
the precepts of the gospel, which breathes 'peace on earth and good
will to men,' lament that a practice so inconsistent with true policy
and the inalienable rights of men should subsist in so enlightened an
age, and among a people professing that all mankind are, by nature,
equally entitled to freedom."
The Pennsylvania Society memorialized Congress thus: "The memorial
respectfully showeth: That from a regard for the happiness of mankind,
an association was formed several years since in this state, by a
number of her citizens of various religious denominations, for
promoting the abolition of slavery, and for the relief of those
unlawfully held in bondage. A just and acute conception of the true
principles of liberty, as it spread through the land, produced
accessories to their numbers, many friends to their cause, and a
legislative co-operation with their views, which, by the blessing of
Divine Providence, have been successfully directed to the relieving
from bondage a large number of their fellow-creatures of the African
race. They have also the satisfaction to observe that in consequence
of that spirit of philanthropy and genuine liberty, which is generally
diffusing its beneficial influence, similar institutions are forming
at home and abroad.
"That mankind are all formed by the same Almighty Being, alike objects
of his care and equally designed for the enjoyment of happiness, the
Christian religion teaches us to believe, and the political creed of
Americans fully coincides with the position.
"Your memorialists, particularly engaged in attending to the
distresses arising from slavery, believe it their indispensable duty
to present the subject to your notice. They have observed with real
satisfaction, that many important and salutary powers are vested in
you for 'promoting the welfare and securing the blessings of liberty
to the people of the United States;' and as they conceive that these
blessings ought rightfully to be administered without distinction of
color to all descriptions of people, so they indulge themselves in the
pleasing expectation that nothing which can be done for the relief of
the unhappy objects of their care will be either omitted or delayed."
"From a persuasion that equal liberty was originally the portion, and
is still the birthright of all men, and influenced by the strong ties
of humanity and the principles of their institution, your memorialists
conceive themselves bound to use all justifiable endeavors to loosen
the bands of slavery, and promote a general enjoyment of the blessings
of freedom. Under these impressions they earnestly entreat your
serious attention to the subject of slavery; that you will be pleased
to countenance the restoration to liberty of those unhappy men, who,
alone, in this land of freedom, are degraded into perpetual bondage;
and who, amidst the general joy of surrounding freemen, are groaning
in servile subjection; that you will devise means for removing this
inconsistency from the character of the American people; and that you
will step to the very verge of the power vested in you for
discouraging every species of traffic in the persons of our
fellow-men," Annals of Congress, i, p. 1239.
This memorial was drawn up and signed by "BENJAMIN FRANKLIN,
_President_, Feb. 3, 1790." It was the last public act of that eminent
man. He died on the 17th day of the April following. It will be
observed that the memorial strikes at slavery itself, on the ground
that the institution is unjust, and a national disgrace. It was so
understood in Congress, and ruffled the equanimity of the
representatives of South Carolina and Georgia. Mr. Jackson, of
Georgia, distinguished himself in the debate by an elaborate defense
of the institution. He was especially annoyed that Dr. Franklin's name
should be attached to the memorial, "a man," he said, "who ought to
have known the constitution better."[31]
Dr. Franklin, though confined to his chamber, and suffering under a
most painful disease, could not allow the occasion to pass without
indulging his humor at the expense of Mr. Jackson. He wrote to the
editor of the _Federal Gazette_, March 23, 1790, as follows: "Reading,
last night, in your excellent paper, the speech of Mr. Jackson, in
Congress, against their meddling with the affair of slavery, or
attempting to mend the condition of the slaves, it put me in mind of a
similar one made about one hundred years since by Sidi Mehemet
Ibrahim, a member of the Divan of Algiers, which may be seen in
Martin's Account of his Consulship, anno 1687. It was against granting
the petition of a sect called _Erika_, or Purists, who prayed for the
abolition of piracy and slavery as being unjust. Mr. Jackson does not
quote it; perhaps he has not seen it. If, therefore, some of its
reasonings are to be found in his eloquent speech, it may only show
that men's interests and intellects operate, and are operated on,
with surprising similarity, in all countries and climates, whenever
they are under similar circumstances. The African's speech, as
translated, is as follows." He then goes on to make an ingenious
parody of Mr. Jackson's speech, making this African Mussulman give the
same religious, and other reasons, for not releasing the white
Christian slaves, whom they had captured by piracy, that Mr. Jackson
had made for not releasing African slaves.[32] There were inquiries in
the libraries for "Martin's Account of his Consulship," but it was
never found. The paper may be read in the second volume of Franklin's
Works, Sparks' edition, p. 518. None of Dr. Franklin's writings are
more felicitous than this _jeu d' esprit_; and it was written only
twenty-four days before his death.
In the midst of this period, when anti-slavery opinions were so
generally held by leading statesmen, the Constitution of the United
States was formed. It is due to the framers of that instrument to
state that the entire delegations from the Northern and Middle States,
and a majority of those from Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware were
inspired to a greater or less extent with these sentiments, and would
have supported any practical measures that would, in a reasonable
time, have put an end to slavery. South Carolina and Georgia
positively refused to come into the Union unless the clause, denying
to Congress the power to prohibit the importation of slaves prior to
1808, was inserted. The Northern States were not so strenuous in
opposition to this clause as Virginia and Maryland.[33] State after
state was abolishing the institution; anti-slavery opinions were
becoming universal; and it was generally supposed at the North that
slavery would soon die out. The financial and business interests of
the country were prostrated. Union at any cost must be had. The words
_slave_ and _slavery_ were carefully avoided in the draft, and the
best terms possible were made for South Carolina and Georgia. The
Constitution, as finally adopted, suited nobody; and by the narrowest
margins it escaped being rejected in all the States. The vote in the
Massachusetts Convention was 187 yeas to 168 nays; and in the Virginia
Convention, 89 yeas to 78 nays.
From this examination of the subject, we see that the popular idea,
that the political anti-slavery agitation was forced upon the South by
the North, and especially by Massachusetts, is not a correct one. In
the second period of excited controversy, from 1820 to 1830, the
South again took the lead. In 1827, there were one hundred and thirty
abolition societies in the United States. Of these one hundred and six
were in the slaveholding States, and only four in New England and New
York. Of these societies eight were in Virginia, eleven in Maryland,
two in Delaware, two in the District of Columbia, eight in Kentucky,
twenty-five in Tennessee, with a membership of one thousand, and fifty
in North Carolina, with a membership of three thousand persons.[34]
Many of these societies were the result of the personal labors of
Benjamin Lundy.
The Southampton insurrection of 1830, and indications of insurrection
in North Carolina the same year, swept away these societies and their
visible results. The fifteen years from 1830 to 1845 were the darkest
period the American slave ever saw. It was the reign of violence and
mob law at the North. This was the second great reaction. The first
commenced with the invention of the cotton-gin, by Eli Whitney, in
1793, and continued till the question of the admission of Missouri
came up in 1820. The third reaction was a failure; it commenced in
1861, and resulted in the overthrow of the institution.
In the year 1791, the date that Dr. Buchanan delivered his oration at
Baltimore, the College of William and Mary, in Virginia, conferred
upon Granville Sharp, the great abolition agitator of England, the
degree of LL. D. Granville Sharp had no other reputation than his
anti-slavery record. This slender straw shows significantly the
current of public opinion in Virginia at that time. If Granville Sharp
had come over some years later to visit the President and Fellows of
the College which had conferred upon him so distinguished a honor, it
might have been at the risk of personal liberty, if not of life.
Colleges are naturally conservative, both from principle and from
policy. Harvard College has never conferred upon Wm. Lloyd Garrison
the least of its academic honors. Wendell Phillips, its own alumnus,
the most eloquent of its living orators, and having in his veins a
strain of the best blood of Boston, has always been snubbed at the
literary and festive gatherings of the College. Southern gentlemen,
however, agitators of the divine and biblical origin of slavery, have
ever found a welcome on those occasions, for which latter courtesy the
College should be honored.
If the visitor who records his name in the register of the
Massachusetts Historical Society, will turn to the first leaf, he will
find standing at the head the autograph of Jefferson Davis. Whether
this position of honor was assigned by intention, or occurred
accidentally, I can not state. But there it is, and if you forget to
look for yourself, it will probably be shown to you by the attendant.
Mr. Davis, with his family, visited Boston in 1858, and was received
with marked attention by all. During this visit he was introduced, and
frequently came to the Athenæum, where I made his acquaintance. Among
other objects of interest in the institution, I showed him
Washington's library and this oration of Dr. Buchanan. Nothing so
fixed his attention as this; he read it and expressed himself amazed.
He had heard that such sentiments were expressed at the South, but had
never seen them.
I am conscious that while I have taxed your patience, I have given but
an imperfect presentation of the subject. If this endeavor shall serve
to incite members of the Club to investigate the subject for
themselves, my object will have been attained.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The questionable morality of Gen. Washington's motto might suggest
that it was not originally adopted by him. The sentiment, that "the
end justifies the means," has been charged, as a reproach, upon the
Jesuits. It was the motto of the Northamptonshire family from which
Gen. Washington descended, and was used by him, probably without a
thought of its Jesuitical association, or its meaning.
[2] On one of the fly-leaves, written in a boy's hand, is "Mary
Washington and George Washington." Beneath is this memorandum: "The
above is in General Washington's handwriting when nine years of age.
[Signed,] G. W. Parke Custis," who was the grandson of Mrs.
Washington, and the last surviver of the family. He was born in 1781,
and died at the Arlington House in 1857.
In the appraisement of General Washington's estate, after his death,
this book was valued at twenty-five cents, and the Miscellaneous Works
of Col. Humphreys, at three dollars. The boy's scribbling, in the one
case, and the gorgeous binding in the other, probably determined these
values. In the appendix of Mr. Everett's Life of Washington, is
printed the appraisers' inventory of Washington's library. Tracts on
Slavery was valued at $1.00; Life of John Buncle, 2 vols., $3.00;
Peregrine Pickle, 3 vols., $1.50; Humphrey Clinker, 25c., Jefferson's
Notes on Virginia, $1.50, Tom Jones, or the History of a Foundling, 3
vols., (third vol. wanting) $1.50; Gulliver's Travels, 2 vols., $1.50;
Pike's Arithmetic, $2.00.
[3] The first of these tracts is "A Serious Address to the Rulers of
America, on the Inconsistency of their Conduct respecting Slavery:
forming a contest between the encroachments of England on American
liberty, and American injustice in tolerating slavery. By a Farmer,
London," 1783. 24 pages. 8vo. The author compared, in opposite
columns, the speeches and resolutions of the members of Congress in
behalf of their own liberty, with their conduct in continuing the
slavery of others. I have never seen the name of the author of this
tract. It was extensively circulated at the time, and had much
influence in forming the anti-slavery sentiment which later existed.
Another is "An Essay on the Impolicy of the African Slave Trade. In
two Parts. By the Rev. T. Clarkson, M. A. To which is added an Oration
upon the Necessity of Establishing at Paris a Society for Promoting
the Abolition of the Trade and Slavery of the Negroes. By J. P.
Brissot de Warville. Philadelphia: Printed by Francis Bailey, for 'the
Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery and the
Relief of Free Negroes unlawfully held in Bondage.' 1789." 155 pp.
8vo.
[4] These facts may also be found in Steadman's Narrative of an
Expedition to Surinam, vol. 2. p. 160; in Bishop Grégoire's "Enquiry
into the Intellectual and Moral Faculties and Literature of Negroes,"
p. 153; in Edw. Needles' "Historical Memoir of the Pennsylvania
Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery," p. 32; and in Brissot
de Warville's New Travels in the United States, p. 287, ed. 1792.
[5] Mr. Needles says: "He was visited by William Hartshorn and Samuel
Coates of this city (Philadelphia), and gave correct answers to all
their questions--such as how many seconds there are in a year and a
half. In two minutes he answered 47,304,000. How many seconds in
seventy years, seventeen days, twelve hours. In one minute and a half,
2,110,500,800. He multiplied nine figures by nine," etc., etc.
[6] Accounts of these two black men were prepared by Dr. Rush, for the
information of the London Society.
[7] Works, iii, p. 291.
[8] In a letter to M. de Meusnier, dated January 24, 1786, Mr.
Jefferson says: "I conjecture there are six hundred and fifty thousand
negroes in the five southermost states, and not fifty thousand in the
rest. In most of the latter, effectual measures have been taken for
their future emancipation. In the former nothing is done toward that.
The disposition to emancipate them is strongest in Virginia. Those who
desire it, form, as yet, the minority of the whole state, but it bears
a respectable proportion to the whole, in numbers and weight of
character; and it is constantly recruiting by the addition of nearly
the whole of the young men as fast as they come into public life. I
flatter myself that it will take place there at some period of time
not very distant. In Maryland and North Carolina, a very few are
disposed to emancipate. In South Carolina and Georgia, not the
smallest symptom of it; but, on the contrary, these two states and
North Carolina continue importations of slaves. These have long been
prohibited in all the other states." Works, ix, p. 290.
[9] "De la Littérature des Nègres; ou Recherches aur leurs Facultès
Intellectuelles, leurs Qualités Morales et leur Littérature, Paris,
1808." 8vo. The work was translated by D. B. Warden, Secretary of the
American Legation at Paris, and printed at Brooklyn, New York, in
1810.
[10] Gen. Washington, although a slaveholder, put on record throughout
his voluminous correspondence his detestation of the system of
slavery, as practiced at the South.
M. Brissot de Warville, in connection with Gen. Lafayette and other
French philanthropists, early in the year 1788, formed at Paris the
Philanthropic Society of the Friends of Negroes, to co-operate with
those in America and London, in procuring the abolition of the traffic
in, and the slavery of, the blacks. In furtherance of this object, M.
Brissot de Warville delivered an oration in Paris, February 17, 1788,
which was translated and printed by the Pennsylvania Abolition
Society, in Philadelphia, the next year. In May of the same year, he
arrived in the United States, and wrote the most impartial and
instructive book of travels in America (with the exception of M. de
Tocqueville's), that has ever been made by a foreigner, of which
several editions in English were printed in London. His principles
brought him into intimate relations with persons who held anti-slavery
sentiments, and his work gives a very interesting epitome of the
prevalence of those sentiments at that period.