Part 47 (1/2)
”2d Article. We _will neither import nor purchase any slaves imported_ after the first day of December next, after which time we will _wholly discontinue_ the slave trade, and we will neither be concerned in it ourselves, nor will we hire our vessels, nor sell our commodities or manufactures to those who are concerned in it.”
The Continental Congress, in 1775, setting forth the causes and the necessity for taking up arms, say: ”_If it were possible_ for men who exercise their reason to believe that the divine Author of our existence intended a part of the human race to _hold an absolute property in, and unbounded power over others_,” &c.
In 1776, Dr. Hopkins, then at the head of New England divines, in ”An Address to the owners of negro slaves in the American colonies,” says: ”The conviction of the unjustifiableness of this practice (slavery) has been _increasing_, and _greatly spreading of late_, and _many_ who have had slaves, have found themselves so unable to justify their own conduct in holding them in bondage, as to be induced to _set them at liberty_. *
* * * Slavery is, _in every instance_, wrong, unrighteous, and oppressive--a very great and crying sin--_there being nothing of the kind equal to it on the face of the earth._”
The same year the American Congress issued a solemn MANIFESTO to the world. These were its first words: ”We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” _Once_, these were words of power; _now_, ”a rhetorical flourish.”
The celebrated Patrick Henry of Virginia, in a letter, of Jan. 18, 1773, to Robert Pleasants, afterwards president of the Virginia Abolition Society, says: ”Believe me, I shall honor the Quakers for their n.o.ble efforts to abolish slavery. It is a debt we owe to the purity of our religion to show that it is at variance with that law that warrants slavery. I exhort you to persevere in so worthy a resolution.”
In 1779, the Continental Congress ordered a pamphlet to be published, ent.i.tled, ”Observations on the American Revolution,” from which the following is an extract: ”The great principle (of government) is and ever will remain in force, _that men are by nature free_; and so long as we have any idea of divine _justice_, we must a.s.sociate that of _human freedom_. It is _conceded on all hands, that the right to be free_ CAN NEVER BE ALIENATED.”
Extract from the Pennsylvania act for the abolition of slavery, pa.s.sed March 1, 1780: * * ”We conceive that it is our duty, and we rejoice that it is in our power, to extend a portion of that freedom to others which has been extended to us. Weaned by a long course of experience from those narrow prejudices and partialities we had imbibed, we find our hearts enlarged with kindness and benevolence towards men of all conditions and nations: * * * Therefore be it enacted, that no child born hereafter be a slave,” &c.
Jefferson, in his Notes on Virginia, written just before the close of the Revolutionary War, says: ”I think a change already perceptible since the origin of the present revolution. The spirit of the master is abating, that of the slave is rising from the dust, his condition mollifying, _the way I hope preparing under the auspices of heaven_, FOR A TOTAL EMANc.i.p.aTION.”
In a letter to Dr. Price, of London, who had just published a pamphlet in favor of the abolition of slavery, Mr. Jefferson, then minister at Paris, (August 7, 1785,) says: ”From the mouth to the head of the Chesapeake, _the bulk of the people will approve of your pamphlet in theory_, and it will find a respectable minority ready to _adopt it in practice_--a minority which, for weight and worth of character, _preponderates against the greater number_.” Speaking of Virginia, he says: ”This is the next state to which we may turn our eyes for the interesting spectacle of justice in conflict with avarice and oppression,--a conflict in which THE SACRED SIDE IS GAINING DAILY RECRUITS. Be not, therefore, discouraged--what you have written will do a _great deal of good_; and could you still trouble yourself with our welfare, no man is more able to give aid to the laboring side. The College of William and Mary, since the remodelling of its plan, is the place where are collected together all the young men of Virginia, under preparation for public life. They are there under the direction (most of them) of a Mr. Wythe, one of the most virtuous of characters, and _whose sentiments on the subject of slavery are unequivocal._ I am satisfied, if you could resolve to address an exhortation to those young men with all that eloquence of which you are master, that _its influence on the future decision of this important question would be great, perhaps decisive._ Thus, you see, that so far from thinking you have cause to repent of what you have done, _I wish you to do more, and wish it on an a.s.surance of its effect._”--Jefferson's Posthumous Works, vol. 1, p.
268.
In 1786, John Jay drafted and signed a pet.i.tion to the Legislature of New York, on the subject of slavery, beginning with these words: ”Your memorialists being deeply affected by the situation of those, who, although FREE BY THE LAW OF G.o.d, are held in slavery by the laws of the State,” &c. This memorial bore also the signatures of the celebrated Alexander Hamilton; Robert R. Livingston, afterward Secretary of Foreign Affairs of the United States, and Chancellor of the State of New-York; James Duane, Major of the City of New-York, and many others of the most eminent individuals in the State.
In the preamble of an instrument, by which Mr. Jay emanc.i.p.ated a slave in 1784, is the following pa.s.sage:
”Whereas, the children of men are by nature equally free, and cannot, without injustice, be either reduced to or HELD in slavery.”
In his letter while Minister at Spain, in 1786, he says, speaking of the abolition of slavery: ”Till America comes into this measure, her prayers to heaven will be IMPIOUS. I believe G.o.d governs the world; and I believe it to be a maxim in his, as in our court, that those who ask for equity _ought to do it._”
In 1785, the New-York Manumission Society was formed. John Jay was chosen its first President, and held the office for five years.
Alexander Hamilton was its second President, and after holding the office one year, resigned upon his removal to Philadelphia as Secretary of the United States' Treasury. In 1787, the Pennsylvania Abolition Society was formed. Benjamin Franklin, warm from the discussions of the convention that formed the U.S. const.i.tution, was chosen President, and Benjamin Rush, Secretary--both signers of the Declaration of Independence. In 1789, the Maryland Abolition Society was formed. Among its officers were Samuel Chace, Judge of the U.S. Supreme Court, and Luther Martin, a member of the convention that formed the U.S.
const.i.tution. In 1790, the Connecticut Abolition Society was formed. The first President was Rev. Dr. Stiles, President of Yale College, and the Secretary, Simeon Baldwin, (the late Judge Baldwin of New Haven.) In 1791, this Society sent a memorial to Congress, from which the following is an extract:
”From a sober conviction of the unrighteousness of slavery, your pet.i.tioners have long beheld, with grief, our fellow men doomed to perpetual bondage, in a country which boasts of her freedom.
Your pet.i.tioners are fully of opinion; that calm reflection will at last convince the world, that the whole system of African slavery IS unjust in its nature--impolitic in its principles--and, in its consequences, ruinous to the industry and enterprise of the citizens of these States. From a conviction of those truths, your pet.i.tioners were led, by motives, we conceive, of general philanthropy, to a.s.sociate ourselves for the protection and a.s.sistance of this unfortunate part of our fellow men; and, though this Society has been _lately_ established, it has now become _generally extensive_ through this state, and, we fully believe, _embraces, on this subject, the sentiments of a large majority of its citizens._”
The same year the Virginia Abolition Society was formed. This Society, and the Maryland Society, had auxiliaries in different parts of those States. Both societies sent up memorials to Congress. The memorial of the Virginia Society is headed--”The memorial of the _Virginia Society_, for promoting the Abolition of Slavery, &c.” The following is an extract:
”Your memorialists, fully believing that slavery is not only an odious degradation, but an _outrageous violation of one of the most essential rights of human nature, and utterly repugnant to the precepts of the gospel_, lament that a practice so inconsistent with true policy and the inalienable rights of men, should subsist in so enlightened an age, and among a people professing, that all mankind are, by nature, equally ent.i.tled to freedom.”
About the same time a Society was formed in New Jersey. It had an acting committee of five members in each county in the State. The following is an extract from the preamble to its const.i.tution:
”It is our boast, that we live under a government wherein _life_, _liberty_, and the _pursuit of happiness_, are recognized as the universal rights of men; and whilst we are anxious to preserve these rights to ourselves, and transmit them inviolate, to our posterity, we _abhor that inconsistent, illiberal, and interested policy, which withholds those rights from an unfortunate and degraded cla.s.s of our fellow creatures._”
Among other distinguished individuals who were efficient officers of these Abolition Societies, and delegates from their respective state societies, at the annual meetings of the American convention for promoting the abolition of slavery, were Hon. Uriah Tracy, United States' Senator, from Connecticut; Hon. Zephaniah Swift, Chief Justice of the same State; Hon. Cesar A. Rodney, Attorney General of the United States; Hon. James A. Bayard, United States' Senator, from Delaware; Governor Bloomfield, of New-Jersey; Hon. Wm. Rawle, the late venerable head of the Philadelphia bar; Dr. Caspar Wistar, of Philadelphia; Messrs. Foster and Tillinghast, of Rhode Island; Messrs. Ridgely, Buchanan, and Wilkinson, of Maryland; and Messrs. Pleasants, McLean, and Anthony, of Virginia.
In July, 1787, the old Congress pa.s.sed the celebrated ordinance abolis.h.i.+ng slavery in the northwestern territory, and declaring that it should never thereafter exist there. This ordinance was pa.s.sed while the convention that formed the United States' const.i.tution was in session.
At the first session of Congress under the const.i.tution, this ordinance was ratified by a special act. Was.h.i.+ngton, fresh from the discussions of the convention, in which _more than forty days had been spent in adjusting the question of slavery, gave it his approval._ The act pa.s.sed with only one dissenting voice, (that of Mr. Yates, of New York,) _the South equally with the North avowing the fitness and expediency of the measure on general considerations, and indicating thus early the line of national policy, to be pursued by the United States' Government on the subject of slavery_.