British Merchants. The British Govt. constantly checked the
attempts of Virginia to put a stop to it. The present question
concerns not the importing States alone but the whole Union. The
evil of having slaves was experienced during the late war. Had
slaves been treated as they might have been by the Enemy, they
would have proved dangerous instruments in their hands. But their
folly dealt by the slaves, as it did by the Tories. He mentioned
the dangerous insurrections of the slaves in Greece and Sicily;
and the instructions given by Cromwell to the Commissioners sent
to Virginia to arm the servants & slaves, in case other means of
obtaining its submission should fail. Maryland & Virginia he said
had already prohibited the importation of slaves expressly. N.
Carolina had done the same in substance. All this would be in
vain if S. Carolina & Georgia be at liberty to import. The
Western people are already calling out for slaves for their new
lands; and will fill that Country with slaves if they can be got
thro' S. Carolina & Georgia. Slavery discourages arts &
manufactures. The poor despise labor when performed by slaves.
They prevent the immigration of Whites, who really enrich &
strengthen a Country. They produce the most pernicious effect on
manners. Every master of slaves is born a petty tyrant. They
bring the judgment of heaven on a Country. As nations can not be
rewarded or punished in the next world they must be in this. By
an inevitable chain of causes & effects providence punishes
national calamities. He lamented that some of our Eastern
brethren had from a lust of gain embarked in this nefarious
traffic. As to the States being in possession of the Right to
import, this was the case with many other rights, now to be
properly given up. He held it essential in every point of view,
that the Genl. Govt. should have power to prevent the increase of
slavery.
Mr. Ellsworth. As he had never owned a slave could not judge of
the effects of slavery on character. He said however that if it
was to be considered in a moral light we ought to go farther and
free those already in the Country.--As slaves also multiply so
fast in Virginia & Maryland that it is cheaper to raise than
import them, whilst in the sickly rice swamps foreign supplies
are necessary, if we go no farther than is urged, we shall be
unjust towards S. Carolina & Georgia--Let us not intermeddle. As
population increases; poor laborers will be so plenty as to
render slaves useless. Slavery in time will not be a speck in our
Country. Provision is already taken place in Connecticut for
abolishing it. And the abolition has already taken place in
Massachusetts. As to the danger of insurrection from foreign
influence, that will become a motive to kind treatment of the
slaves.
Mr. Pinkney--If slavery be wrong, it is justified by the example
of the world. He cited the case of Greece, Rome & other ancient
States; the sanction given by France, England, Holland & other
modern States. In all ages one half of mankind have been slaves.
If the S. States were let alone they will probably of themselves
stop importations. He wd. himself as a Citizen of S. Carolina
vote for it. An attempt to take away the right as proposed will
produce serious objections to the Constitution which he wished to
see adopted.
General Pinkney declared it to be his firm opinion that if
himself & all his colleagues were to sign the Constitution & use
their personal influence, it would be of no avail towards
obtaining the assent of their Constituents. S. Carolina & Georgia
cannot do without slaves. As to Virginia she will gain by
stopping the importations. Her slaves will rise in value, & she
has more than she wants. It would be unequal to require S. C. &
Georgia to confederate on such unequal terms. He said the Royal
assent before the Revolution had never been refused to S.
Carolina as to Virginia. He contended that the importation of
slaves would be for the interest of the whole Union. The more
slaves, the more produce to employ the carrying trade; the more
consumption also, and the more of this, the more of revenue for
the common treasury. He admitted it to be reasonable that slaves
should be dutied like other imports, but should consider a
rejection of the clause as an exclusion of S. Carola from the
Union.
Mr. Baldwin had conceived national object alone to be before the
Convention, not such as like the present were of a local nature.
Georgia was decided on this point. That State has always hitherto
supposed a Genl Government to be the pursuit of the central
States who wished to have a vortex for every thing--that her
distance would preclude her from equal advantage--& that she
could not prudently purchase it by yielding national powers. From
this it might be understood in what light she would view an
attempt to abridge one of her favorite prerogatives. If left to
herself, she may probably put a stop to the evil. As one ground
for this conjecture, he took notice of the sect of which he said
was a respectable class of people, who carryed their ethics
beyond the mere _equality of men_, extending their humanity to
the claims of the whole animal creation.
Mr. Wilson observed that if S. C. & Georgia were themselves
disposed to get rid of the importation of slaves in a short time
as had been suggested, they would never refuse to unite because
the importation might be prohibited. As the Section now stands
all articles imported are to be taxed. Slaves alone are exempt.
This is in fact a bounty on that article.
Mr. Gerry thought we had nothing to do with the conduct of the
States as to Slaves, but ought to be careful not to give any
sanction to it.
Mr. Dickinson considered it as inadmissible on every principle of
honor & safety that the importation of slaves should be
authorized to the States by the Constitution. The true question
was whether the national happiness would be promoted or impeded
by the importation, and this question ought to be left to the
National Govt. not to the States particularly interested. If
Engd. & France permit slavery, slaves are at the same time
excluded from both those kingdoms. Greece and Rome were made
unhappy by their slaves. He could not believe that the Southn.
States would refuse to confederate on the account apprehended;
especially as the power was not likely to be immediately
exercised by the Genl. Government.
Mr Williamson stated the law of N. Carolina on the subject, to
wit that it did not directly prohibit the importation of slaves.
It imposed a duty of £5. on each slave imported from Africa. £10.
on each from elsewhere, & £50 on each from a State licensing
manumission. He thought the S. States could not be members of the
Union if the clause should be rejected, and that it was wrong to
force any thing down, not absolutely necessary, and which any
State must disagree to.
Mr. King thought the subject should be considered in a political
light only. If two States will not agree to the Constitution as
stated on one side, he could affirm with equal belief on the
other, that great & equal opposition would be experienced from
the other States. He remarked on the exemption of slaves from
duty whilst every other import was subjected to it, as an
inequality that could not fail to strike the commercial sagacity
of the Northn. & middle States.
Mr. Langdon was strenuous for giving the power to the Genl Govt.
He cd. not with a good conscience leave it with the States who
could then go on with the traffic, without being restrained by
the opinions here given that they will themselves cease to import
slaves.
Genl. Pinkney thought himself bound to declare candidly that he
did not think S. Carolina would stop her importations of slaves
in any short time, but only stop them occasionally as she now
does. He moved to commit the clause that slaves might be made
liable to an equal tax with other imports which he thought right
& wh. wd. remove one difficulty that had been started.
Mr. Rutlidge. If the Convention thinks that N. C.; S. C. &
Georgia will ever agree to the plan, unless their right to import
slaves be untouched, the expectation is vain. The people of those
States will never be such fools as to give up so important an
interest. He was strenuous agst. striking out the Section, and
seconded the motion of Genl. Pinkney for a commitment.
Mr. Govr. Morris wished the whole subject to be committed
including the clauses relating to taxes on exports & to a
navigation act. These things may form a bargain among the
Northern & Southern States.
Mr. Butler declared that he never would agree to the power of
taxing exports.
Mr. Sherman said it was better to let the S. States import slaves
than to part with them, if they made that a sine qua non. He was
opposed to a tax on slaves imported as making the matter worse,
because it implied they were _property_. He acknowledged that if
the power of prohibiting the importation should be given to the
Genl. Government that it would be exercised. He thought it would
be its duty to exercise the power.
Mr. Read was for the commitment provided the clause concerning
taxes on exports should also be committed.
Mr. Sherman, observed that that clause had been agreed to &
therefore could not committed.
Mr. Randolph was for committing in order that some middle ground
might, if possible, be found. He could never agree to the clause
as it stands. He wd. sooner risk the constitution--He dwelt on
the dilemma to which the Convention was exposed. By agreeing to
the clause, it would revolt the Quakers, the Methodists, and many
others in the State having no slaves. On the other hand, two
States might be lost to the Union. Let us then, he said, try the
chance of a commitment.
On the question for committing the remaining part of Sect. 4 & 5.
of art: 7. N. H. no. Mas. abst. Cont. ay N. J. ay Pa. no. Del. no
Maryd. ay. Va. ay. N. C. ay S. C. ay. Geo. ay. Geo. ay. (Ayes--7;
noes--3; absent--1.)
Mr. Pinkney & Mr. Langdon moved to commit sect. 6. as to
navigation act (by two thirds of each House.)
Mr. Gorham did not see the propriety of it. Is it meant to
require a greater proportion of votes? He desired it to be
remembered that the Eastern States had no motive to Union but a
commercial one. They were able to protect themselves. They were
not afraid of external danger, and did not need the aid of the
Southn. States.
Mr. Wilson wished for a commitment in order to reduce the
proportion of votes required.
Mr. Ellsworth was for taking the plan as it is. This widening of
opinions has a threatening aspect. If we do not agree on this
middle & moderate ground he was afraid we should lose two States,
with such others as may be disposed to stand aloof, should fly
into a variety of shapes & directions, and most probably into
several confederations and not without bloodshed.
On Question for committing 6 sect. as to navigation Act to a
member from each State--N. H. ay--Mas. ay. Ct. no. N. J. no. Pa.
ay. Del. ay. Md. ay. Va. ay. N. C. ay. S. C. ay. Geo. ay.
(Ayes--9; noes--2;)[563]
McHenry has the following note on slavery for the twenty-second of
August:
Committed the remainder of the 4 sect. with the 5 and 6.
The 4 sect promitting the importation of Slaves gave rise to much
desultory debate.
Every 5 slaves counted in representation as one elector without
being equal in point of strength to one _white_ inhabitant.
This gave the slave States an advantage in representation over
the others.
The slaves were moreover exempt from duty on importation.
They served to render the representation from such States
aristocratical.
It was replied--That the population or increase of slaves in
Virginia exceeded their calls for their services--That a
prohibition of Slaves into S. Carolina Georgia etc--would be a
monopoly in their favor. These States could not do without
Slaves--Virginia etc would make their own terms for such as they
might sell.
Such was the situation of the country that it could not exist
without slaves--That they could confederate on no other
condition.
They had enjoyed the right of importing slaves when colonies.
They enjoyed it as States under the confederation--And if they
could not enjoy it under the proposed government, they could not
associate or make a part of it.
Several additions were reported by the Committee.[564]
Upon taking up the report of the Committee of Eleven on the
twenty-fifth of August
Genl Pinkney moved to strike out the words "the year eighteen
hundred" (as the year limiting the importation of slaves,) and to
insert the words "the year eighteen hundred and eight"
Mr. Ghorum 2ded the motion
Mr. Madison. Twenty years will produce all the mischief that can
be apprehended from the liberty to import slaves. So long a term
will be more dishonorable to the National character than to say
nothing about it in the Constitution.
On the motion; (which passed in the affirmative.) N--H ay. Mas.
ay--Ct. ay. N. J. no. Pa. no Del--no. Md. ay. Va. no. N--C. ay.
S--C. ay. Geo. ay. (Ayes--7; noes--4.)
Mr. Govr. Morris was for making the clause read at once,
"importation of slaves into N. Carolina, S--Carolina & Georgia."
(shall not be prohibited &c.) This he said would be most fair and
would avoid the abiguity by which, under the power with regard to
naturalization, the liberty reserved to the States might be
defeated. He wished it to be known also that this part of the
Constitution was a compliance with those States. If the change of
language however should be objected to by the members from those
States, he should not urge it.
Col. Mason was not against using the term "slaves" but agst
naming N--C--S--C. & Georgia, lest it should give offence to the
people of those States.
Mr Sherman liked a description better than the terms proposed,
which had been declined by the old Congs & were not pleasing to
some people. Mr. Clymer concurred with Mr. Sherman.
Mr. Williamson said that both in opinion & practice he was,
against slavery; but thought it more in favor of humanity, from a
view of all circumstances, to let in S--C & Georgia on those
terms, than to exclude them from the Union--
Mr. Govr. Morris withdrew his motion.
Mr. Dickenson wished the clause to be confined to the States
which had not themselves prohibited the importation of slaves,
and for that purpose moved to amend the clause so as to read "The
importation of slaves into such of the States as shall permit the
same shall not be prohibited by the Legislature of the
U--S--until the year 1808".--which was agreed to nem: cont:
The first part of the report was then agreed to, amended as
follows. "The migration or importation of such persons as the
several States now existing shall think proper to admit shall not
be prohibited by the Legislature prior to the year 1808." N. H.
Mas. Con. Md. N. C. S. C. Geo: ... ay N. J. Pa. Del Virga ... no.
(Ayes--7; noes--4).
Mr. Baldwin in order to restrain & more explicitly define "the
average duty" moved to strike out of the 2d. part the words
"average of the duties laid on imports" and insert "common impost
on articles not enumerated" which was agreed to nem: cont:
Mr. Sherman was agst. this 2d part, as acknowledging men to be
property, by taxing them as such under the character of slaves.
Mr. King & Mr. Langdon considered this as the price of the 1st
part.
Genl. Pinkney admitted that it was so.
Col. Mason. Not to tax, will be equivalent to a bounty on the
importation of slaves.
Mr. Ghorum thought that Mr. Sherman should consider the duty, not
as implying that slaves are property, but as a discouragement to
the importation of them.
Mr. Govr, Morris remarked that as the clause now stands it
implies that the Legislature may tax freemen imported.
Mr. Sherman in answer to Mr. Ghorum observed that the smallness
of the duty shewed revenue to be the object, not the
discouragement of the importation.
Mr. Madison thought it wrong to admit in the Constitution the
idea that there could be property in men. The reason of duties
did not hold, as slaves are not like merchandise, consumed &c.
Col. Mason (in answr. to Govr. Morris) the provision as it stands
was necessary for the case of Convicts in order to prevent the
introduction of them.
It was finally agreed nem: contrad: to make the clause read "but
a tax or duty may be imposed on such importation not exceeding
ten dollars for each person", and then the 2d. part as amended
was agreed to.
Sect 5--art--VII was agreed to nem: con: as reported.
Sect 6. art. VII. in the Report was, postponed.
Section 9. The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of
the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be
prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight
hundred and eight, but a Tax or duty may be imposed on such
Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person.[565]
James McHenry said before the Maryland House of Delegates in November
29, 1787:
Conventions were anxious to procure a perpetual decree against
the importation of Slaves; but the Southern States could not be
brought to consent to it--All that could possible be obtained was
a temporary regulation which the Congress may vary
hereafter.[566]
In 1787 James Wilson said before the Convention called in
Pennsylvania to ratify the constitution:
With respect to the clause restricting Congress from prohibiting
the migration or importation of such persons as any of the States
now existing shall think proper to admit, prior to the year 1808,
the honorable gentleman says that this clause is not only dark,
but intended to grant to Congress, for that time, the power to
admit the importation of slaves. No such thing was intended; but
I will tell you what was done, and it gives me high pleasure that
so much was done. Under the present confederation, the States may
admit the importation of the slaves as long as they please; but
by this article, after the year 1808, the Congress will have
power to prohibit such importation, notwithstanding the
disposition of any State to the contrary. I consider this as
laying the foundation for banishing slavery out of this country;
and though the period is more distant than I could wish, yet it
will produce the same kind, gradual change which was pursued in
Pennsylvania. It is with much satisfaction I view this power in
the general government, where by they may lay an interdiction on
this reproachful trade. But an immediate advantage is also
obtained for a tax or duty may be imposed on such importation not
exceeding ten dollars for each person; and this, Sir, operates as
a partial prohibition. It was all that could be obtained. I am
sorry it was no more; but from this I think there is reason to
hope that yet a few years, and it will be prohibited altogether.
And in the meantime, the new States which are to be formed will
be under the control of Congress in this particular, and slaves
will never be introduced amongst them. The gentleman says that it
is unfortunate in another point of view: it means to prohibit the
introduction of white people from Europe, as this may deter them
from coming amongst us. A little impartiality and attention will
discover the care that the convention took in selecting their
language. The words are, the _migration or_ IMPORTATION of such
persons, etc., shall not be prohibited by Congress prior to the
year 1808, but a tax or duty may be imposed on such IMPORTATION.
It is observable here that the term migration is dropped when a
tax or duty is mentioned, so that Congress have power to impose
the tax only on those imported.[567]
Referring to George Mason's objections to the Constitution, Oliver
Ellsworth said:
_The general Legislature is restrained from prohibiting the
further importation of slaves for twenty odd years_.... His
objections are ... that such importations render the United
States weaker, more vulnerable, and less capable of defence. To
this I readily agree, and all good men wish the entire abolition
of slavery, as soon as it can take place with safety to the
public, and for the lasting good of the present wretched race of
slaves. The only possible step that could be taken towards it by
the convention was to fix a period after which they should not be
imported.[568]
In his "Genuine Information" delivered before the Maryland Legislature
November 29, 1787, Luther Martin said:
(56) By the _ninth_ section of this article, the importation of
such persons as any of the states now existing shall think proper
to admit, shall not be prohibited prior to the year one thousand
eight hundred and eight; but a duty may be imposed on such
importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each person.
(57) The design of this clause is to prevent the general
government from prohibiting the importation of slaves; but the
same reasons which caused them to strike out the word
"_national_," and not admit the word "_stamps_," influenced them
here to guard against the word "_slaves_." They anxiously sought
to avoid the admission of expressions which might be odious in
the ears of of Americans, although they were willing to admit
into their system those _things_ which the _expressions_
signified. And hence it is, that the clause is so worded, as
really to authorize the general government to impose a duty of
ten dollars on every foreigner who comes into a State to become a
citizen, whether he comes _absolutely_ free, or _qualifiedly_ so,
as a servant; although this is contrary to the design of the
framers, and the duty was only meant to extend to the importation
of _slaves_.
(58) This clause was the subject of a great diversity of
sentiment in the convention. As the system was reported by the
committee of detail, the provision was general, that such
importation should not be prohibited, without confining it to any
particular period. This was rejected by eight States,--Georgia,
South Carolina, and I think North Carolina, voting for it.
(59) We were then told by the delegates of the two first of
those States, that their States would never agree to a _system_,
which put in it the power of the general government to prevent
the importation of slaves, and that they, as delegates from those
States, must withhold their assent from such a system.
(60) A committee of one member from each State was chosen by
ballot, to take this part of the system under their
consideration, and to endeavor to agree upon some report, which
should reconcile those States. To this committee also was
referred the following proposition, which had been reported by
the committee of detail, to wit; "No _navigation_ act shall be
passed without the assent of _two thirds_ of the members present
in each House;" a proposition which the _staple_ and _commercial
States_ were solicitous to _retain_, lest their _commerce_ should
be placed too much under the power of the _eastern_ States; but
which these last States were as anxious to _reject_. This
committee, of which also I had the honor to be a member, met and
took under their consideration the subjects committed to them. I
found the _eastern_ States, notwithstanding their _aversion to
slavery_, were very willing to indulge the southern States, at
least with a temporary liberty to prosecute the _slave-trade_,
provided the southern States would, in their turn, gratify them,
by laying _no restrictions on navigation acts_; and after a very
little time the committee, by a great majority agreed on a
report, by which the general government was to be prohibited from
preventing the importation of slaves for a limited time, and the
restrictive clause relative to navigation acts was to be omitted.
(61) This report was adopted by a majority of the convention but
not without considerable opposition. It was said, that we had
just assumed a place among independent nations, in consequence of
our opposition to the attempts of Great Britain to _enslave us_;
that this opposition was grounded upon the preservation of _those
rights_ to which God and nature had entitled _us_, not in
_particular_, but in _common_ with _all the rest of mankind_;
that we had _appealed_ to the _Supreme Being_ for his
_assistance_, as the _God of freedom_, who could not but
_approve_ our efforts to preserve the _rights_ which he had thus
_imparted to his creatures_; that, now, when we scarcely had
risen from our _knees_, from _supplicating_ his _aid_ and
_protection_, in _forming our government_ over a _free people_, a
government formed pretendedly on the _principles_ of _liberty_
and for _its preservation_,--in _that_ government, to have a
provision not only putting it out of _its_ power to _restrain_
and _prevent_ the _slave-trade_, but _even encouraging that most
infamous traffic_, by giving the _States power_ and _influence_
in the _Union, in proportion_ as _cruelly and wantonly sport with
the rights of their fellow creatures, ought_ to be considered as
a _solemn mockery_, of an _insult to that God_ whose protection
we had then implored, and could not fail to hold us up in
_detestation_, and render us _contemptible_ to every _true
friend_ of liberty in the world. It was said, it ought to be
considered that national _crimes_ can only be, and _frequently
are punished_ in this world, by national punishments; and that
the _continuance_ of the slave-trade, and thus giving it a
_national sanction_ and _encouragement_, ought to be considered
as _justly exposing_ us to the _displeasure_ and _vengeance_ of
_Him_, who is equally Lord of all, and who views with equal eye
the poor _African slave_ and his _American master_.
(62) It was urged, that, by this system, we were giving the
general government full and absolute power to regulate commerce,
under which general power it would have a right to _restrain_, or
_totally prohibit_, the _slave-trade_; it must, therefore, appear
to the world absurd and disgraceful to the last degree, that we
should _except_ from the exercise of that power, the _only
branch_ of _commerce_ which is _unjustifiable in its nature_, and
_contrary_ to the rights of _mankind_; that, on the contrary, we
ought _rather to prohibit expressly_ in our _constitution_, the
_further importation of slaves_; and to _authorize_ the general
government, from time to time, to make such regulations as should
be thought most advantageous for the _gradual abolition of
slavery_, and the _emancipation_ of the _slaves_ which are
already in the States: That _slavery_ is _inconsistent_ with the
_genius_ of _republicanism_, and has a tendency to _destroy_
those _principles_ on which it is _supported_, as it _lessens_
the _sense_ of the _equal rights of mankind_, and habituates us
to _tyranny_ and _oppression_.
(63) It was further urged that, by this system of government,
every State is to be protected both from _foreign invasion_ and
from _domestic insurrections_; that, from this consideration, it
was of the _utmost importance_ it should have a power to restrain
the importation of slaves; since in _proportion_ as the number of
slaves are increased in any State, in the _same_ proportion the
State is _weakened_, and _exposed_ to foreign invasion or
domestic insurrection, and _by so much less_ will it be able to
protect itself against _either_; and, therefore will by so much
the more want aid from, and be a burden to the Union. It was
further said, that as, in this system, we were giving the general
government a power under the idea of national character, or
national interest, to regulate even our _weights_ and
_measures_, and have prohibited all possibility of _emitting
paper money_, and _passing instalment laws_, &c., it must appear
still more extraordinary, that we should prohibit the government
from interfering with the slave-trade than which, _nothing_ could
so _materially affect_ both our _national honor_ and _interest_.
These reasons influenced me, both on the committee and in
convention, most decidedly to oppose and vote against the clause
as it now makes a part of the system.
(64). You will perceive, Sir, not only that the general
government is prohibited from interfering in the slave-trade
_before_ the year eighteen hundred and eight, but that there is
no provision in the constitution that it shall _afterwards_ be
prohibited, nor any security that such prohibition will ever take
place; and I think there is great reason to believe, that, if the
importation of slaves is permitted until the year eighteen
hundred and eight, it will not be prohibited afterwards. At _this
time_, we do not generally hold this commerce in so great
_abhorrence_ as we have done. When our _own_ liberties were at
stake, we _warmly_ felt for the _common rights of men_. The
danger being thought to be past, which threatened ourselves, we
are daily growing _more insensible_ to those rights. In those
States which have restrained or prohibited the importation of
slaves, it is only done by legislative acts, which may be
repealed. When those States find, that they must, in their
_national character_ and _connexion_, suffer in the _disgrace_,
and share in the _inconveniences_ attendant upon that detestable
and iniquitous traffic, they may be desirous also to share in the
_benefits_ arising from it; and the odium attending it will be
greatly effaced by the sanction which is given to it in the
general government.[569]
In Elliot's Debates we find the following accredited to General
Pinckney.
... The general then said he would make a few observations on the
objections which the gentleman had thrown out on the restrictions
that might be laid on the African trade after the year 1808. On
this point your delegates had to contend with the religious and
political prejudices of the Eastern and Middle States, and with
the interested and inconsistent opinion of Virginia, who was
warmly opposed to our importing more slaves. I am of the same
opinion now as I was two years ago, when I used the expressions
the gentleman has quoted--that, while there remained one acre of
swampland uncleared of South Carolina, I would raise my voice
against restricting the importation of negroes. I am so
thoroughly convinced as that gentleman is, that the nature of our
climate, and the flat, swampy situation of our country, obliges
us to cultivate our lands with negroes, and that without them
South Carolina would soon be a desert waste.
You have so frequently heard my sentiments on this subject that I
need not now repeat them. It was alleged, by some of the members
who opposed an unlimited importation, that slaves increased the
weakness of any state who admitted them; that they were a
dangerous species of property, which an invading enemy could
easily turn against ourselves and the neighboring states; and
that, as we were allowed a representation for them in the House
of Representatives, our influence in government would be
increased in proportion as we were less able to defend ourselves.
"Show some period," said the members from the Eastern States,
"when it may be in our power to put a stop, if we please, to the
importation of this weakness, and we will endeavor, for your
convenience, to restrain the religious and political prejudices
of our people on this subject." The Middle States and Virginia
made us no such proposition; they were for an immediate and total
prohibition. We endeavored to obviate the objections that were
made in the best manner we could, and assigned reasons for our
insisting on the importation, which there is no occasion to
repeat, as they must occur to every gentleman in the house; a
committee of the states was appointed in order to accommodate
this matter, and, after a great deal of difficulty, it was
settled on the footing recited in the Constitution.
By this settlement we have secured an unlimited importation of
negroes for twenty years. Nor is it declared that the importation
shall be then stopped; it may be continued. We have a security
that the general government can never emancipate them, for no
such authority is granted; and it is admitted, on all hands, that
the general government has no powers but what are expressly
granted by the Constitution, and that all rights not expressed
were reserved by the several states. We have obtained a right to
recover our slaves in whatever part of America they may take
refuge, which is a right we had not before. In short, considering
all circumstances, we have made the best terms for the security
of this species of property it was in our power to make. We would
have made better if we could; but, on the whole, I do not think
them bad.[570]
Mr. Madison said in the Virginia ratifying Convention, June 17, 1787:
Mr. Chairman--I should conceive this clause to be impolitic, if
it were one of those things which could be excluded without
encountering greater evils.--The southern states would not have
entered into the union of America, without the temporary
permission of that trade. And if they were excluded from the
union, the consequences might be dreadful to them and to us. We
are not in a worse situation than before. That traffic is
prohibited by our laws, and we may continue the prohibition. The
union in general is not in a worse situation. Under the articles
of confederation, it might be continued forever: But by this
clause an end may be put to it after twenty years. There is
therefore an amelioration of our circumstances. A tax may be laid
in the mean time; but it is limited, otherwise congress might lay
such a tax on slaves as will amount to manumission. Another
clause secures us that property which we now possess. At present,
if any slave elopes to any of those states where slaves are free,
he becomes emancipated by their laws. For the laws of the states
are uncharitable to one another in this respect. But in this
constitution, "no person held to service, or labor, in one state,
under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall in
consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from
such service or labor; but shall be delivered up on claim of the
party to whom such service or labor may be due."--This clause was
expressly inserted to enable owners of slaves to reclaim them.
This is a better security than any that now exists. No power is
given to the general government to interpose with respect to the
property in slaves now held by the states. The taxation of this
state being equal only to its representation, such a tax cannot
be laid as he supposes. They cannot prevent the importation of
slaves for twenty years; but after that period they can. The
gentlemen from South-Carolina and Georgia argued in this
manner:--"We have now liberty to import this species of property,
and much of the property now possessed has been purchased, or
otherwise acquired, in contemplation of improving it by the
assistance of imported slaves. What would be the consequence of
hindering us from it? The slaves of Virginia would rise in
value, and we would be obliged to go to your markets." I need
not expatiate on this subject. Great as the evil is, a
dismemberment of the union would be worse. If those states should
disunite from the other states, for not indulging them in the
temporary continuance of this traffic, they might solicit and
obtain aid from foreign powers....
(_The 2d, 3d, and 4th clauses read._)
... Mr. _Madison_ replied, that even the southern states, who
were most affected, were perfectly satisfied with this provision,
and dreaded no danger to the property they now hold. It appeared
to him, that the general government would not intermeddle with
that property for twenty years, but to lay a tax on every slave
imported, not exceeding ten dollars; and that after the
expiration of that period they may prohibit the traffic
altogether. The census in the constitution was intended to
introduce equality in the burdens to be laid on the
community.--No gentleman objected to laying duties, imposts, and
exercises, uniformly. But uniformity of taxes would be subversive
of the principles of equality: For that it was not possible to
select any article which would be easy for one state, but what
would be heavy for another.--...[571]
In 1789 Madison said:
I conceive the constitution, in this particular, was formed in
order that the Government, whilst it was restrained from laying a
total prohibition, might be able to give some testimony of the
sense of America with respect to the African trade. We have
liberty to impose a tax or duty upon the importation of such
persons, as any of the States now existing shall think proper to
admit; and this liberty was granted, I presume, upon two
considerations: The first was, that until the time arrived when
they might abolish the importation of slaves, they might have an
opportunity of evidencing their sentiments on the policy and
humanity of such a trade. The other was, that they might be taxed
in due proportion with other articles imported; for if the
possessor will consider them as property, of course they are of
value, and ought to be paid for.[572]
According to Elliot, Spaight said on July 26, 1787:
Mr. Spaight answered, that there was a contest between the
Northern and Southern States; that the Southern States, whose
principal support depended on the labor of slaves, would not
consent to the desire of the Northern States to exclude the
importation of slaves absolutely; that South Carolina and Georgia
insisted on this clause, as they were now in want of hands to
cultivate their lands; that in the course of twenty years they
would be fully supplied; that the trade would be abolished then,
and that, in the mean time, some tax or duty might be laid on....
Mr. Spaight further explained the clause. That the limitation of
this trade to the term of twenty years was a compromise between
the Eastern States and the Southern States. South Carolina and
Georgia wished to extend the term. The Eastern States insisted on
the entire abolition of the trade. That the state of North
Carolina had not thought proper to pass any law prohibiting the
importation of slaves, and therefore its delegation in the
Convention did not think themselves authorized to contend for an
immediate prohibition of it....[573]
In the House of Representatives on February 12, 1790:
Mr. Baldwin was sorry the subject had ever been brought before
Congress, because it was of a delicate nature as it respected
some of the States. Gentlemen who had been present at the
formation of the Constitution could not avoid the recollection of
the pain and difficulty which the subject caused in that body.
The members from the Southern States were so tender upon this
point, that they had well nigh broken up without coming to any
determination; however, from the extreme desire of preserving the
Union, and obtaining an efficient Government, they were induced
mutually to concede, and the Constitution jealously guarded what
they agreed to. If gentlemen look over the footsteps of that
body, they will find the greatest degree of caution used to
imprint them, so as not to be easily eradicated; but the moment
we go to jostle on that ground, I fear we shall feel it tremble
under our feet. Congress have no power to interfere with the
importation of slaves beyond what is given in the ninth section
of the 1st article of the Constitution; everything else is
interdicted to them in the strongest terms. If we examine the
constitution, we shall find the expressions relative to this
subject cautiously expressed, and more punctiliously guarded than
any other part, "The migration or importation of such persons
shall not be prohibited by Congress." But lest this should not
have secured the object sufficiently, it is declared, in the
same section, "That no capitation or direct tax shall be laid,
unless in proportion to the census;" this was intended to prevent
Congress from laying any special tax upon negro slaves, as they
might, in this way, so burthen the possessors of them as to
induce a general emancipation. If we go on to the fifth article,
we shall find the first and fifth clauses of the ninth section of
the first article restrained from being altered before the year
1808.[574]
According to George Mason's Account:
The constn as agreed to till a fortnight before the convention
rose was such a one as he wd have set his hand & heart to....
with respect to the importn of slaves it was left to Congress,
this disturbed the 2 Souther-most states who knew that Congress
would immediately suppress the importn of slaves, those 2 states
therefore struck up a bargain with the 3. N. Engld, states, if
they would join to admit slaves for some years, the 2
Southernmost states wd join in changing the clause which required
2/3 of the legislature in any vote. It was done, these articles
were changed accordingly, & from that moment the two S. states
and the 3 Northern ones joined Pen. Jers. & Del. & made the
majority 8. to 3. against us instead of 8. to 3. for us as it had
been thro' the whole Convention. under this coalition the great
principles of the Constn were changed in the last days of the
Convention.[575]
The following debate on this subject took place in the House of
Representatives, June 16-20, 1798:
Mr. B(aldwin). thought the 9th section, forbidding Congress to
prohibit the migration, &c., was directly opposed to the
principles of this bill. He recollected very well that when the
9th section of the Constitution was under consideration in the
Convention, the delegates from some of the Southern States
insisted that the prohibition of the introduction of slaves
should be left to the State Governments; it was found expedient
to make this provision in the Constitution; there was an
objection to the use of the word slaves, as Congress by none of
their acts had ever acknowledged the existence of such a
condition. It was at length settled on the words as they now
stand, "that the migration or importation of such persons as the
several States shall think proper to admit, should not be
prohibited till the year 1808." It was observed by some
gentlemen present that this expression would extend to other
persons besides slaves, which was not denied, but this did not
produce any alteration of it....
Mr. Dayton (the Speaker) commenced his observations with
declaring that he should not have risen on this occasion, if no
allusion had been made to the proceedings in the Federal
Convention which framed the Constitution of the United States, or
if the representation which was given of what passed in that
body, had been a perfectly correct and candid one. He expressed
his surprise at what had fallen from the gentleman from Georgia
(Mr. Baldwin) relatively to that part of the Constitution, which
had been selected as the text of opposition to the bill under
consideration, viz: "The migration or importation of such persons
as any of the States now existing 'shall think proper to admit,
shall not be prohibited by Congress, 'prior to the year 1808." He
could only ascribe either to absolute forgetfulness, or to
willful misrepresentation, the assertion of the member from
Georgia, that it was understood and intended by the General
Convention that the article in question should extend to the
importation or introduction of citizens from foreign countries.
As that gentleman and himself were the only two members of the
House of Representatives who had the honor of a seat in that
body, he deemed it his indispensable duty to correct the
misstatement that had thus been made. He did not therefore,
hesitate to say, in direct contradiction to this novel
construction of the article (made as it would seem to suit the
particular purposes of the opponents of the Alien bill) that the
proposition itself was originally drawn up and moved in the
Convention, by the deputies from South Carolina, for the express
purpose of preventing Congress from interfering with the
introduction of slaves into the United States, within the time
specified. He recollected also, that in the discussion of its
merits no question arose, or was agitated respecting the
admission of foreigners but, on the contrary, that it was
confined simply to slaves, and was first voted upon and carried
with that word expressed in it, which was afterwards upon
reconsideration changed for '_such persons_,' as it now stands,
upon the suggestion of one of the Deputies from Connecticut. The
sole reason assigned for changing it was, that it would be better
not to stain the Constitutional code with such a term, since it
could be avoided by the introduction of other equally
intelligible words, as had been done in the former part of the
same instrument, where the same sense was conveyed by the
circuitous expression of 'three fifths of all other persons.'
Mr. Dayton said that at that time he was far from believing, and
that indeed until the present debate arose, he had never heard,
that any one member supposed that the simple change of the term
would enlarge the construction of this prohibitory provision, as
it was now contended for. If it could have been conceived to be
really liable to such interpretation, he was convinced that it
would not have been adopted, for it would then carry with it a
strong injunction upon Congress to prohibit the introduction of
foreigners into newly erected States immediately, and into the
then existing States after the year 1808, as it undoubtedly does,
that of slaves after that period....
Mr. Baldwin ... observed that he was yesterday obliged to leave
the House a little before adjournment, and he had understood
that, in his absence, the remarks which he had made on that point
a few days ago, in Committee of the Whole, had been controverted,
and that it had been done with some degree of harshness and
personal disrespect. What he had before asserted was, that the
clause respecting migration and importation was not considered at
the time when it passed in the Convention as confined entirely to
the subject of slaves. He spoke with the more confidence on this
point, as there was scarcely one to which his attention had been
so particularly called at the time. In making the Federal
Constitution, when it was determined that it should be a
Government possessing Legislative powers, the delegates from the
two Southern States, of which he was one, were so fully persuaded
that those powers would be used to the destruction of their
property in slaves, that for some time they thought it would not
be possible for them to be members of it: to that interesting
state of the subject he had before alluded. In the progress of
the business, other obstacles occurring, which he need not
repeat, it was concluded to give to the delegates of those States
the offer of preparing a clause to their own minds, to secure
that species of property. He well remembered that when the clause
was first prepared, it differed in two respects from the form in
which it now stands. It used the word "slaves" instead of
"migration", or "importation," or persons, and instead of "ten
dollars," it was expressed "five percent ad valorem on their
importation," which it was supposed would be about the average
rate of duties under this Government. Several persons had
objections to the use of the word "slaves, as Congress had
hitherto avoided the use of it in their acts, and not
acknowledged the existence of such a condition. It was expressly
observed at the time, that making use of the form of expression
as it now stands, instead of the word slaves, would make the
meaning more general, and include what we now consider as
included; this did not appear to be denied, but still it was
preferred in its present form. He had more confidence than common
in his recollection on this point, for the reasons which he had
before stated. He gave it as the result of his very clear
recollection. Any other member of that body was doubtless at
liberty to say he did not recollect it. Still that would not
diminish the confidence he felt on this occasion....[576]
In a letter to Robert Walsh November 27, 1817, Madison said:
Your letter of the 11th was duly recd, and I should have given it
a less tardy answer, but for a succession of particular demands
on my attention, and a wish to assist my recollections, by
consulting both manuscript & printed sources of information on
the subjects of your enquiry. Of these, however, I have not been
able to avail myself, but very partially.
As to the intention of the framers of the Constitution in the
clause relating to "the migration and importation of persons &c"
the best key may perhaps be found in the case which produced it.
The African trade in slaves had long been odious to most of the
States, and the importation of slaves into them had been
prohibited. Particular States however continued the importation,
and were extremely adverse to any restriction on their power to
do so. In the Convention the former States were anxious, in
framing a new constitution, to insert a provision for an
immediate and absolute stop to the trade. The latter were not
only averse to any interference on the subject; but solemnly
declared that their constituents would never accede to a
constitution containing such an article. Out of this conflict
grew the middle measure providing that Congress should not
interfere until the year 1808; with an implication, that after
that date, they might prohibit the importation of slaves into the
States then existing, & previous thereto, into the States not
then existing. Such was the tone of opposition in the States of
S. Carolina & Georgia, & such the desire to gain their
acquiescence in a prohibitory power, that on a question between
the epochs of 1800 & 1808, the States of N. Hampshire, Massatts,
& Connecticut, (all the eastern States in the convention); joined
in the vote for the latter, influenced by the collateral motive
of reconciling those particular States to the power over commerce
& navigation; against which they felt, as did some other States,
a very strong repugnance. The earnestness of S. Carolina &
Georgia was further manifested by their insisting on the security
in the V. article against any amendment to the Constitution
affecting the right reserved to them, & their uniting with the
small states who insisted on a like security for their equality
in the Senate.
But some of the States were not only anxious for a constitutional
provision against the introduction of Slaves. They had scruples
against admitting the term "Slaves" into the Instrument. Hence
the descriptive phrase "migration or importation of persons"; the
term migration allowing those who were scrupulous of
acknowledging expressly a property in human beings, to view
_imported_ persons as a species of emigrants, whilst others might
apply the term to foreign malefactors sent or coming into the
country. It is possible tho' not recollected, that some might
have had an eye to the case of freed blacks, as well as
malefactors.
But whatever may have been intended by the term "migration" or
the term "persons", it is most certain, that they referred,
exclusively, to a migration or importation from other countries
into the U. States; and not to a removal, voluntary or
involuntary, of Slaves or freemen, from one to another part of
the U. States. Nothing appears or is recollected that warrants
this latter intention. Nothing in the proceedings of the State
conventions indicate such a construction there. Had such been in
the construction it is easy to imagine the figure it would have
made in many of the states, among the objections to the
constitution, and among the numerous amendments to it proposed by
the state conventions, not one of which amendments refers to the
clause in question.... It falls within the scope of your enquiry,
to state the fact, that there was a proposition in the
convention, to discriminate between the old and new States, by an
article in the Constitution declaring that the aggregate number
of representatives from the states thereafter to be admitted,
should never exceed that of the states originally adopting the
Constitution. The proposition happily was rejected. The effect of
such a descrimination, is sufficiently evident.[577]
Speaking about the meaning of migration, Walter Lowrie of Pennsylvania
said in the United States Senate:
In the Constitution it is provided that "the migration or
importation of such persons as any of the States now existing
shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the
Congress prior to the year 1808, but a tax," etc. In this debate
it seems generally to be admitted, by gentlemen on the opposite
side, that these two words are not synonomous; but what their
meaning is, they are not so well agreed. One gentlemen tells us,
it was intended to prevent slaves from being brought in by land;
another gentleman says, it was intended to restrain Congress from
interfering with emigration from Europe.
These constructions cannot both be right. The gentlemen who have
preceded me on the same side, have advanced a number of pertinent
arguments to settle the proper meaning of these words. I, sir,
shall not repeat them. Indeed, to me, there is nothing more dry
and uninteresting, than discussions to explain the meaning of
single words. In the present case, I will only refer to the
authority of Mr. Madison and Judge Wilson, who were both members
of the Convention, and who gave their construction to these
words, long before this question was agitated. Mr. Madison
observes, that, to say this clause was intended to prevent
emigration does not deserve an answer. And Judge Wilson says,
expressly, it was intended to place the new States under the
control of Congress, as to the introduction of slaves. The
opinion of this latter gentleman is entitled to peculiar weight.
After the Convention had labored for weeks on the subject of
representation and direct taxes--when those great men were like
to separate without obtaining their object, Judge Wilson
submitted the provision on this subject, which now stands as a
part of your Constitution. Sir, there is no man, from any part of
the nation, who understood the system of our Government better
than him; not even excepting Virginia, from whence the gentleman
from Georgia (Mr. Walker) tells us, we have all our great
men.[578]
Madison wrote on the same question that year in a letter to Monroe:
I have been truly astonished at some of the doctrines and
declarations to which the Missouri question has led; and
particularly so at the interpretation put on the terms "migration
or importation &c." Judging from my own impressions I shd. deem
it impossible that the memory of any one who was a member of the
Genl. Convention, could favor an opinion that the terms did not
_exclusively_ refer to migration & importation, _into the_ U. S.
Had they been understood in that Body in the sense now put on
them, it is easy to conceive the alienation they would have there
created in certain States: and no one can decide better than
yourself the effect they would had in the State conventions, if
such a meaning had been avowed by the advocates of the
Constitution. If a suspicion had existed of such a construction,
it wd. at least have made a conspicuous figure among the
amendments proposed to the Instrument.[579]
There was very little objection to the provision for the return of
fugitive slaves. On the twenty-ninth of August, it was agreed that:
"If any Person bound to service or labor in any of the United
States shall escape into another State, He or She shall not be
discharged from such services or labor in consequence of any
regulations subsisting in the State to which they escape; but
shall be delivered up to the person justly claiming their service
or labor."
which passed in the affirmative (Ayes--11; noes--0.)
It was moved and seconded to strike out the two last clauses of
the 17 article[580]
On the same day when the question came up again:
Mr. Butler moved to insert after art: XV. "If any person bound to
service or labor in any of the U--States shall escape into
another State, he or she shall not be discharged from such
service or labor, in consequence of any regulation subsisting in
the State to which they escape, but shall be delivered up to the
person justly claiming their service or labor," which was agreed
to nem: con:[581]
The Committee of Style reported:
No person legally held to service or labour in one state,
escaping into another, shall in consequence of regulations
subsisting therein be discharged from such service or labor, but
shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service
or labour may be due.[582]
On the thirteenth of September,
On motion of Mr. Randolph the word "servitude" was struck out,
and "service" (unanimously) inserted, the former being thought to
express the condition of slaves, & the latter the obligations of
free persons.[583]
Two days later:
Art. IV. sect 2. parag: 3. the term "legally" was struck out, and
"under the laws thereof" inserted (after the word "State,") in
compliance with the wish of some who thought the term (legal)
equivocal, and favoring the idea that slavery was legal in a
moral view----[584]
The Constitution provided then:
No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws
thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law
of Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour,
but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such
Service or Labour may be due.[585]
FOOTNOTES:
[530] In the preparation of these documents we used the notes and
journals of Yates, McHenry and Madison and the subsequent writings of
the framers of the Federal Constitution, but these extracts of the
actual proceedings are copied from Farrand's _Records of the Federal
Convention_.
[531] _Records of the Federal Convention_, I, pp. 31-32.
[532] _Records of the Federal Convention_, I, pp. 35-38.
[533] _Ibid._, I, pp. 39-40.
[534] _Records of the Federal Convention_, I, p. 40.
[535] _Records of the Federal Convention_, I, pp. 152-153.
[536] _Ibid._, I, pp. 200-202.
[537] _Records of the Federal Convention_, I, pp. 205-206.
[538] _Ibid._, p. 208.
[539] _Records of the Federal Convention_, I, p. 227.
[540] _Ibid._, I, p. 243.
[541] _Records of the Federal Convention_, I, pp. 523, 524.
[542] _Ibid._, I. p. 542.
[543] _Records of the Federal Convention_, I, pp. 559-560.
[544] _Ibid._, I, p. 567.
[545] _Records of the Federal Convention_, pp. 575-576.
[546] _Ibid._, I, p. 579.
[547] _Ibid._, pp. 580-583.
[548] _Records of the Federal Convention_, I, pp. 580-583.
[549] _Records of the Federal Convention_, I, pp. 586-588.
[550] _Records of the Federal Convention_, I, pp. 589-590.
[551] _Records of the Federal Convention_, pp. 603--605.
[552] _Ibid._, II, p. 168.
[553] _Records of the Federal Convention_, pp. 182-183.
[554] Dickenson thought that unless the number of representatives
given the large States was reduced the smaller ones would be
encouraged to import slaves.
Art: VII. sect. 3. resumed.--Mr. Dickenson moved to postpone this in
order to reconsider Art: Iv. sect. 4. and to _limit_ the number of
representatives to be allowed to the large States. Unless this were
done the small States would be reduced to entire insignificancy, and
encouragement given to the importation of slaves. _Records of the
Federal Convention_, II, 356, 570, 590.
[555] _Ibid._, III, p. 253.
[556] _Ibid._, III., pp. 155-156.
[557] _Records of the Federal Convention_, III, p. 333.
[558] _Ibid._, III, pp. 342-343.
[559] _Records of the Federal Convention_, II, p. 95.
[560] _Records of the Federal Convention_, p. 183.
[561] _Records of the Federal Convention_, II, pp. 220-221.
[562] _Records of the Federal Convention_, II, pp. 364-365.
[563] _Records of the Federal Convention_, II, pp. 369-375.
[564] _Ibid._, II, p. 378.
[565] _Records of the Federal Convention_, II, pp. 415-417.
[566] _Maryland Historical Magazine_, December, 1909.
[567] McMaster and Stone, _Pennsylvania and the Federal Constitution_,
pp. 311-313.
[568] P. L. Ford, _Essay on the Convention_, pp. 161-166.
[569] _Records of the Federal Convention_, III, pp. 210-213.
[570] Elliot, _Debates_, IV, pp. 277-286.
[571] Robertson, _Debates of the Convention of Virginia_, pp. 321-345.
[572] _Annals of Congress_, 1st session, I, pp. 339-340.
[573] Elliot, _Debates_, IX, pp. 72-104.
[574] _Annals of Congress_, 1st session, II, pp. 1200-1201.
[575] _Records of the Federal Convention_, III, p. 367.
[576] _Annals of Congress_, Fifth Cong., 2d Session, II, pp. 1660,
1968-2005.
[577] _Documentary History of the Constitution_, V, pp. 303-306.
[578] _Annals of Congress_, Sixteenth Cong., 1st Session, I, pp,
202-203.
[579] _Documentary History of the Constitution_, V, p. 307.
[580] _Records of the Federal Convention_, II, p. 446.
[581] _Ibid._, pp. 453-454.
[582] _Ibid._, pp. 601-602.
[583] _Records of the Federal Convention_, II, p. 607.
[584] _Ibid._, p. 628.
[585] _Ibid._, p. 662.
SOME UNDISTINGUISHED NEGROES
PATRICK SNEAD.--Among the most interesting of all fugitive slaves who
escaped into Canada was Patrick Snead of Savannah, Georgia. He was as
white as his master, but was born a slave. Upon the death of his first
master he fell into the hands of one of the sons who died when Snead
was about fifteen. His next master was a rather reckless man. Snead's
master always promised the slave's mother to give him his freedom as
soon as the boy could take care of himself, but this was never done.
Snead was sent to school a little by his mother so that he could spell
quite well. He had no religious training but was allowed to attend a
Sunday school for colored children. Upon approaching manhood Snead was
put to the cooper's trade, which he learned in five years.
Up to this time Snead had fared well, but at length his master fell
sick and died without freeing the slave according to his promise.
Snead was then sold to pay the fees of his master's physician, who
later sold him to a wholesale merchant for $500. In the service of
this merchant Snead proved to be a much smarter man than many of those
who worked with him. In later years, however, he had to work so hard
as to injure his health to the extent that he suffered considerably.
Moreover, Snead was never allowed any money and was restricted in his
social contact with the people of his group in other parts of the
community.
He was later sold to another master, being given in exchange for a
woman, two children and $100. He was still employed in the cooper's
trade. Required to make only 18 barrels a week and capable of making
more than twice as many, he began to receive an income of his own
under the good treatment of his last master. During this period,
however, his desire for liberty grew stronger and stronger because of
the hardships of his people and then he heard of their opportunities
in the free States and in Liberia. He, therefore, made his escape in
July, 1851, and reached Canada in safety. After remaining two years in
Canada he decided to enter the employ of the proprietor of the
Cataract House on the American side of Niagara Falls. What happened
then is best told in his own language. He says:
"Then a constable of Buffalo came in, on Sunday after dinner, and sent
the barkeeper into the dining-room for me. I went into the hall, and
met the constable,--I had my jacket in my hand, and was going to put
it up. He stepped up to me. 'Here, Watson,' (this was the name I
assumed on escaping,) 'you waited on me, and I'll give you some
change.' His fingers were then in his pocket, and he dropped a quarter
dollar on the floor. I told him, 'I have not waited on you--you must
be mistaken in the man, and I don't want another waiter's money.' He
approached,--I suspected, and stepped back toward the dining-room
door. By that time he made a grab at me, caught me by the collar of my
shirt and vest,--then four more constables, he had brought with him,
sprung on me,--they dragged me to the street door--there was a jamb--I
hung on by the doorway. The head constable shackled my left hand. I
had on a new silk cravat twice around my neck; he hung on to this,
twisting it till my toungue lolled out of my mouth, but he could not
start me through the door. By this time the waiters pushed through the
crowd,--there were three hundred visitors there at the time,--and
Smith and Graves, colored waiters, caught me by the hands,--then the
others came on, and dragged me from the officers by main force. They
dragged me over chairs and everything, down to the ferry way. I got
into the cars, and the waiters were lowering me down, when the
constables came and stopped them, saying, 'Stop that murderer!'--they
called me a _murderer_! Then I was dragged down the steps by the
waiters, and flung into the ferry boat. The boatmen rowed me to within
fifty feet of the Canada shore--into Canada water--when the head
boatman in the other boat gave the word to row back. They did
accordingly,--but they could not land me at the usual place on account
of the waiters. So they had to go down to Suspension Bridge; they
landed me, opened a way through the crowd--shackled me, pushed me into
a carriage, and away we went. The head constable then asked me 'if I
knew any person in Lockport.' I told him 'no,' Then, 'In Buffalo?'
'No.' 'Well then,' said he, 'let's go to Buffalo--Lockport is too
far.' We reached Buffalo at ten o'clock at night, when I was put in
jail. I told the jailer I wished he would be so good as to tell a
lawyer--to come round to the jail. Mr.---- came, and I engaged him for
my lawyer. When the constables saw that pretending to know no one in
Buffalo, I had engaged one of the best lawyers in the place, they were
astonished. I told them that 'as scared as they thought I was, I
wanted them to know that I had my senses about me.' The court was not
opened until nine days; the tenth day my trial commenced. The object
was, to show some evidence as if of murder, so that they could take me
to _Baltimore_. On the eleventh day the claimant was defeated, and I
was cleared at 10 A.M. After I was cleared, and while I was yet in the
court room, a telegraphic despatch came from a Judge in Savannah,
saying that I was no murderer, but a fugitive slave. However, before a
new warrant could be got out, I was in a carriage and on my way. I
crossed over into Canada, and walked thirty miles to the Clifton
House."--Benjamin Drew, _A North-Side View of Slavery_, pp. 102-104.
WHITE WOMEN ENSLAVED.--"A New Hampshire gentleman went down into
Louisiana, many years ago, to take a plantation. He pursued the usual
method; borrowing money largely to begin with, paying high interest,
and clearing off his debt, year by year, as his crops were sold. He
followed another custom there; taking a Quadroon wife: a mistress, in
the eye of the law, since there can be no legal marriage between the
whites and persons of any degree of color: but, in nature and
in reason, the woman he took home was his wife. She was a
well-principled, amiable, well-educated woman; and they lived happily
together for twenty years. She had only the slightest possible tinge
of color. Knowing the law, that the children of slaves are to follow
the fortunes of the mother, she warned her husband that she was not
free, an ancestress having been a slave, and the legal act of
manumission having never been performed. The husband promised to look
to it: but neglected it. At the end of twenty years, one died, and the
other shortly followed, leaving daughters; whether two or three, I
have not been able to ascertain with positive certainty; but I have
reason to believe three, of the ages of fifteen, seventeen, and
eighteen; beautiful girls, with no perceptible mulatto tinge. The
brother of their father came down from New Hampshire to settle the
affairs; and he supposed, as every one else did, that the deceased had
been wealthy. He was pleased with his nieces, and promised to carry
them back with him into New Hampshire, and (as they were to all
appearance perfectly white) to introduce them into the society which
by education they were fitted for. It appeared, however, that their
father had died insolvent. The deficiency was very small: but it was
necessary to make an inventory of the effects, to deliver to the
creditors. This was done by the brother,--the executor. Some of the
creditors called on him, and complained that he had not delivered in
a faithful inventory. He declared he had. No: the number of slaves was
not accurately set down: he had omitted the daughters. The executor
was overwhelmed with horror, and asked time for thought. He went round
among the creditors, appealing to their mercy: but they answered that
these young ladies were 'a first-rate article,' too valuable to be
relinquished. He next offered, (though he had himself six children,
and very little money,) all he had for the redemption of his nieces;
alleging that it was more than they would bring in the market for
house or field labor. This was refused with scorn. It was said that
there were other purposes for which the girls would bring more than
for field or house labor. The uncle was in despair, and felt strongly
tempted to wish their death, rather than their surrender to such a
fate as was before them. He told them, abruptly, what was their
prospect. He declares that he never before beheld human grief; never
before heard the voice of anguish. They never ate, nor slept, nor
separated from each other, till the day when they were taken into the
New Orleans slave market. There they were sold, separately, at high
prices, for the vilest of purposes: and where each is gone, no one
knows. They are for the present, lost. But they will arise to the
light in the day of retribution."--Harriet Martineau, _Views on
Slavery and Emancipation_, pp. 8-9.
THE WHITE SLAVE.--"A slaveholder, living in Virginia, owned a
beautiful slave woman, who was almost white. She became the mother of
a child, a little boy, in whose veins ran the blood of her master, and
the closest observer could not detect in its appearance any trace of
African descent. He grew to be two or three years of age, a most
beautiful child and the idol of his mother's heart, when the master
concluded, for family reasons, to send him away. He placed him in the
care of a friend living in Guilford County, North Carolina, and made
an agreement that he should receive a common-school education, and at
a suitable age be taught some useful trade. Years passed; the child
grew to manhood, and having received a good common-school education,
and learned the shoemaker's trade, he married an estimable young white
woman, and had a family of five or six children. He had not the
slightest knowledge of the taint of African blood in his veins, and no
one in the neighborhood knew that he was the son of an octoroon slave
woman. He made a comfortable living for his family, was a good
citizen, a member of the Methodist Church, and was much respected by
all who knew him. In course of time his father, the Virginian
slaveholder, died, and when the executors came to settle up the
estate, they remembered the little white boy, the son of the slave
woman, and knowing that by law--such law!--he belonged to the estate,
and must be by this time a valuable piece of property, they resolved
to gain possession of him. After much inquiry and search they learned
of his whereabouts, and the heir of the estate, accompanied by an
administrator, went to Guilford County, North Carolina, to claim his
half-brother as a slave. Without making themselves known to him, they
sold him to a negro trader, and gave a bill of sale, preferring to
have a sum in ready money instead of a servant who might prove very
valuable, but who would, without doubt, give them a great deal of
trouble. He had been free all his life, and they knew he would not
readily yield to the yoke of bondage. All this time the victim was
entirely unconscious of the cruel fate in store for him.
"His wife had been prostrated by a fever then prevalent in the
neighborhood, and he had waited upon her and watched by her bedside,
until he was worn out with exhaustion and loss of sleep. Several
neighbor women coming in one evening to watch with the invalid, he
surrendered her to their care, and retired to seek the rest he so much
needed. That night the slave-dealer came with a gang of ruffians,
burst into the house and seized their victim as he lay asleep, bound
him, after heroic struggles on his part, and dragged him away. When he
demanded the cause of his seizure, they showed him the bill of sale
they had received, and informed him that he was a slave. In this rude,
heartless manner the intelligence that he belonged to the African race
was first imparted to him, and the crushing weight of his cruel
destiny came upon him when totally unprepared. His captors hurried him
out of the neighborhood, and took him toward the Southern slave
markets. To get him black enough to sell without question, they washed
his face in tan ooze, and kept him tied in the sun, and to complete
his resemblance to a mulatto, they cut his heir short and seared it
with a hot iron to make it curly. He was sold in Georgia or Alabama,
to a hard master, by whom he was cruelly treated.
"Several months afterward he succeeded in escaping, and made his way
back to Guilford County, North Carolina. Here he learned that his wife
had died a few days after his capture, the shock of that calamity
having hastened her death, and that his children were scattered among
the neighbors. His master, thinking that he would return to his old
home, came in pursuit of him with hounds, and chased him through the
thickets and swamps. He evaded the dogs by wading in a mill-pond, and
climbing a tree, where he remained several days. Dr. George Swain, a
man of much influence in the community, had an interview with him,
and, hearing the particulars of his seizure, said he thought the
proceedings were illegal. He held a consultation with several lawyers,
and instituted proceedings in his behalf. But the unfortunate victim
of man's cruelty did not live to regain his freedom. He had been
exposed and worried so much, trailed by dogs and forced to lie in
swamps and thickets, that his health was broken down and he died
before the next term of court."--Levi Coffin, _Reminiscences_, pp.
29-31.
A SLAVE OF ROYAL BLOOD.--"Among the many persons of color whom I
visited at Philadelphia, was a woman of singular intelligence and good
breeding. A friend was with me. She received us with the courtesy and
easy manners of a gentlewoman. She appeared to be between thirty and
forty years of age--of pure African descent, with a handsome
expressive countenance and a graceful person. Her mother, who had been
stolen from her native land at an early age, was the daughter of a
king, and is now, in her eighty-fifth year, the parent stem of no less
than 182 living branches. When taken by the slavers, she had with her
a piece of gold as an ornament, to denote her rank. Of this she was of
course deprived; and a solid bar of the same metal, which her parent
sent over to America for the purchase of her freedom, shared the same
fate. Christiana Gibbons, who is thus the granddaughter of a prince of
the Ebo tribe, was bought when about fifteen years of age, by a woman
who was struck by her interesting appearance, and emancipated her. Her
benefactress left her, at her death, a legacy of 8,000 dollars. The
whole of this money was lost by the failure of a bank, in which her
legal trustee (a man of the name of James Morrison, since dead) had
placed it in his own name. She had other property, acquired by her own
industry, and affording a rent of 500 dollars a year. Her agent,
however, Colonel Myers, though indebted to her for many attentions and
marks of kindness during sickness, had neglected to remit her the
money from Savannah, in Georgia, where the estate is situated; and,
when I saw her, she was living, with her husband and son, on the
fruits of her labor.
"She had not been long resident in Philadelphia, whither she had come
to escape the numerous impositions and annoyances to which she was
exposed in Georgia. Her husband was owner of a wharf in Savannah,
worth eight or ten thousand dollars. It is much feared that the
greater part of this property will be lost, or not recovered without
great difficulty. I was induced to call upon her, in consequence of a
letter I had received from Mr. Kingsley, of whom I have before spoken.
He had long been acquainted with her, and spoke of her to me in the
highest terms; wishing that I should see what he considered a 'good
specimen of the race.'
"We found her, indeed, a very remarkable woman; though it is probable
that there are many among the despised slaves as amiable and
accomplished as herself. Such, at least, was the account she gave us
of their condition, that we felt convinced of the superiority
possessed by many, in moral worth and intellectual acuteness, above
their oppressors."--E. S. Abdy, _Journal of a Residence and Tour in
the United States of America from April, 1833, to October, 1834_, pp.
346-348.
BOOK REVIEWS
_The Virgin Islands of the United States of America._ By LUTHER K.
ZABRISKIE, Former Vice-Consul of the United States at St. Thomas. G.
P. Putnam's Sons, New York and London, 1918. Pp. 339. Price $4.00.
This is an historical and descriptive work containing facts, figures
and resources about a country ninety per cent of the population of
which belongs to the Negro race. It is a detailed account of
practically every interest of concern to the tourist, the merchant,
the geographer and the historian. It is made still more valuable by
its one hundred and nine illustrations and two maps which clearly
demonstrate what the United States Government has received in return
for the purchase price of $25,000,000.
The first effort of the author is to give a short sketch of the
history of the Virgin Islands. He then takes up the question of
purchasing the islands. In discussing these political and historic
questions, however, the author is too brief and neglectful of
important problems which the student of history would like to know.
The author no doubt carefully avoided these questions for the reasons
that he was then and still is in the diplomatic service of the United
States. The book is chiefly concerned with the actual government of
the group, the occupations of the people, and the place of the islands
in the commerce of the world.
Largely interested, therefore, in those things which generally concern
a consul, Mr. Zabriskie has written a valuable commercial treatise. He
explains such things as steamer service, harbor facilities, banking,
currency, sanitation, transportation, cattle raising, agriculture,
manufactures, imports and exports. The last part of the book is
exclusively devoted to the most recent history of the Virgin Islands.
There is a discussion of the sale negotiations, the convention between
the United States and Denmark, the announcement of the sale, the
formal transfer of the islands, the farewell service and the temporary
government provided. This part of the book is not merely descriptive.
It contains the actual documents as in the case of the convention
between the United States and Denmark, which is given in the English
and Danish languages.
* * * * *
_Your Negro Neighbor._ By BENJAMIN BRAWLEY. The Macmillan Company, New
York, 1918. Pp. 100. Price 60 cents.
In this book Dean Brawley does not reach the standard set in some of
his other works, but he has here some facts and suggestions which are
worth while. The book begins with an appeal to the people of the
United States in behalf of the Negroes who, despite their many
grievances, are now fighting to make the world safe for democracy
although their own country is not safe for them. In directing these
remarks to the citizens of this country the author gives in detail the
Negroes' grounds for complaint and shows how because of the unjust
treatment of the blacks in the United States this country has become
an object of suspicion in South America, where the color line is not
known.
The second chapter of the book is a statement of the Negroes' place in
history. This, however, is too brief and unscientific to be of much
value to one in quest of facts of Negro history. It seems unnecessary
here also to devote a special chapter to such isolated facts of
history in writing a book dealing with a social problem.
The chapter bearing on the Negro as an industrial factor contains
interesting material taken from statistical reports. The author
discusses such questions as the reliability of Negro laborers, the
antagonism of the labor unions, housing conditions, and the like.
Taking up the institution of lynching, Dean Brawley goes over old
ground but gives striking facts to portray this blot on the American
civilization. Then without showing any close connection between the
two the author takes up Negro education since the Civil War. Here we
see another failure to treat an important question intensively and
scientifically. He then gives a sketch of Joanna P. Moore, a
missionary of much worth, takes up certain critics and their
fallacies, asserts the possibility of the race and closes with a plea
for a moralist.
This in brief is the work recently produced by a man who is
undertaking to address the American people on almost every phase of
Negro life and history. This work, however, is merely the author's
observations or impressions of the Negroes among the whites. The very
work itself shows that Dean Brawley is undertaking too much. He is
best as a literary critic but in sociology and history his works do
not measure up to standard.
ORVILLE HOLLIDAY.
* * * * *
_The American Cavalryman._ By HENRY F. DOWNING. The Neale Publishing
Company, New York, 1917. Pp. 306. Price $1.50.
This is a Liberian romance written by Henry F. Downing, a colored man
who evidently spent some years in Liberia. The diction is good, the
style pleasing, and the story interesting, but it is not a sympathetic
portrayal of African character and customs. It is written from a white
man's point of view and shows a tendency to regard the white man's
civilization of today as the only true standard. He shows, however,
that he does not always approve of the European method of dealing with
the African. While describing an unequal contest between the
cavalryman and natives, he says: "But alas! in war, as in finance and
love, victory does not always smile upon the most deserving. She
usually favors the numerically stronger side; that is, unless the less
numerous party is armed with quick firing guns, dumdum bullet, and
other harmless weapons that Europeans think it criminal to employ
against one another, but cheerfully use to Christianize and civilize
the poor helpless black African."
The chief value of the work lies in its portrayal of native customs,
some of which are beautiful, some wholly barbarous and all more or
less tinctured with superstition. But, when we pause to think how rife
superstition still is among all so-called civilized peoples, we
conclude that it is a belief hard to eradicate from human nature. Even
in our own country people were hanged as witches a little over a
hundred years ago.
While cunning and shrewdness are shown to hold an exalted place in the
native character, still lying and cheating, when discovered, are
severely punished. Loyalty to friends and fidelity to pledges are held
in great esteem. Human life does not seem to be valued very highly
judging from the readiness with which a chief extinguished it by
having all disloyal or disobedient followers beheaded at a moment's
notice. It is evident throughout, however, that human nature is the
same in civilized and uncivilized peoples.
There is no attempt to portray the history of Liberia in these pages,
a thing which in my opinion would have made the work stronger and far
more valuable. It does give a fair picture of Monrovia, the capital
city, and presents, to some extent, the need for wise and just
administration and the necessity of funds to improve the city and
endow it with parks, libraries, and places of amusement. The value of
the American constabulary force is felt and the importance of
increased communications, union and helpfulness between the
government and the tribes are emphasized. Altogether it is a work
worth writing and worth reading, although it does not give enough
prominence to the nobler traits of the native character.
IDA GIBBS HUNT.
* * * * *
_Education for Life._ By FRANCIS G. PEABODY, Vice-President of the
Board of Trustees. The Story of Hampton Institute, told in Connection
with the Fiftieth Anniversary of the School. Doubleday, Page and
Company, New York, 1918. Pp. 393. Price $2.50.
This work has for its background a brief account of the Negro during
the Civil War and the Reconstruction, serving as the occasion for the
beginning of the successful career of General Samuel Chapman
Armstrong, the founder of Hampton Institute. The actual history of the
institution appears under such captions as the beginnings of Hampton,
the years of promise, the coming of the Indian, the years of
fulfilment, the end of an era, the coming of Frissell, and the
expansion of Hampton. The author has endeavored also to explain the
relations of Hampton and the South and to forecast the future
possibilities of this school. The work is well printed and beautifully
illustrated.
In the _Springfield Republican_ of July 6, 1918, A. L. Dawes said in
her review of this work:
"Hampton institute has chosen a fitting occasion, the completion of
fifty years of life and work, to issue the history of its achievement.
It comes at the end of one distinct epoch, and the beginning of
another, when it is of much value to consider the results which make a
foundation for new progress. It is a record of wonderful achievement,
and this amazing institution may well be proud of it. We are led from
the huddled camp of contrabands in 1868 to the allied armies in 1918;
from a crowd of men and women without a past and seemingly without a
future--even a possibility only to the eyes of patriotism and
faith--we are led in these pages to the ranks of efficient soldiers
and brilliant officers fighting with southern men whose grandfathers
called their grandfathers slaves!
"Faith has become pride and patriotism has become an individual
possession in a resurrected race. The book might well have been called
by that title--'The Resurrection of a Race'--but its distinguished
author, in calling it 'Education for Life,' has chosen to consider
Hampton's double mission to the race and to the world in connection
with education. This latter aspect of its work makes the book
particularly pertinent at this time of world reconstruction. This
attractive volume will be read with interest and satisfaction by the
many widespread friends of Hampton Institute, and it will also be
sought with eagerness by another audience, the large public, which is
seeking new theories of education for a new world. This group will
find it a clear and compelling statement of a new philosophy of
education worked out there, heretofore neither recognized nor
understood outside, but limited either to manual training or
vocational education.
"Hampton has been fortunate in its biographer. It is a labor of love,
by Rev. Francis G. Peabody, one of the few remaining trustees whose
service covers its three epochs and whose friendship has inspired its
three principals. Perhaps no one else has so entered into the life of
the place. He has made himself one with pupils and faculty and
trustees and public in such friendly fashion that he may rightly say
'we' from any point of view. His many readers will look for noteworthy
diction amounting to a new use of words, grace of speech and charm of
phrase, a startling power of insight, a passion for social service and
the revelation of the spiritual in all human affairs, with the
inspiration which compels. These things Dr. Peabody's readers expect
of him, but it might have been questioned whether he could write a
history. In this book he has shown us that history is the story of
life, and he has used all these abilities to discover and fitly
express the life which has become Hampton Institute. Not the least of
all his skill has appeared in what he has left out--so that the book
is never dull though it is crowded with facts. Everything is here that
is needed to answer the questions of any objector, and what is more
difficult, of any friend. The illustrations are not only interesting,
but valuable footnotes to history, and there are a number of
collections of statistics at the end of the book of incomparable worth
to the student of these subjects; we cannot enough commend their range
and selection.
"Among the rest, we notice a just commendation of the Hampton Club in
this city. All through the book explanation forestalls objection,
while old friends find new information and new reasons for
half-understood methods. Such are the accumulating exposition of the
Hampton idea, and the description of circumstances and resources which
condition all action, and determine the measure of progress. Those who
know and love this wonderful place will be gratified at the stress
laid on the 'Hampton spirit' of service as the explanation of its
success, as well as the constant recognition of the spiritual in the
methods as well as the aims of this hothouse of missionary effort. No
one familiar with the school would have found the record complete
without the stressing of this element at once its motive and its life.
Few could have so well defined that elusive but forceful thing--'the
Hampton spirit.'
"It needed all the writer's ability to set forth fitly the ardent
Armstrong and the able Frissell--witness his success in this
characterization of them:
"'Never were two administrative officers more unlike each other.
Armstrong was impetuous, magnetic, volcanic; Frissell was reserved,
sagacious, prudent. The gifts of the one were those of action; the
strength of the other was in discretion.'
"He has given us all fresh knowledge of both men. By his choice and
collocation of extracts he shows Armstrong not only to have had the
enthusiastic impact on his world known to all men, but also a
forelooking philosophy which guided him to a definite end. He brings
out the long line of unusual circumstances which prepared him for this
work, and in repeating the vision in which like a Hebrew prophet the
young officer was called to teach the Negroes, the writer shows that
work to have been a definite growth. No one who knew Samuel C.
Armstrong can ever forget him, or ever describe him, but not one of
his wide circle ever failed to be moved by any contact with him to put
forth his own powers to their full measure.
"Dr. Peabody does full justice to the help and service of the
Freedmen's Bureau, which from the first linked the institution with
the government, and to the American Missionary Association, which made
its beginning possible. He further shows many missionary and
philanthropic sources upon which it has always drawn. If he halts a
little in enthusiastic justice to Gen. Benjamin F. Butler, who began
this crusade, he has evidently done it best--an unexpected best it
must be said, from a Harvard professor! Samuel Armstrong was moved by
his Christian impulses and missionary inheritance to help these needy
people, but there could hardly have been a more unpromising
opportunity.
"The task which Armstrong took up was greater than the present
generation can imagine. Dr. Peabody has recognized this by a clear and
dispassionate description of the situation in 1868, an analysis of the
greatest value to the present-day reader. Armstrong's high courage
and faith brought him to the day when he saw the race well on the high
road to its place in the sun, before he dropped his mantle on the
shoulders of his successor. It is doubtful, perhaps, whether he saw
clearly how much he had done nor how firmly he had established his
principles of the necessity of work and respect for it. Dr. Peabody
brings out very distinctly this his great achievement, but it is
superfluous to quote from a story which everyone will want to read for
himself.
"Mindful of the fact that education depends upon personal contact,
this book deals largely with the work of the two outstanding
personalities, who have made the institution what it is. Hollis Burke
Frissell, who took up the work of principal when Armstrong left it
twenty-five years ago--'Dr. Frissell' as everyone knew him--proved to
be in some ways one of the great men of his time, certainly so if you
give a high value to education. As one of his close friends has said
of him, 'He invariably grew to the measure of the stature that his
work called for.'
"If Dr. Peabody has failed at all in the hard task of describing one
in whom the full round of qualities blended into the white light of
simplicity it is perhaps in not making his virility sufficiently
evident. The first and last impression Frissell made was of
lovableness, and he was so intent on getting work done that he never
cared to be known as its author. Therefore, even his friends did not
always discover his strength or sometimes his greatness. He carried on
the school to a phenominal success and he developed more than one
beginning to a definite policy.
"In the latter part of Gen. Armstrong's career a simple occurrence
changed the whole character of the school. From it the school
developed into a world institution. When the government asked Gen.
Armstrong to continue the education of seventeen Indians already begun
by Capt. Pratt, the task was undertaken as a civil and Christian duty,
but thus was started a government policy, and an educational
experiment which, carried on and broadened to other races under Dr.
Frissell, has changed the face of our own land and altered the
conditions of backward races the world over. Because of this great
historical fact, Hampton should always keep up its Indian department,
which witnesses to the beginning of its world relation.
"The passing of time after the Civil War and emancipation also made
possible to Dr. Frissell the development of another policy, that of
the unification of the North and the South. This was something very
near his heart, and for it he started the southern education
board--which was his creation more fully than Dr. Peabody
explains--the Jeans board, much of the southern work of the
Rockefeller or general educational board and other well-known agencies
to this end. And to accomplish the reconciliation of the races and the
regions he gave the vital force which finally cost him his life. The
future will render this service its due meed of praise, as the writer
so well sets forth, a service carried on in the midst of
misunderstanding and sharp criticism.
"Dr. Peabody has devoted himself especially on bringing out the growth
of Dr. Frissell's carefully-thought-out educational ideals, whereby he
added the value of work to the necessity of it in a complete
education. Under Frissell, as is so well shown, Hampton entered on its
second stage, its relation to the philosophy of education. Men came
from all over the world to study the question of the training of
native races. Inspired by his work, Frissell saw the possibilities on
every side, and looked far into the future. Thus, as has been said,
his set purpose broadened the school to include Porto Rico, Cuba, the
Philippines, and even Africa, making it what he loved to call it, a
'race laboratory.' That he succeeded appears in the constant stream of
officials, educators and philanthropists from all over the globe
coming to Hampton that they may study and copy its methods. The vision
of the future which was given to Dr. Frissell was not so much a vision
of a new race, as with Armstrong; it was for Frissell a vision of a
new humanity.
"It is this vision of 'Education for life' which Dr. Peabody brings
out so clearly--both its meaning and its value. The oldest friends of
Hampton have hardly understood it before, so well does he explain it,
and so thoroughly does he show that its purpose is to make men and
women. Artisans and skilled workmen come out of it, but its first
purpose is to develop individuals and all its interests tend to this
end. This explains its limitations also, and answers many complaints.
The white teacher who recently left because there was 'no future' for
her own career; the educator who complained of a system which
continued to educate on general lines when some vocational diversion
would be more profitable; those who support the objections of the
'Crisis' that Hampton is not a university--all these critics fail to
understand the new philosophy of Hampton and its dominant human
motive. It would be a great mistake if, as appears to be hinted here,
any concessions should be made to the demand of these last critics,
whose aims would destroy the whole idea of Hampton, and its value as
a world experiment. The author of the book and distinguished student
of social ethics so strongly brings out its claim to a new education,
for a new world that (to repeat) the reader cannot fail to inquire if
this is the solution of the future in our forthcoming new world.
"Dr. Peabody brings us to the beginning of the third era and pays a
deserved tribute to the new principal. Rev. James E. Gregg, who enters
on the task at a critical time. Just now, when the race question is
acute both here and everywhere, and when the new democracy is
demanding a new education, there could hardly be a greater opportunity
for the man or the school.
This inadequate sketch of a most informing and inspiring book may well
be closed with a few paragraphs which sum up the aims of Hampton
Institute:
"'In short, the fundamental issue in all education for life is between
a training to make things and a training to make character. Is a man
to be taught carpentering primarily that a house shall be well built,
or that in the building the man himself shall get intelligence,
self-mastery and skill?'
"'The principle was definitely accepted that these shops and classes
were maintained, not as sources of profit, but as factors in an
education for life. Young men and women were not to be regarded as
satisfactory products of Hampton Institute because each could do one
thing and get good wages for doing it, but because each had been
trained to apply mind and will to the single task, and had made it not
only a way of living, but a way of life.'
"'Trade education as conceived gradually developed and finally
realized at Hampton Institute is a development of the person through
the trade, rather than a development of the trade through the person.
The product is not primarily goods, but goodness; not so much profit
as personality.... These students become delivered from the benumbing
conditions of modern industry by the emancipating and humanizing
effect of the Hampton scheme of industrial training, and those who are
thus initiated in a large view of their small opportunities are likely
to find their way, not only to those occupations, which are still open
at the top, but to those resources of happiness which are discovered
when work has become a vocation, and labor has contributed to life.'"
NOTES
In the introduction to Book II of _Negro Folk-Songs_ the author, Mrs.
Natalie Curtis Burlin, has some interesting paragraphs showing the
connection of this music with certain origins in Africa. She says:
"That Negro folk-song is indeed an offshoot from an African root,
nobody who has heard Africans sing or even beat the drum can deny. The
American Negroes are sprung, of course, from many tribes; but whereas
the native traffic in slaves and captives brought individuals from
widely separated parts of the continent to the coasts and thus to the
European slavers, the great mass of Negroes that filled the slave
ships destined for America probably belonged--according to some
authorities--to the big linguistic stock called Bantu, comprising some
fifty million people south of the equator. The Zulu and Ndau tribes,
whose songs I studied, are of this stock. Yet, as there are over a
hundred million Negroes on the Dark Continent, whose different traits
are probably represented in some form in this country, all statements
as to musical derivations could be made with final authority only by
one who had studied comprehensively the music of many different tribes
_in Africa_. This much, however, one may most emphatically affirm:
though the Negro, transplanted to other lands, absorbed much musically
from a surrounding civilization, yet the characteristics which give to
his music an interest worthy of particular study are precisely those
which differentiate Negro songs from the songs of the neighboring
white man; they are racial traits, and the black man brought them from
the Dark Continent.
"The most obvious point of demarcation between Negro music and
European is found, of course, in the rhythm. The simpler rhythms
natural to the white man (I speak of folk-music, the people's song,
not of the elaborate creations of trained musicians) are usually even
and symmetrical. Throughout western Europe and in English and Latin
countries, the accents fall as a rule on the stressed syllables of the
spoken tongue and on the regular beats of the music. The opposite is
the case in Negro songs: here the rhythms are uneven, jagged, and, at
a first hearing, eccentric, for the accents fall most frequently on
the short notes and on the naturally _unstressed_ beats, producing
what we call 'syncopation' of a very intricate and highly developed
order. The peculiarity of this syncopation is best explained to the
layman by drawing attention to the way in which the natural rhythms of
the English language are distorted to fit the rhythm of Negro music:
where the white man would sing, '_Go down Moses_,' the Negro chants,
'_Go down, Moses_,' while a phrase like '_See my Mother_,' becomes in
the mouth of the colored singer '_See my Mother_.' These identical
accents are found in even the wordless vowel refrains of native
African songs. Rhythmically the Negro folk-song has far more variety
of accent than the European; it captivates the ear and the imagination
with its exciting vitality and with its sense of alertness and
movement. For this reason Negro rhythms and white man imitations of
them popularized as 'rag-time' have spread far and wide and have
conquered the world to-day. The black man has by nature a highly
organized rhythmic sense. A totally uneducated Negro, dancing or
playing the bones, is often a consummate artist in rhythm, performing
with utter abandon and yet with flawless accuracy. My African
informant, Kamba Simango, thought nothing of singing one rhythm,
beating another with his hands and dancing a third--and all at once!
"Melodically as well as rhythmically, American Negro songs possess
distinct characteristics. One of these is a very prevalent use of the
pentatonic or five-tone scale, corresponding to the black keys of the
piano. If one comes upon a group of colored men unconsciously humming
or whistling at work, most often it is the five-tone scale that utters
their musical thoughts. This scale--along with other scales--is heard
in black Africa also, and in the music of many simple peoples in
different parts of the world. Indeed, just as totally unrelated races
at certain stages of culture seem to trace many of the same
rudimentary symbols and designs on pottery and in textiles, so in
music, the archaic simplicity of the five-tone scale would seem almost
a basic human art-instinct. Yet the highly developed civilization and
the carefully defined musical systems of China and other nations of
the farthest East retain the pentatonic scale in wide use, the Chinese
in their philosophical and mystical theories of music, linking the
five-tones symbolically with the heavenly bodies. It is surprising how
much variety can be achieved with those five tones. One of the most
graceful melodies that I know in all music is the popular Chinese
'lily Song' which I recorded from a Chinese actor and which possesses
the sheer beauty of outline and the firm delicacy of a Chinese
drawing. Indeed, the melodic possibilities of the five-tone scale,
containing a charm absolutely peculiar to that scale, instead of being
limited, seem almost endless.
"American Negro music, is however, by no means restricted to this
tonality, for we find a broad indulgence in the major and minor modes
of modern art, and also there are many songs in which occur tones
foreign to those scales most common of which is perhaps the minor, or
flat, seventh. Then, too, there are songs framed in the scale with a
sharp fourth; and we also find, though more rarely in Negro music, the
augmented interval of three semitones. Those of us who have noted
Arabic folk-songs are accustomed to associate this latter interval
with Semitic music; occurring as it does in African music also it
reminds us of the contact between the black population of Africa and
the Semitic peoples in the white north of the continent whose caravan
trade brought them into communication with the more savage interior,
while their ships touched at ports along the coasts and even landed
colonists on the Eastern shores, where Arab trade across the Red Sea
must have existed since early Bible times. As the age-old slave
traffic brought captives from African tribes out from the heart of
black Africa to the north, we can readily see how, since the very dawn
of history, Negro and Semitic cultures must have touched. One of the
Bantu legends in my collection from Portuguese East Africa is probably
of Semitic origin, and the song which it embodies seems also tinged
with foreign color. Without doubt, Semitic tunes and musical intervals
found their way to African ears, while, on the other side, African
Negro drum-beats and syncopations must have influenced Berber, Moorish
and thus perhaps even Spanish rhythms.
"Another characteristic of the Negro, musically, is a harmonic sense
indicating musical intuition of a high order. This instinct for
natural polyphony is made clear in the recording of the Negro songs in
this collection, wherein I have noted the four-part harmony as sung
extemporaneously by colored boys who had had no musical training
whatever. Some of the most beautiful improvisational part-singing that
I ever heard arose from the throats of utterly illiterate black
laborers in a tobacco factory. One has but to attend a colored church,
whether North or South, to hear men and women break naturally into
alto, tenor or bass parts (and even subdivisions of these), to realize
how instinctively the Negro musical mind thinks harmonies. I have
heard players in colored bands perform one part on an instrument and
sing another while all those around him were playing and singing still
different parts. Yet it has been asserted by some people that the
harmonic sense of the Negro is a product of white environment and that
the black man owes his intuitive gift to the slave-holders who sang
hymns, ballads and popular songs in his hearing! With all due
allowance for white influence, which has been great, of course, the
fact remains that in savage Africa, remote from European culture, many
of the most primitive pagan songs are sung in parts with elaborate
interludes on drums tuned to different pitches. Indeed the music of
the Dark Continent is rich in polyphonic as well as rhythmic
suggestions for the European. Perhaps the war may help to prick some
of the vanity of the white race, which, looking down with self-assumed
superiority upon other races, is quick to condemn delinquencies as
native characteristics, and to ascribe to its own influences anything
worthy; whereas the reverse is, alas, all too often the case.
Certainly the art of Africa, of India, of the Orient and of North
America owes to the Anglo-Saxon only corruption and commercialization.
As for American Negro music, those songs that are most like the music
of the white people--and they are not few--are the least interesting;
they are sentimental, tame, and uneventful both in melody and rhythm.
On the other hand, such melodies as 'Go down Moses,' 'Four and Twenty
Eiders on Their Knees,' 'Run, Mary, Run,' these speak from the very
soul of the black race and no white man could have conceived them.
They have a dignity barbaric, aloof and wholly individual which lifts
them cloud-high above any 'White' hymns that the Negro might have
overheard. Austere as Egyptian bas-relief, simple as Congo sculpture,
they are mighty melodies, and they are Negro."
* * * * *
D. Appleton and Company have published for Professor Ulrich B.
Phillips of the University of Michigan a volume entitled _American
Negro Slavery_.
_Lincoln, the Politician_, by T. Aaron Levy, and _Latest Lights on
Abraham Lincoln_, and _War Time Memories_, works published by Badger
and Revell respectively, are two important volumes throwing light on
the Civil War.
Among the Washington University Studies has appeared a monograph by C.
S. Boucher entitled _The Secession and Cooperation Movements in South
Carolina, 1848 to 1852_.
* * * * *
[Transcriber's Notes:
Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as
possible, including obsolete and variant spellings and other
inconsistencies. The transcriber made the following changes to the
text to correct obvious errors:
1. p. 20, "aquaintance" --> "acquaintance"
2. p. 43, "San Fancisco" --> "San Francisco"
3. p. 44, "legisalture" --> "legislature"
4. p. 49, Footnote #46, "Califronia" --> "California"
5. p. 51, "except Lawrence who is" --> "except Lawrence (who is"
6. p. 51, "Distrist" -> "District"
7. p. 52, "ten to eleven years," --> "ten to eleven years),"
8. p. 53, "San Bernardini" --> "San Bernardino"
9. p. 54, "Banjamin" --> "Benjamin" (twice)
10. p. 60, No footnote text for footnote #58.
11. p. 64, No footnote text for footnote #67.
12. p. 64, No footnote text for footnote #68.
13. p. 65, No footnote text for footnote #71.
14. p. 65, No footnote text for footnote #72.
15. p. 82, "fellings" --> "feelings"
16. p. 95, "famlies" --> "families"
17. p. 107, "instrumnts" --> "instruments"
18. p. 119, No footnote marker for footnote #187 in original text.
19. p. 125, No footnote marker for footnote #199 in original text.
20. p. 173, "cannoit" --> "cannot"
21. p. 186, "reesmblance" --> "resemblance"
22. p. 187, "doubt fear" --> "doubt, fear"
23. p. 194, "passsd" --> "passed"
24. p. 195, "decendants" --> "descendants"
25. p. 195, "neices" --> "nieces"
26. p. 208, "talley" --> "tally"
27. p. 210, "Sewanee Reivew" --> "Sewanee Review"
28. p. 222, No footnote marker for footnote #248 in original text.
29. p. 224, "opprobium" --> "opprobrium"
30. p. 225, "comsioner" --> "commissioner"
31. p. 229, "Negreos" --> "Negroes"
32. p. 254, "frofeit" --> "forfeit"
33. p. 264, "Jaunary" --> "January"
34. p. 281, "earthern" --> "earthen"
35. p. 352, No footnote marker for footnote #489 in original text.
36. p. 354, "agressive" --> "aggressive"
37. p. 364, "arest" --> "arrest"
38. p. 371, Footnote #518, "admited" --> "admitted"
39. p. 373, Footnote #521, "Univerity" --> "University"
40. p. 375, "poportions" --> "proportions"
41. p. 383, "and being generally relished," -->
"(and being generally relished,"
42. p. 384, "Adjourned to 10 Oclock)" --> "(Adjourned to 10 Oclock)"
43. p. 390, "overated" --> "overrated"
44. p. 391, "(It was moved by Mr. Rutlidge" -->
"It was moved by Mr. Rutlidge"
45. p. 391, "(Ayes--6; noes))4.)" --> "(Ayes--6; noes--4.)"
46. p. 391, "Ayes--5; noes--5.)" --> "(Ayes--5; noes--5.)"
47. p. 407, "instituton" --> "institution"
48. p. 418, "our of this country" --> "out of this country"
49. p. 423, "gentlman" --> "gentleman"
50. p. 428, The migration "or importation' -->
The migration or importation
51. p. 432, "obtaning" --> "obtaining"
52. p. 439, "administartor" --> "administrator"
53. p. 451, "comprehensvely" --> "comprehensively"
54. Various The footnotes have been re-numbered.
Also, many occurrences of mismatched single and double quotes remain
as published.
End of Transcriber's Notes]