=Origin of Slavery in the United States=
The first permanent settlement within the limits of the United States--as
they became afterwards--to be established, was that of Florida, which
was begun by the Spaniards in the year 1564. Slavery was introduced into
Florida, as it was into all the Spanish colonies, and that colony remained
under the control of Spain until the year 1763, when it was ceded to Great
Britain, at the close of the war which resulted in the cession of Canada,
and the territory east of the Mississippi by France to the same power, but
in 1783, after the recognition of the independence of the United States,
Florida along with that part of Louisiana east of the Mississippi and
south of the 31st degree of latitude, which had been ceded by France, was
re-ceded to Spain, and remained a Spanish colony until the year 1821, when
it was ceded to the United States; slavery continuing to exist there under
all these changes.
* * * * *
The next permanent settlement in point of time, was that of Virginia by
the English in the year 1607. In the year 1620, twenty negro slaves were
brought to Jamestown in Virginia by a Dutch man-of-war and sold to the
colonists, but the number of slaves in that colony remained so small
for a long time, that there was no legislative enactment recognizing
the existence of slavery for more than forty years after the first
introduction of it.
The reduction of Indians to slavery was prohibited in Virginia from the
beginning, and in the year 1658 by the revised laws adopted in that
colony, the Indians were protected in the possession of their lands, and
in order to secure the Indian children, placed with the colonists for
education, from being sold as slaves, the transfer of their service was
forbidden. In the revised code adopted in 1662, very humane provisions
were contained for the protection of the Indians, in the enjoyment of
their lands, and it was enacted that no Indians entertained as servants
should be sold into slavery for a longer period than English indented
servants of like age. In the same year, the first act was passed by the
colonial legislature recognizing the existence of slavery, and it was to
the effect that children should be held as bond or free "according to the
condition of the mothers."
* * * * *
This law recognized the generally received principle that slavery was
valid according to the laws of nations, but did not itself enact slavery.
That principle prevailed universally, all over the world at that time, and
had prevailed since the foundation, being recognized in the bible.
* * * * *
In the year 1667, a law was passed providing that negro slaves converted
and baptized should not thereby become free. The motive for the adoption
of this law, was to secure to slaves religious instruction, as an idea
prevailed among some that it was not lawful to hold a Christian in
slavery, and it was apprehended that masters might be indisposed, under
such impressions, to encourage their slaves to become converted. In the
same year it was provided by law that "all servants, not being Christians,
imported by shipping shall be slaves for life."
* * * * *
In 1671, there were in Virginia, according to a statement furnished by
Governor Berkeley, 40,000 inhabitants, including in that number 2,000
"black slaves" and 6,000 Christian servants. The latter consisted of
English servants brought into the colony as indented servants for a term
of years, and sold--as was the practice in all of the colonies at that
day--to pay the expenses of their passage.
* * * * *
During what was known as Bacon's rebellion in 1676, the Virginia Assembly,
acting under the coercion of Bacon's followers, passed an act for the
prosecution of a war against the Indians, and one of its provisions was
that all Indians taken prisoners in war should be held and accounted
slaves for life. This was the first and only provision of the laws of that
colony authorizing the reduction of Indians to slavery, though Indian
slaves, not being Christians, brought in by shipping might be held, under
the law of 1667; but there were no slaves made under this forced enactment
of Bacon's, as the war was not prosecuted, the rebellion having come to an
end, by the death of its leader, the same year.
A law was enacted in the year 1682, by which negroes, Moors, mulattoes
or Indians, brought into the colony as servants, by sea or land, were
recognized as slaves "whether converted to Christianity or not, provided
they were not of Christian parentage or country, or Turks or Moors in
amity with his majesty."
In the year 1692, an act was passed providing for "a free and open
trade for all persons, at all times and at all places with all Indians
whatsoever," under which the Virginia courts decided that no Indian could
be reduced to slavery, or brought into Virginia as a slave, after the
passage of the act.
In the revised Code of Virginia, adopted in the year 1705, is contained
the final enactment upon the subject of slavery during the colonial state,
except some acts imposing duties on imported slaves, and by that enactment
it was provided that "all servants imported or brought into this country
by sea or land, who were not Christians in their native country (except
Turks and Moors in amity with his majesty, and others who can make due
proof of their being free in England or any other Christian country
before they were shipped in order to transportation thither) shall be
accounted and be slaves, notwithstanding a conversion to Christianity
afterwards"; and it was further provided--as in the first act on the
subject--for "all children to be bond or free according to the condition
of their mothers."
The Virginia Assembly had passed, from time to time, acts imposing a duty
of twenty shillings a head on all imported slaves, and this being renewed
in 1723, was repealed by royal proclamation, but the Board of Trade
in England intimated that they had no objection to a duty on imported
negroes, provided it was exacted from the colonial purchaser, and not from
the English seller; and in 1734 an act was passed imposing a duty of five
per cent. to be paid by the purchaser, which was subsequently increased
and reached as high as twenty per cent.
In the year 1772, the House of Burgesses of Virginia adopted an address
to George III, declaring the importation of negroes from Africa to be an
inhuman trade and asking that all restraints be removed from the passage
of acts to check "that pernicious commerce," which request was not granted.
After the commencement of the difficulties which led to the Revolution,
the Virginia convention, which assembled the 1st of August, 1774, and
took upon itself the actual management of the affairs of the colony,
adopted among its first acts, a resolution to import "no more slaves, nor
British goods, nor tea." Practically this resolution put an end forever
to the African slave trade so far as Virginia was concerned, and its
abolition was subsequently confirmed during the war of the Revolution by
a more formal act passed by the legislature in the year 1778, prohibiting
the importation of slaves from any quarter, whether by sea or land,
and providing that all brought into the State in violation of the law
should be free. Slaves brought in by citizens of other of the United
States coming into Virginia as actual residents, and those inherited by
citizens of Virginia in other States of the Union and brought in by them
being exempted from the operation of the act. In addition to the grant
of freedom to the slaves themselves heavy penalties were imposed on both
the buyer and seller who violated the act. In adopting this prohibition,
Virginia was ahead of all the States in the Union except the little State
of Delaware, and its action preceded the abolition of the slave trade, by
England, thirty years.
The citizens of Virginia had never engaged in the slave trade as
importers, and were merely the purchasers from others--its legislature
being prohibited from interfering with the trade.
* * * * *
About the year 1610, trading posts were established by the Dutch within
the present limits of New York, and the name of New Netherland was given
to the territory claimed, including that of New York, New Jersey, or the
Jersey, and some other. Actual colonization began within the present
limits of New York, under the authority of the Dutch government in the
year 1629, the traders located in those limits having been previously
engaged only in trade with the Indians. Slavery was introduced with the
first settlers and was recognized and protected by law. In the year
1664, New Netherland was conquered from its Dutch rulers, by an English
expedition under the authority of the Duke of York, subsequently James
II, to whom a royal grant of the territory had been made. The province of
New York was then created out of New Netherland, though it came again,
temporarily, under the Dutch for portions of the years 1673 and 1674.
Slavery was continued as it before existed until after the Revolution.
Vessels were fitted out in the port of New York (first called New
Amsterdam), for the slave trade at an early period, and the merchants of
that city engaged in it without scruple; some of them continued to be so
engaged until the traffic was prohibited by Congressional enactment.
* * * * *
The settlement next in point of time was that of Plymouth, in the year
1620, within the present limits of the State of Massachusetts. Slavery
of the Indians and also of negroes existed in this province from the
beginning. The settlement at Plymouth by the passengers of the May Flower,
though first in point of time, was not by any means, the leading one
in Massachusetts, and the Province of Plymouth played comparatively an
unimportant part in the history of Massachusetts. The main settlement in
that colony was made in the year 1629, by John Winthrop and his followers,
Puritans emigrating directly from England, professedly for the purpose of
securing to themselves, and their posterity, religious freedom. It was
this settlement which gave tone and character to Massachusetts, as well as
to all the other New England provinces, which were chiefly offshoots from
Massachusetts.
Though professing to be seeking a home in this wilderness for the
purpose of enjoying and establishing religious liberty, the settlers of
Massachusetts established as proscriptive and despotic a theocracy as
the world has ever seen. A celebrated humorist has aptly said that their
idea of religious liberty consisted in enjoying their own opinions to the
fullest extent and preventing any body else from enjoying theirs.
Under their charter a government was established by the colonists at
Massachusetts Bay, which was entirely theocratic in form and substance.
To be a freeman, that is a citizen and voter, it was necessary to be a
member of the established church, which was the Congregational, and was
supported at the public expense. The members of that church claimed to be
God's elect, and they showed no mercy to any other sect and allowed of no
dissent whatever; all others were heretics or heathens.
From the beginning, the colonists at Massachusetts Bay, as well as those
at Plymouth, regarded the "heathen around them" and all their possessions
as fit spoil for the "Saints." Accordingly they began at a very early
period to help themselves. In the year 1637, in a war begun against the
Piquods, that tribe of Indians was exterminated by slaughter and capture.
Of several hundred prisoners taken, the adult males, constituting but a
small portion of the captives, were sent to the West Indies and sold into
slavery, while the women and children were distributed among the colonists
as slaves also; this was done by the constituted authorities.
These colonists commenced the building of ships in the year 1634, and
engaged in commerce, the African slave trade, being, from the beginning,
a part of that commerce. By the year 1640, six large vessels had been
built, and fitted out by the Boston merchants, which were sent on voyages
to Spain, Madeira and the Canaries with cargoes of fish and staves, and
brought back, among other things, cargoes of negroes from the coast of
Africa for sale at Barbadoes and the other British West India Islands.
It was not a great while before the religious persecution in Massachusetts
drove off a number of dissenters from the established faith, among them
being the celebrated Roger Williams, the founder of the Baptists in
America. These "heretics," as they were called, took refuge within the
present limits of Rhode Island, where they established, at different
points, separate governments for themselves, all of which were
subsequently merged in that of Rhode Island. Emigrants from Massachusetts
also established themselves at different points in the present limits of
Connecticut and formed two separate governments, one called New Haven
and the other Connecticut, which were afterwards united under that of
Connecticut. Massachusetts set up a claim of jurisdiction over all of
these settlements, but finally had to abandon it.
In the year 1641, the general court of Massachusetts, in which the
legislative power was vested, adopted a code of fundamental laws called
"Fundamentals" or "Body of Liberties," which were compiled from two
separate drafts reported by those "Godly ministers," "the great Cotton" as
he was called, and Nathaniel Ward, who had been appointed commissioners
for that purpose. One of the "Liberties" provided that "There shall never
be any bond-slavery, villanage nor captivity among us, unless it be
lawful captives taken in just wars, and such strangers as willingly sell
themselves or are sold unto us, and these shall have all the liberties
and Christian usages which the law of God, established in Israel,
requires. This exempts none from servitude who shall be judged thereto by
authority." This surely was a one-sided idea of religious liberty; the
"elect" gave themselves abundant liberty to do as they pleased in the
matter. This "Fundamental" was twenty years in advance of any legislative
enactment in Virginia recognizing the existence of slavery.
A confederacy was formed, in the year 1643, between the colonies of
Massachusetts, Plymouth, Connecticut and New Haven, called the "United
Colonies of New England" into which the "heretics" of Rhode Island were
not permitted to enter. Slavery existed by law everywhere now in New
England, including Rhode Island, and one of the stipulations of the
compact, by which the United Colonies were bound, was that fugitive
servants or slaves should be delivered up when fleeing from one province
to another. The stipulation was almost in the identical terms of that long
afterwards incorporated into the United States Constitution upon the same
subject.
The harsh treatment pursued towards dissenters, including the most
delicate females, who were sometimes stripped naked and whipped through
the streets, and the trials and execution of persons as witches, furnish
revolting details of the conduct of the "elect," but it is not intended
to refer more particularly to that here. One fact, however, in regard to
the history of Virginia and Massachusetts may be properly mentioned--as
descendants of the latter's colonists have arraigned at the bar of public
opinion, the people of Virginia, as well as the whole South upon the
subject of slavery--and that fact is very suggestive.
In the year 1644, the Indians in Virginia, under the instigation of
Opechancanough, successor of Powhatan, undertook to exterminate the
colonists in that province, when five hundred persons, who were engaged
in celebrating a victory of the king over the Parliamentary army in the
war then raging, were massacred at the first surprise. A ship was sent to
Boston to procure powder for the defence of the colony, but the general
court declined to furnish it. This refusal was owing to the fact that the
people of Virginia sympathized with the king in the pending struggle, and
to the further fact that three ministers sent out from New England at the
instance of some of the "elect," who had found their way into Virginia,
were sent out of the province by Governor Berkeley for violating the
law--Governor Winthrop declaring that the massacre of the Virginians was a
punishment "for their reviling the Gospel and those faithful ministers."
* * * * *
A law was adopted in Connecticut, 1650, for selling debtors for debt,
which remained in force more than a century and a half; and at the same
time a law was adopted, upon the recommendation of the commissioners for
the United Colonies of New England, providing that Indians refusing or
neglecting satisfaction for injuries might be seized and delivered to the
party injured "either to serve, or to be shipped out and exchanged for
negroes, as the case will justly bear." About this time, the "heretics"
at Warwick, one of the settlements in Rhode Island, complained that
the authorities of Massachusetts had instigated the Indians to commit
depredations upon them, and Easton, subsequently governor of Rhode Island,
was reported to have said of the people of Massachusetts, that "the
elect had the Holy Ghost and the devil indwelling." Upon hearing of the
execution of two persons for witchcraft, the people of Warwick exclaimed
"There are no witches on earth, nor devils, but the ministers of New
England and such as they."
In 1676, a large number of captives, taken in the war against King Philip,
in which all of New England was united, were made slaves of, many of them
were sent from Boston to Bermuda and sold, including the infant son of
King Philip, who, some of the most prominent ministers insisted, should
be slain for his father's sins, though the more remunerative expedient of
selling him was adopted. The captives who fell into the hands of the Rhode
Islanders were distributed as slaves, and Roger Williams, the expelled
"heretic" from Massachusetts, received a boy for his share. A large body
of Indians assembled at Dover, at the conclusion of the war, to make
peace, were treacherously captured and some two hundred of them were sent
to Boston, where some were hung and the rest shipped off to be sold as
slaves.
In the reign of James II, the charter of Massachusetts was vacated
by legal proceedings, and in the year 1691, a new charter was issued
providing for the appointment of the governor by the crown and for
toleration to all religious sects. This gave great dissatisfaction to
the ruling church; and the theocratic power was in a great measure
destroyed, but the controlling influence of the old religious party still
prevailed in the general court, though restrained by the royal governor.
By this charter the province of Plymouth was incorporated with that of
Massachusetts, as was the district of Maine, but New Hampshire, previously
under the government of Massachusetts, was soon created into a separate
province.
In 1701, the town of Boston instructed its representatives to propose
"putting a period to negroes being slaves," but no action was taken, and
these scruples were very short lived, the enslaving of Indians and the
prosecution of the slave trade being still continued. The manufacture of
New England rum, which was in progress, furnished a very easy means of
prosecuting the trade, as that article was freely exchanged on the coast
of Africa with the natives for slaves. One part of the inhabitants being
imbruited by the detestable liquor, while the other was carried off into
bondage. The traders of New England, composed of all classes, including
church dignitaries, participated largely in the profits resulting from the
impulse given to the slave trade in 1698, and it was sustained by public
sentiment in those colonies as well as in the mother country.
In 1704, in the intercolonial war with Canada, Massachusetts offered a
reward of $66 per head for Indian prisoners under ten years of age and
double as much for older prisoners or for scalps.
In 1712, Massachusetts passed an act prohibiting the further importation
of Indian slaves on pain of the forfeiture of the slaves, but this
prohibition did not arise from feelings of humanity for the Indians;
the reasons given for it were, that the Indians were "of a surly and
revengeful spirit, rude and insolent in their behavior, and very
ungovernable" and because "this province being differently circumstanced
from the plantations in the islands, and having great numbers of the
Indian natives of the country within and about them and at this time under
the sorrowful effects of their rebellion and hostilities."
The merchants of England having complained that the New Englanders were
infringing upon their rights by engaging in the slave trade, which the
New England traders now mainly carried on with rum, for the manufacture
of which molasses was imported from elsewhere than the British West India
Islands, an act of Parliament was passed in 1733, imposing a duty on
molasses, sugar and rum imported from the French and Dutch West Indies.
This act was called the "Molasses Act," and was the first of the series
of Acts bringing about the discontent which led to the Revolution. The
traders of New England managed to elude this act as they had done the
restrictions put upon the slave trade for the benefit of the English
merchants. The manufacture of rum and the trade from all the ports of New
England still continued with great activity up to the commencement of the
Revolution, and served to build up the commerce of that section, as the
same trade had built up the commerce of the mother country.
Some slaves were imported into all the New England colonies, but as there
was not very profitable employment for them there, and it was vastly
more remunerative to sell than to work them, the former was preferred to
the latter mode of dealing with the subject and in it they found a rich
reward. The markets for the slaves were found in the West Indies and in
the Southern colonies, where the soil, climate and productions were
much more suitable for African slave labor, than in the cold regions of
the north. There were, however, in the year 1754, 2,448 negro slaves in
Massachusetts over 16 years of age, 1,000 of them being in Boston, and
the whole number exceeded 4,000, while in Connecticut and Rhode Island
the proportion of slaves to the white population was greater than in
Massachusetts.
* * * * *
Maryland was settled under the proprietorship of Lord Baltimore in the
year 1634, and slavery was introduced into that colony also, the laws
recognizing and regulating it being very similar to those of Virginia. In
1649, an act was passed by which the kidnapping of Indians to make them
slaves, was made felony, and in 1663, the first act recognizing slavery
was passed, being similar in its features to that of Virginia. The people
of Maryland did not engage in the slave trade and were merely purchasers.
* * * * *
The first settlement in the Carolinas was within the limits of what became
South Carolina, and was made in the latter half of the 16th century by
French Huguenots, but that settlement proved a failure. An attempt to make
a settlement in North Carolina under the auspices of Sir Walter Raleigh
also proved abortive. The first permanent settlement in North Carolina
was by Virginia emigrants to the northern part of it, some years previous
to the charter, which was granted to some English noblemen and others
for both of the Carolinas. In 1665, North Carolina was taken possession
of under this charter, and a government was established therefor. In
1670, South Carolina was permanently settled. Though embraced in the same
charter, North and South Carolina now became separate provinces with
distinct governments. Slavery was introduced into both provinces and was
recognized by law; the number of slaves continuing to increase as the
population increased and the capacities of the soil became known, which
proved to be very suitable for slave labor. There was nothing special in
the history of slavery in these provinces during the colonial state. The
people did not engage in the slave trade, but were merely purchasers from
English and New England traders; nor did they make slaves of the Indians
by whom they were surrounded.
* * * * *
The first settlers within the limits of New Jersey were Swedes, who came
over prior to 1630. New Jersey, or East and West Jersey as it was called
then, was settled in 1665 by English emigrants, and two governments
were organized therefor under grants from the Duke of York, which were
subsequently consolidated into one. Slavery was introduced into that
province as it had been in all of the others, but the number of slaves did
not become as numerous as in the more Southern colonies, because the soil
and climate were not as suitable for slave labor.
* * * * *
Pennsylvania was settled in 1682 under the proprietorship of William Penn,
and the government was organized by him, including within its jurisdiction
Delaware also. Slavery was introduced into this colony, and slaves were
held without scruple by the Quaker followers of Penn. In 1692, George
Keith, a Scotch Quaker who had been the champion of the Quakers against
their persecutors--the Reverend Cotton Mather of witch notoriety, and the
other Massachusetts divines--attacked negro slavery as inconsistent with
Quaker principles. For this he was "_disavowed_" by the yearly meeting
of the Quakers of Pennsylvania, as a schismatic, and he instituted a
meeting of his own called "Christian Quakers." For publishing a reply
to a publication against him, he was fined by the Quaker magistrates of
Philadelphia and he subsequently became disgusted with the whole sect,
turned Episcopalian, went to England and took orders there, and was one of
the first missionaries sent to the American colonies by the "Society for
propagating the gospel in foreign parts."
In 1699, Penn proposed to provide by law for the marriage, religious
instruction and kind treatment of slaves, but he met with no response from
the Quaker legislature of Pennsylvania. The "spirit" had not then moved
the Quakers to "bear their testimony" against slavery and consequently
they did not "testify." In 1712, the legislature imposed a duty of £20
on all negroes and Indians brought into the province by land or water, a
drawback to be allowed in case of re-exportation within twenty days, and
slaves brought in and concealed were to be sold. This act did not owe its
origin to abhorrence of slavery itself, but was passed in a fright at some
alleged plots for insurrections, which were apprehended in consequence
of one which had been discovered in New York. The act was disallowed by
Queen Anne, and the same legislature replied to a petition in favor of
emancipating the negroes, "That it was neither just nor expedient to set
them at liberty." This was the only "testimony" borne by the Quakers of
Pennsylvania against slavery prior to the war of the Revolution.
* * * * *
Delaware was originally settled by Swedes at the same time the settlement
was made in New Jersey, and it had been embraced under the same government
with Pennsylvania at the time of Penn's settlement, but it was made a
separate province, by his consent, in the year 1691. Delaware is entitled
to the credit of being not only the first of the provinces but the first
country in the world to adopt an express enactment prohibiting the
introduction of slaves within its limits. This it did in the year 1771,
but the act was vetoed by Governor Penn, the grandson of Wm. Penn, and
the representative of the crown. The prohibition was incorporated into the
first State Constitution adopted in the year 1776. Delaware was, however,
a slave colony and remained a slave State.
* * * * *
The first permanent settlement within the limits of the territory of
Louisiana, which embraced a very large tract of country, was made under
the auspices of D'Ibberville, a French Canadian, at Mobile, within the
limits of the present State of Alabama in the year 1702. Bienville,
governor of Louisiana, located New Orleans, the first permanent settlement
within the limits of the State of Louisiana, in the year 1718. Slavery
was introduced into the province of Louisiana under the direction of the
French government, a contract being made for that purpose with Anthony
Crozat, a French merchant, to whom the province and a monopoly of its
trade were granted. Crozat resigned his patent in 1717, and a monopoly
of the trade for twenty-five years was granted to "the company of the
West," commonly called "The Mississippi Company," with which the famous
Law was connected. By its contract, the company undertook to introduce
6,000 whites and half as many negro slaves into the province. Slavery
thus became established in Louisiana under the express stipulation of
the French government, and continued to exist under its authority. In
1763, by the treaty made between England, France and Spain, at the close
of the war in which all three nations had been engaged, France ceded to
England, Canada and all of the territory east of the Mississippi river,
except the island of Orleans, and to Spain all of Louisiana which had not
been ceded to England, while Spain ceded Florida to England. In 1783,
England re-ceded Florida to Spain, and at the same time ceded to the same
power that part of Louisiana north of the 31st degree of latitude which
had been acquired from France. The parts of the original province of
Louisiana thus re-united, remained a Spanish province until the year 1801,
when it was re-ceded to France, and in 1803 it was ceded to the United
States. Slavery had continued to exist in the province, and the different
parts of it, and to be recognized as legal, during all of these changes.
* * * * *
In 1733, Georgia was settled under the patronage of General Oglethorpe,
of the British Army, and it was intended as a humanitarian scheme for
furnishing refuge to impoverished meritorious persons, and persecuted
Continental Protestants. The territory, together with the power to
legislate for twenty-one years, was granted to trustees resident in
England. The trustees at first prohibited the introduction of slaves,
but under the humanitarian ideas with which the colony was begun, it
languished and proved a miserable failure until the year 1749. The
trustees were then induced to permit the introduction of slaves, at
the instance, among others, of the celebrated preacher, Whitfield,
and his follower, Habersham, who earnestly interceded for the
permission--Habersham stating as a reason for the introduction of slavery
that "Many of the poor slaves in America have already been made freemen of
the Heavenly Jerusalem."
Slavery was thus introduced into Georgia, and the Colony began at once to
prosper and advanced with rapid strides.
* * * * *
The institution of slavery, it will thus be perceived, existed at the time
of the Revolution, not only in all of the revolting colonies, acknowledged
by law and sustained by public sentiment at home and in the mother
country, but it existed in all of the territories, which afterwards became
a part of the United States, and was sanctioned by the sentiment of all of
the Christian world.
But before this review of the slave trade and of slavery in the British
colonies in North America, is closed, it is proper that England should
receive credit for one incident in her judicial history in regard to the
subject. In the year 1763, the celebrated case of Somerset, a slave who
had been carried to England by his master from one of the British West
India Islands, came up before Lord Mansfield in Westminster Hall on a writ
of _habeas corpus_, and that distinguished Chief Justice of the King's
Bench, in delivering his opinion discharging the petition, said: "The air
of England has long been too pure for a slave, and every man who breathes
it is free."
This declaration is the source of much pride to Englishmen and Lord
Campbell in his "Lives of the Chief Justices" goes into ecstasies over
it. It is regarded as the enunciation of the great principle that the
common law of England establishes universal freedom, and that wherever
it prevails it knocks the shackles from the slave and turns him loose,
a free man. Yet it was most probable that Somerset himself, and it was
certain that his ancestor, if not himself, had been carried from Africa,
in a ship that had been fitted out under the protection of that very
common law by men breathing that same pure air, and sold into slavery in a
colony to which the same law under which he was released, had followed the
colonists. Was ever so absurd a farce enacted as that which was enacted
by the Chief Justice of England, when he announced in Westminster Hall
before the assembled bar of London, that the air breathed by a nation of
slave-traders was too pure for the slave himself. None but an Englishman
would have failed to discover its absurdity. Where then, was that "genius
of universal emancipation" referred to at a later period at the Irish Bar
by Curran, in such eloquent language, that it did not waft these words on
the wings of that pure air across the channel to the Emerald Isle, to the
coasts of Africa, to the plantations of America and the West Indies, or to
the banks of the Ganges? Could not a breath of that pure air be afforded
at least for the ships of the British Navy, then so sedulously guarding
English slave ships through the horrors of the "Middle Passage" from
French cruisers? No! that pure air was "fixed air" which could not extend
beyond the shores of England, and the wings of the "genius of universal
emancipation" were so clipped that it was a more clumsy domestic bird than
the barnyard fowl.
At the same time that these celebrated words were uttered in Westminster
Hall, the ministers of State, and king, lords and commons in Parliament,
were cherishing with a fostering hand that very trade which had consigned
Somerset to slavery, and was then consigning thousands upon thousands
of his native countrymen to the same fate while the boasted navy of the
"Mistress of the Seas" was escorting the human cargoes in safety and
triumph to their destination, and in the colonies writs and executions
were being issued, according to forms framed in Westminster Hall, to
enforce from the sale of the bodies of human beings, the collection of
debts, due to men who breathed the "pure air of England," and prided
themselves on the liberties of the common law.
This decision of Lord Mansfield was one of those acts of judicial
legislation for which he was so famous, and it was not the law. Quite as
able judges as himself had previously decided the validity and legality
of slavery even in England, and Lord Stowell, as able a judge and purer
man than he was, subsequently ruled very differently from the decision in
the Somerset case. England had no use for slaves at home, as her toiling
millions supplied every demand for labor or service. Had it been to her
interest to have had African slaves within her own limits, her pure air
would have accommodated itself to their constitution. She never sacrificed
her material interests to her philanthropy. Notwithstanding the decision
of Lord Mansfield, it was twenty-five years before the prime minister of
England (the younger Pitt) ventured to go even so far, as to bring in a
bill to mitigate the horrors "of the Middle Passage," by limiting the
number of slaves to be taken on board a ship--it was forty-five years
before another prime minister ventured to advocate the abolition of the
slave trade, and seventy-one years before slavery was abolished in the
limited slave colonies left to England after the American Revolution, and
that was not done until this small interest was so far overshadowed by
other interests as to make it of no importance to her.