Part 53 (2/2)
16. And the apostle here cla.s.ses them with _sinners of the first rank_.
The word he uses, in its original import comprehends all who are concerned in bringing any of the human race into slavery, or in _retaining_ them in it. _Stealers of men_ are all those who bring off slaves or freemen, and _keep_, sell, or buy them.”
In 1794, Dr. Rush declared: ”Domestic slavery is repugnant to the principles of Christianity. It prostrates every benevolent and just principle of action in the human heart. It is rebellion against the authority of a common Father. It is a practical denial of the extent and efficacy of the death of a common Saviour. It is an usurpation of the prerogative of the great Sovereign of the universe, who has solemnly claimed an exclusive property in the souls of men.”
In 1795, Mr. Fiske, then an officer of Dartmouth College, afterward a Judge in Tennessee, said, in an oration published that year, speaking of slaves: ”I steadfastly maintain, that we must bring them to _an equal standing, in point of privileges, with the whites!_ They must enjoy all the rights belonging to human nature.”
When the pet.i.tion on the abolition of the slave trade was under discussion in the Congress of '89, Mr. Brown, of North Carolina, said, ”The emanc.i.p.ation of the slaves _will be effected_ in time; it ought to be a gradual business, but he hoped that Congress would not _precipitate_ it to the great injury of the southern States.” Mr.
Hartley, of Pennsylvania, said, in the same debate, ”_He was not a little surprised to hear the cause of slavery advocated in that house_.”
WAs.h.i.+NGTON, in a letter to Sir John Sinclair, says, ”There are, in Pennsylvania, laws for the gradual abolition of slavery which neither Maryland nor Virginia have at present, but which _nothing is more certain_ than that they _must have_, and at a period NOT REMOTE.” In 1782, Virginia pa.s.sed her celebrated manumission act. Within nine years from that time nearly eleven thousand slaves were voluntarily emanc.i.p.ated by their masters. [Judge Tucker's ”Dissertation on Slavery,”
p. 72.] In 1787, Maryland pa.s.sed an act legalizing manumission. Mr.
Dorsey, of Maryland, in a speech in Congress, December 27th, 1826, speaking of manumissions under that act, said, that ”_The progress of emanc.i.p.ation was astonis.h.i.+ng_, the State became crowded with a free black population.”
The celebrated William Pinkney, in a speech before the Maryland House of Delegates, in 1789, on the emanc.i.p.ation of slaves, said, ”Sir, by the eternal principles of natural justice, _no master in the state has a right to hold his slave in bandage for a single hour_... Are we apprehensive that these men will become more dangerous by becoming freemen? Are we alarmed, lest by being admitted into the enjoyment of civil rights, they will be inspired with a deadly enmity against the rights of others? Strange, unaccountable paradox! How much more rational would it be, to argue that the natural enemy of the privileges of a freeman, is he who is robbed of them himself!”
Hon. James Campbell, in an address before the Pennsylvania Society of Cincinnati, July 4, 1787, said, ”Our separation from Great Britain has extended the empire of _humanity_. The time _is not far distant_ when our sister states, in imitation of our example, _shall turn their va.s.sals into freemen_.” The Convention that formed the United States'
const.i.tution being then in session, attended on the delivery of this oration with General Was.h.i.+ngton at their head.
A Baltimore paper of September 8th, 1780, contains the following notice of Major General Gates: ”A few days ago pa.s.sed through this town the Hon. General Gates and lady. The General, previous to leaving Virginia, summoned his numerous family of slaves about him, and amidst their tears of affection and grat.i.tude, gave them their FREEDOM.”
In 1791, the university of William and Mary, in Virginia, conferred upon Granville Sharpe the degree of Doctor of Laws. Sharpe was at that time the acknowledged head of British abolitionists. His indefatigable exertions, prosecuted for years in the case of Somerset, procured that memorable decision in the Court of King's Bench, which settled the principle that no slave could be held in England. He was most uncompromising in his opposition to slavery, and for twenty years previous he had spoken, written, and accomplished more against it than any man living.
In the ”Memoirs of the Revolutionary War in the Southern Department,” by Gen. Lee, of Va., Commandant of the Partizan Legion, is the following: ”The Const.i.tution of the United States, adopted lately with so much difficulty, has effectually provided against this evil (by importation) after a few years. It is much to be lamented that having done so much in this way, _a provision had not been made for the gradual abolition of slavery_.”--pp. 233, 4.
Mr. Tucker, of Virginia, Judge of the Supreme Court of that state, and professor of law in the University of William and Mary, addressed a letter to the General a.s.sembly of that state, in 1796, urging the abolition of slavery, from which the following is an extract. Speaking of the slaves in Virginia, he says: ”Should we not, at the time of the revolution, have broken their fetters? Is it not our duty _to embrace the first moment_ of const.i.tutional health and vigor to effectuate so desirable an object, and to remove from us a stigma with which our enemies will never fail to upbraid us, nor our consciences to reproach us?”
Mr. Faulkner, in a speech before the Virginia House of Delegates, Jan.
20, 1832, said: ”The idea of a gradual emanc.i.p.ation and removal of the slaves from this commonwealth, is coeval with the declaration of our independence from the British yoke. When Virginia stood sustained in her legislation by the pure and philosophic intellect of Pendleton, by the patriotism of Mason and Lee, by the searching vigor and sagacity of Wythe, and by the all-embracing, all-comprehensive genius of Thomas Jefferson! Sir, it was a committee composed of those five ill.u.s.trious men, who, in 1777, submitted to the general a.s.sembly of this state, then in session, _a plan for the gradual emanc.i.p.ation of the slaves of this commonwealth_.”
Hon. Benjamin Watkins Leigh, late United States' senator from Virginia, in his letters to the people of Virginia, in 1832, signed Appomattox, p.
43, says: ”I thought, till very lately, that it was known to every body that during the revolution, _and for many years after, the abolition of slavery was a favorite topic with many of our ablest statesmen_, who entertained, with respect, all the schemes which wisdom or ingenuity could suggest for accomplis.h.i.+ng the object. Mr. Wythe, to the day of his death, _was for a simple abolition, considering the objection to color as founded in prejudice_. By degrees, all projects of the kind were abandoned. Mr. Jefferson _retained_ his opinion, and now we have these projects revived.”
Governor Barbour, of Virginia, in his speech in the U.S. Senate, on the Missouri question, Jan. 1820, said: ”We are asked why has Virginia changed her policy in reference to slavery? That the sentiments of our most distinguished men, for thirty years _entirely corresponded_ with the course which the friends of the restriction (of slavery in Missouri) now advocated; and that the Virginia delegation, one of whom was the late President of the United States, voted for the restriction (of slavery) in the northwestern territory, and that Mr. Jefferson has delineated a gloomy picture of the baneful effects of slavery. When it is recollected that the Notes of Mr. Jefferson were written during the progress of the revolution, it is no matter of surprise that the writer should have imbibed a large portion of that enthusiasm which such an occasion was so well calculated to produce. As to the consent of the Virginia delegation to the restriction in question, whether the result of a disposition to restrain the slave-trade indirectly, or the influence of that enthusiasm to which I have just alluded, * * * * it is not now important to decide. We have witnessed its effects. The liberality of Virginia, or, as the result may prove, her folly, which submitted to, or, if you will, PROPOSED _this measure_ (abolition of slavery in the N.W. territory) has eventuated in effects which speak a monitory lesson. _How is the representation from this quarter on the present question_?”
Mr. Imlay, in his early history of Kentucky, p. 185, says: ”We have disgraced the fair face of humanity, and trampled upon the sacred privileges of man, at the very moment that we were exclaiming against the tyranny of your (the English) ministry. But in contending for the birthright of freedom, we have learned to feel _for the bondage of others_, and in the libations we offer to the G.o.ddess of liberty, we contemplate an _emanc.i.p.ation of the slaves of this country_, as honorable to themselves as it will be glorious to us.”
In the debate in Congress, Jan. 20, 1806, on Mr. Sloan's motion to lay a tax on the importation of slaves, Mr. Clark of Va. said: ”He was no advocate for a system of slavery.” Mr. Marion, of S. Carolina, said: ”He never had purchased, nor should he ever purchase a slave.” Mr. Southard said: ”Not revenue, but an expression of the _national sentiment_ is the princ.i.p.al object.” Mr. Smilie--”I rejoice that the word (slave) is not in the const.i.tution; its not being there does honor to the worthies who would not suffer it to become a _part_ of it.” Mr. Alston, of N.
Carolina--”In two years we shall have the power to prohibit the trade altogether. Then this House will be unanimous. No one will object to our exercising our full const.i.tutional powers.” National Intelligencer, Jan. 24, 1806.
These witnesses need no vouchers to ent.i.tle them to credit; nor their testimony comments to make it intelligible--their _names_ are their _endorsers_, and their strong words their own interpreters. We waive all comments. Our readers are of age. Whosoever hath ears to _hear_, let him HEAR. And whosoever will not hear the fathers of the revolution, the founders of the government, its chief magistrates, judges, legislators and sages, who dared and perilled all under the burdens, and in the heat of the day that tried men's souls--then ”neither will he be persuaded though THEY rose from the dead.”
Some of the points established by this testimony are--The universal expectation that Congress, state legislatures, seminaries of learning, churches, ministers of religion, and public sentiment widely embodied in abolition societies, would act against slavery, calling forth the moral sense of the nation, and creating a power of opinion that would abolish the system throughout the Union. In a word, that free speech and a free press would be wielded against it without ceasing and without restriction. Full well did the South know, not only that the national government would probably legislate against slavery wherever the const.i.tution placed it within its reach, but she knew also that Congress had already marked out the line of national policy to be pursued on the subject--had committed itself before the world to a course of action against slavery, wherever she could move upon it without encountering a conflicting jurisdiction--that the nation had established by solemn ordinance a memorable precedent for subsequent action, by abolis.h.i.+ng slavery in the northwest territory, and by declaring that it should never thenceforward exist there; and this too, as soon as by cession of Virginia and other states, the territory came under congressional control. The South knew also that the sixth article in the ordinance prohibiting slavery, was first proposed by the largest slaveholding state in the confederacy--that in the Congress of '84, Mr. Jefferson, as chairman of the committee on the N.W. territory, reported a resolution abolis.h.i.+ng slavery there--that the chairman of the committee that reported the ordinance of '87 was also a slaveholder--that the ordinance was enacted by Congress during the session of the convention that formed the United States' Const.i.tution--that the provisions of the ordinance were, both while in prospect and when under discussion, matters of universal notoriety and _approval_ with all parties, and when finally pa.s.sed, received the vote of _every member of Congress from each of the slaveholding states_. The South also had every reason for believing that the first Congress under the const.i.tution would _ratify_ that ordinance--as it did unanimously.
A crowd of reflections, suggested by the preceding testimony, presses for utterance. The right of pet.i.tion ravished and trampled by its const.i.tutional guardians, and insult and defiance hurled in the faces of the SOVEREIGN PEOPLE while calmly remonstrating _with their_ SERVANTS for violence committed on the nation's charter and their own dearest rights! Added to this ”the right of peaceably a.s.sembling” violently wrested--the rights of minorities, _rights_ no longer--free speech struck dumb--free _men_ outlawed and murdered--free presses cast into the streets and their fragments strewed with shoutings, or flourished in triumph before the gaze of approving crowds as proud mementos of prostrate law! The spirit and power of our fathers, where are they?
Their deep homage always and every where rendered to FREE THOUGHT, with its _inseparable signs--free speech and a free press_--their reverence for justice, liberty, _rights_ and all-pervading law, where are they?
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