EMANCIPATION PRIOR TO 1831
In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Dutch, French, Portuguese,
Spanish, English, and American vessels brought many thousands of negroes
from Africa, and sold them as slaves in the British West Indies and in
the British-American colonies. William Goodell, a distinguished
Abolitionist writer, tells us[7] that "in the importation of slaves for
the Southern colonies the merchants of New England competed with those
of New York and the South" (which never had much shipping). "They appear
indeed to have outstripped them, and to have _almost monopolized_ at one
time the profits of this detestable trade. Boston, Salem, and
Newburyport in Massachusetts, and Newport and Bristol in Rhode Island,
amassed, in the persons of a few of their citizens, vast sums of this
rapidly acquired and ill-gotten wealth."[7]
[7] "Slavery and Anti-Slavery," 3d ed., 1885.
The slaves coming to America went chiefly to the Southern colonies,
because there only was slave labor profitable. The laws and conditions
under which these negroes were sold in the American colonies were
precisely the same as in the West Indies, except that the whites in the
islands, so far as is known, never objected, whereas the records show
that earnest protests came from Virginia[8] and also from Georgia[9] and
North Carolina.[10] The King of England was interested in the profits of
the iniquitous trade and all protests were in vain.
[8] _Am. Archives_, 4th series, vol. I, p. 696.
[9] _Ib._, p. 1136.
[10] _Ib._, p. 735.
Of the rightfulness, however, of slavery itself there was but little
question in the minds of Christian peoples until the closing years of
the eighteenth century. Then the cruelties practised by ship-masters in
the Middle Passage attracted attention, and then came gradually a
revolution in public opinion. This revolution, in which the churches
took a prominent part, originated in England, but it soon swept over
America also, both North and South.
England abolished the slave trade in 1807. The United States followed
in 1808; the Netherlands in 1814; France in 1818; Spain in 1820;
Portugal in 1830. The great Wilberforce, Buxton, and others, who had
brought about the abolition of the slave trade in England, continued
their exertions in favor of the slave until finally, in 1833, Parliament
abolished slavery in the British West Indies, appropriating twenty
millions sterling ($100,000,000) as compensation to owners--this because
investments in slave property had been made under the sanction of
existing law.
"Great Britain, loaded with an unprecedented debt and with a grinding
taxation, contracted a new debt of a hundred millions of dollars to give
freedom, not to Englishmen, but to the degraded African. This was not an
act of policy, but the work of statesmen. Parliament but registered the
edict of the people. The English nation, with one heart and one voice,
under a strong Christian impulse and without distinction of rank, sex,
party, or religious names, decreed freedom to the slave. I know not that
history records a national act so disinterested, so sublime."
So wrote Dr. Channing, the great New England pulpit orator, in his
celebrated letter on Texas annexation, to Henry Clay, in 1837.
While the rightfulness of slavery was being discussed in England, the
American conscience had also been aroused, and emancipation was making
progress on this side of the water.
Emancipation was an easy task in the Northern States, where slaves were
few, their labor never having been profitable, and by 1804 the last of
these States had provided for the ultimate abolition of slavery within
its borders. But the problem was more difficult in the Southern States,
where the climate was adapted to slave labor. There slaves were
numerous, and slavery was interwoven, economically and socially, with
the very fabric of existence. Naturally, it occurred to thoughtful men
that there ought to be some such solution as that which was subsequently
adopted in England, and which, as we have seen, was so highly extolled
by Dr. Channing--emancipation of the slaves with compensation to the
owners by the general government. The difficulty in our country was
that the Federal Constitution conferred upon the Federal Government no
power over slavery in the States--no power to emancipate slaves or
compensate owners; and that for the individual States where the negroes
were numerous the problem seemed too big. Free negroes and whites in
great numbers, it was thought, could not live together. To get rid of
the negroes, if they should be freed, was for the States a very serious,
if not an unsurmountable task.
On the seventeenth of January, 1824, the following resolutions, proposed
as a solution of the problem, were passed by the legislature of
Ohio:[11]
[11] "State Documents on Federal Relations," Ames, pp. 203-4.
_Resolved_, That the consideration of a system providing for the
gradual emancipation of the people of color, held in servitude in
the United States, be recommended to the legislatures of the
several States of the American Union, and to the Congress of the
United States.
_Resolved_, That, in the opinion of the general assembly, a system
of foreign colonization, with correspondent measures, might be
adopted that would in due time effect the entire emancipation of
the slaves of our country without any violation of the national
compact, or infringement of the rights of individuals; by the
passage of a law by the general government (with the consent of the
slave-holding States) which would provide that all children of
persons now held in slavery, born after the passage of the law,
should be free at the age of twenty-one years (being supported
during their minority by the persons claiming the service of their
parents), provided they then consent to be transported to the
intended place of colonization. Also:
_Resolved_, That it is expedient that such a system should be
predicated upon the principle that the evil of slavery is a
national one, and that the people and the States of the Union ought
mutually to participate in the duties and burthens of removing it.
_Resolved_, That His Excellency the Governor be requested to
forward a copy of the foregoing resolutions to His Excellency the
Governor of each of the United States, requesting him to lay the
same before the legislature thereof; and that His Excellency will
also forward a like copy to each of our senators and
representatives in Congress, requesting their co-operation in all
national measures having a tendency to effect the grave object
embraced therein.
By June of 1825 eight other Northern States had endorsed the
proposition, Pennsylvania, Vermont, New Jersey, Illinois, Connecticut,
Massachusetts. Six of the slave-holding States emphatically disapproved
of the suggestion, _viz._, Georgia, South Carolina, Missouri,
Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama.[12]
[12] Ames, p. 203.
Reasons which in great part influenced all the Southern States thus
rejecting the proposition may be gathered from the following words of
Governor Wilson, of South Carolina, in submitting the resolutions: "A
firm determination to resist, at the threshold, every _invasion of our
domestic tranquillity_, and to _preserve our sovereignty and
independence as a State_, is earnestly recommended."[13]
[13] _Ib._, p. 206.
The resolutions required of the Southern States a complete surrender in
this regard of their reserved rights; they feared what Governor Wilson
called "the overwhelming powers of the general government," and were
unwilling to make the admission required, that the slavery in the South
was a question for the nation.
Another reason was that, although there was a quite common desire in the
Southern States to get rid of slavery, the majority sentiment doubtless
was not yet ready for the step.
Basing this plan on the "consent of the slave-holding States," as the
Ohio legislature did, was an acknowledgment that the North had no power
over the matter; while the proposition to share in the expense of
transporting the negroes, after they were manumitted, seems to be a
recognition of the joint responsibility of both sections for the
existence of slavery in the South. However that may be, the generous
concurrence of nine of the thirteen Northern States indicates how kindly
the temper of the North toward the South was before the rise of the "New
Abolitionism" in 1831. Had emancipation been, under the Federal
Constitution, a national and not a local question, it is possible that
slavery might have been abolished in America, as it was in the mother
country, peacefully and with compensation to owners.
The Ohio idea of freeing and at the same time colonizing the slaves, was
no doubt suggested by the scheme of the African Colonization Society.
This Colonization Society grew out of a resolution passed by the General
Assembly of Virginia, December 23, 1816. Its purpose was to rid the
country of such free negroes and subsequently manumitted slaves as
should be willing to go to Liberia, where a home was secured for them,
and a government set up that was to be eventually controlled by the
negro from America. The plan was endorsed by Georgia in 1817, Maryland
in 1818, Tennessee in 1818, and Vermont in 1819.[14]
[14] Ames, 195.
The Colonization Society was composed of Southern and Northern
philanthropists and statesmen of the most exalted character. Among its
presidents were, at times, President Monroe and ex-President Madison.
Chief Justice Marshall was one of its presidents. Colonization, while
relieving America, was also to give the negro an opportunity for
self-government and self-development in his native country, aided at the
outset by experienced white men, and Abraham Lincoln, when he was
eulogizing the dead Henry Clay, one of the eloquent advocates of the
scheme, seemed to be in love with the idea of restoring the poor African
to that land from which he had been rudely snatched by the rapacious
white man. The society, with much aid from philanthropists and some from
the Federal Government, was making progress when, from 1831 to 1835,
the Abolitionists halted it.[15] They got the ears of the negro and
persuaded him not to go to Liberia. Its friends thought the enterprise
would stimulate emancipation by furnishing a home for such negroes as
their owners were willing to manumit; but the new friends of the negro
told him it was a trick of the slave-holder, and intended to perpetuate
slavery--it was banishment. And Dr. Hart now, in his "Abolition and
Slavery," calls it a move for the "expatriation of the negro."
[15] See Garrison's "Garrison."
All together only a few thousand negroes went to Liberia. The enterprise
lagged, and finally failed, partly because of opposition, but chiefly
because the negroes were slothful and incapable of self-government. The
word came back that they were not prospering. For a time, while white
men were helping them in their government, the outlook for Liberia had
more or less promise in it. When the whites, to give the negroes their
opportunity for self-development withdrew their case was hopeless.[16]
[16] See article in _Independent_, 1906, Miss Mahony.
In 1828, while emancipation was still being freely canvassed North and
South, Benjamin Lundy, an Abolition editor in charge of _The Genius of
Emancipation_, then being published at Baltimore, in a slave State, went
to Boston to "stir up" the Northern people "to the work of abolishing
slavery in the South." Dr. Channing, who has been previously quoted,
wrote a letter to Daniel Webster on the 28th of May, 1828, in which,
after reciting the purpose of Lundy, and saying that he was "aware how
cautiously exertions are to be made for it in this part of the country,"
it being a local question, he said: "It seems to me that, before moving
in this matter, we ought to say to them (our Southern brethren)
distinctly, 'We consider slavery _as your calamity, not your crime_, and
_we will share with you the burden_ of putting an end to it. We will
consent that the public lands shall be appropriated to this object; or
that the general government shall be _clothed with the power to apply a
portion of revenue to it_.'
"I throw out these suggestions merely to illustrate my views. We must
first let the Southern States see that we are their _friends_ in this
affair; that we sympathize with them and, from principles _of patriotism
and philanthropy, are willing to share the toil and expense_ of
abolishing slavery, or, I fear, our interference will avail
nothing."[17] Mr. Webster never gave out this letter until February 15,
1851.[18]
[17] "Webster's Works," vol. V, pp. 366-67, 1851.
[18] _Ib._, ed. 1851, vol. V, pp. 266-67.
In less than three years after that letter was written, Lundy's friend,
William Lloyd Garrison, started in Boston a crusade against slavery in
the South, on the ground that instead of being the "_calamity_," as Dr.
Channing deemed it to be, it was the "_crime_" of the South. Had no such
exasperating sectional cry as this ever been raised, the story told in
this little book would have been very different from that which is to
follow. Even Spain, the laggard of nations, since that day has abolished
slavery in her colonies. Brazil long ago fell into line, and it is
impossible for one not blinded by the sectional strife of the past, now
to conceive that the Southern States of this Union, whose people in 1830
were among the foremost of the world in all the elements of Christian
civilization, would not long, long ago, if left to themselves, have
found some means by which to rid themselves of an institution condemned
by the public sentiment of the world and even then deplored by the
Southerners themselves.
The crime, if crime it was, of slavery in the South in 1830 was one for
which the two sections of the Union were equally to blame. Abraham
Lincoln said in his debate with Douglas at Peoria, Illinois, October 15,
1858: "When Southern people tell us they are no more responsible for
slavery than we are, I acknowledge the fact. When it is said that the
institution exists, and that it is very difficult to get rid of it, in
any satisfactory way, I can understand and appreciate the saying. I
surely do not blame them for not doing what I would not know how to do
myself."[19]
[19] "The Negro Problem," Pickett, 1809.
Prior to the rise of the Abolitionists in 1831, emancipationists in the
South had been free to grapple with conditions as they found them. What
they and what the people of the North had accomplished we may gather
from the United States census reports. The tables following are taken
from "Larned's History of Ready Reference," vol. V. The classifications
are his. We have numbered three of his tables, for the sake of
reference, and have added columns 4 and 5, calculated from Larned's
figures, to show "excess of free blacks" and "increase of free blacks,
South."
Let the reader assume as a fact, which will perhaps not be questioned,
that "free blacks" in the census means freedmen and their increase, and
these tables tell their own story, a story to which must be added the
statement that slaves in the South had been freed only by voluntary
sacrifices of owners.
It will be noted that in 1790 the total "blacks" in the North was
67,479, and, although emancipation in these States had begun some years
before, the excess of "free blacks" in the South was over 5,000. Also
that at every succeeding census, down to and including that of 1830, the
"excess of free blacks" increased with considerable regularity until
1830, when that excess is 44,547.
+----------------------+----------+-------+---------+-------+-------+--------+
| | | | | | | |
| | | | | TOTAL |EXCESS |INCREASE|
| | WHITES | FREE | SLAVES |BLACKS,|OF FREE|IN FREE |
| | | BLACKS| | NORTH |BLACKS,|BLACKS, |
| | | | | | SOUTH | SOUTH |
| | | | | | | |
+----------------------+----------+-------+---------+-------+-------+--------+
| | | | | | | |
|1790: North, 9 States | 1,900,976| 27,109| 40,370| 67,479| .... | .... |
| South, 8 States | 1,271,488| 32,357| 657,527| .... | 5,248 | .... |
| | | | | | | |
|1800: North, 11 States| 2,601,521| 47,154| 35,946| 83,100| .... | 20,045 |
| South, 9 States| 1,702,980| 61,241| 857,095| .... |14,087 | 28,884 |
| and D.C. | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | |
|1810: North, 13 States| 3,653,219| 78,181| 27,510|105,691| .... | 31,027 |
| South, 11 States| 2,208,785|108,265|1,163,854| .... |30,084 | 47,024 |
| and D. C. | | | | | | |
|1820: North, 13 States| 5,030,371| 99,281| 19,108|118,359| .... | 21,100 |
| South, 13 States| 2,831,560|134,223|1,519,017| .... |34,942 | 25,958 |
| and D. C. | | | | | | |
|1830: North, 13 States| 6,871,302|137,529| 3,568|141,097| .... | 38,248 |
| South, 13 States| 3,660,758|182,070|2,005,475| .... |44,541 | 47,747 |
| D. C. and Ter.| | | | | | |
|1840: North, etc. | 9,577,065|170,728| 1,728|171,857| .... | 33,199 |
| South, etc. | 4,632,530|215,575|2,486,326| .... |44,547 | 33,505 |
| | | | | | | |
|1850: North, etc. |13,269,149|196,262| 262|196,524| .... | 25,534 |
| South, etc. | 6,283,965|238,187|3,204,051| .... | 1,925 | 22,612 |
| | | | | | | |
|1860: North, etc. |18,791,159|225,967| 64|226,031| .... | 29,705 |
| South, etc. | 8,162,684|262,003|3,953,696| .... |36,036 | 23,816 |
| | | | | | | |
+----------------------+----------+-------+---------+-------+-------+--------+
There was always in the South, prior to 1831, an active and freely
expressed emancipation sentiment. But there was not enough of it to
influence legislation. In all but three or four of these States,
emancipation was made difficult by laws which, among other conditions,
required that slaves after being freed should leave the State.
Emancipation in the North had not been completed in 1830. Professor
Ingram, president of the Royal Irish Academy, says in his "History of
Slavery," London, 1895, p. 184: "The Northern States--beginning with
Vermont in 1777 and ending with New Jersey in 1804--either abolished
slavery or adopted measures to effect its gradual abolition within their
boundaries. But the principal operation of (at least) the latter change
was to transfer Northern slaves to Southern markets."
There had been in 1820 an angry discussion in Congress about the
admission of Missouri--with or without slavery--which was finally
settled by the Missouri Compromise. This dispute over the admission of
Missouri is often said to have been the beginning of the sectional
quarrel that finally ended in secession; but the controversy over
Missouri and that begun by the "New Abolitionists" in 1831 were
entirely distinct. They were conducted on different plans.
In the Missouri controversy the only questions were as to the expediency
and constitutionality of denying to a new State the right to enter the
Union, with or without slavery, as she might choose. The entire dispute
was settled to the satisfaction of both sections by an agreement that
States thereafter, south of 36 deg. 30', might enter the Union with or
without slavery; _and nobody denied, during all that discussion about
Missouri, or at any time previous to_ 1831, _that every citizen was
bound to maintain the Constitution and all laws passed in pursuance of
it, including the fugitive slave law_.
"The North submitted at that time (1828) to the obligations imposed upon
it by the fugitive slave-catching clause of the Constitution and the
fugitive slave law of 1793."[20] So say the biographers of William Lloyd
Garrison for the purpose of establishing, as they afterwards do, their
claim that Garrison conducted a successful revolt against that provision
of the Constitution. What strengthens the statement that the North in
1828 submitted without protest to the "fugitive slave-catching clause of
the Constitution," is that the Compromise Act of 1820 contained a
provision extending the fugitive slave law over the territory made free
by the act, while it should continue to be territory, and until there
should be formed from it States, to which the existing law would
automatically apply. Every subsequent _nullification of the fugitive
slave laws_ of the United States, whether by governors or state
legislatures, was therefore a palpable _violation of a provision that
was of the essence of the Missouri Compromise_.
[20] Garrison's "Garrison," vol. I, p. 113.
The South was content with the Missouri Compromise, and from that date,
1820, until the rise of the "New Abolitionists," slavery was in all that
region an open question. Judge Temple says in his "Covenanter, Cavalier,
and Puritan," p. 208: "In 1826, of the 143 emancipation societies in the
United States, 103 were in the South."
The questions for Southern emancipationists were: How could the slaves
be freed, and in what time? How about compensation to owners? Where
could the freed slaves be sent, and how? And, if deportation should
prove impossible, what system could be devised whereby the two races
could dwell together peacefully? These were indeed serious problems, and
required time and grave consideration.
"Who can doubt," says Mr. Curtis, to quote once more his "Life of
Buchanan," "that all such questions could have been satisfactorily
answered, if the Christianity of the South had been left to its own time
and mode of answering them, and without any external force but the force
of kindly, respectful consideration and forebearing Christian
fellowship?"[21]
[21] George Ticknor Curtis's "Life of Buchanan," vol. II, p. 283.
But this was not to be.