Part 1 (1/2)
Anti-Slavery Opinions before the Year 1800.
by William Frederick Poole and George Buchanan.
ANTI-SLAVERY OPINIONS
Before 1800.
I purpose this evening to call the attention of the Club to the state of anti-slavery opinions in this country just prior to the year 1800.
In this examination I shall make use of a very rare pamphlet in the library of General Was.h.i.+ngton, which seems to have escaped the notice of writers on this subject; and shall preface my remarks on the main topic of discussion with a brief description of the Was.h.i.+ngton collection.
In the library of the Boston Athenaeum, the visitor sees, as he enters, a somewhat elaborately-constructed book-case, with gla.s.s front, filled with old books. This is the library of George Was.h.i.+ngton, which came into possession of the Athenaeum in 1849. It was purchased that year from the heirs of Judge Bushrod Was.h.i.+ngton--the favorite nephew to whom the General left all his books and ma.n.u.scripts--by Mr. Henry Stevens, of London, with the intention of placing it in the British Museum. Before the books were s.h.i.+pped, they were bought by Mr. George Livermore and a few other literary and public-spirited gentlemen of Boston, and presented to the Athenaeum. Mr. Livermore, as discretionary executor of the estate of Thomas Dowse, the ”literary leather-dresser” of Cambridge, added to the gift one thousand dollars, for the purpose of printing a description and catalogue of the collection, which has not yet been done.
The collection numbers about twelve hundred t.i.tles, of which four hundred and fifty are bound volumes, and seven hundred and fifty are pamphlets and unbound serials. Some books of the original library of General Was.h.i.+ngton still remain at Mt. Vernon, and are, or were a few years since, shown to visitors, with other curiosities.
Separated from a.s.sociation with their former ill.u.s.trious owner, the bound volumes, which are mostly English books, present but few attractions. Among them are a few treatises on the art of war and military tactics, which evidently were never much read. These were imported after his unfortunate expedition with Braddock's army, and before the revolutionary war. There are books on horse and cattle diseases; on domestic medicine; on farming, and on religious topics--such works as we might expect to find on the shelves of a intelligent Virginia planter. It is evident that their owner was no student or specialist. Many of the books were sent to him as presents, with complimentary inscriptions by the donors. The bindings are all in their original condition, and generally of the most common description. The few exceptions were presentation copies. Col. David Humphreys, Was.h.i.+ngton's aid-de-camp during the revolutionary war, presents his ”Miscellaneous Works,” printed in 1790, bound, regardless of expense, by some Philadelphia binder, in full red morocco, gilt and goffered edges, and with covers and fly-leaves lined with figured satin. As the book was for a very distinguished man, the patriotic binder has stamped on the covers and back every device he had in his shop. Nearly all the volumes have the bold autograph of ”Go.
Was.h.i.+ngton,” upon their t.i.tle pages, and the well-known book-plate, with his name, armorial bearings, and motto, _Exitus acta probat_,[1]
on the inside of the covers.
There are persons at the present day who have very positive opinions on the subject of prose fiction, believing that great characters like Jonathan Edwards and George Was.h.i.+ngton never read such naughty books when they were young. Let us see. Here is the ”Adventures of Peregrine Pickle; in which are included the Memoirs of a Lady of Quality,” by Tobias Smollett, in three volumes. On the t.i.tle page of the first volume is the autograph of George Was.h.i.+ngton, written in the cramped hand of a boy of fourteen. The work shows more evidence of having been attentively read, even to the end of the third volume, than any in the library. Here is the ”Life and Opinions of John Buncle,” a book which it is better that boarding-school misses should not read. Yet Was.h.i.+ngton read it, and enjoyed the fun; for it is one of the few books he speaks of in his correspondence as having read and enjoyed.
The present generation of readers are not familiar with John Buncle.
Of the book and its author, Hazlitt says ”John Buncle is the English Rabelais. The soul of Francis Rabelais pa.s.sed into Thomas Amory, the author of John Buncle. Both were physicians, and enemies of much gravity. Their great business was to enjoy life. Rabelais indulges his spirit of sensuality in wine, in dried neats' tongues, in Bologna sausages, in Botorgas. John Buncle shows the same symptoms of inordinate satisfaction in bread and b.u.t.ter. While Rabelais roared with Friar John and the monks, John Buncle gossiped with the ladies.”
It is the good fortune of the youth of our age that they are served with fun in more refined and discreet methods; yet there is a melancholy satisfaction in finding in the life of a great historical character like Was.h.i.+ngton, who was the embodiment of dignity and propriety, that he could, at some period of his existence, unbend and enjoy a book like John Buncle. He becomes, thereby, more human; and the distance between him and ordinary mortals seems to diminish.
Thomas Comber's ”Discourses on the Common Prayer,” has three autographs of his father, Augustine Was.h.i.+ngton, one of his mother, Mary Was.h.i.+ngton, and one of his own, written when nine years of age.
The fly-leaves he had used as a practice book for writing his father's and mother's names and his own, and for constructing monograms of the family names.[2]
The pamphlets in the collection have intrinsically more value than the larger works. They were nearly all contemporaneous, and were sent to Was.h.i.+ngton by their authors, with inscriptions upon the t.i.tle pages in their authors' handwriting, of the most profound respect and esteem. Some of these pamphlets are now exceedingly rare. In a bound volume lettered ”Tracts on Slavery,” and containing several papers, all of radical anti-slavery tendencies,[3] is the one to which I wish especially to call your attention. It is so rare that, having shown this copy for fifteen years to persons especially interested in this subject, and having made the most diligent inquiry, I have never heard of another, till within a few days since, when I learn from my friend, Mr. George H. Moore, the librarian of the New York Historical Society, that there is a copy in that society's library. Its t.i.tle is: ”An Oration upon the Moral and Political Evil of Slavery. Delivered at a Public Meeting of the Maryland Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery and the Relief of Free Negroes and others unlawfully held in Bondage, Baltimore, July 4, 1791. By George Buchanan, M. D., Member of the American Philosophical Society. Baltimore: Printed by Philip Edwards, M,DCC,XCIII.” Twenty pages, octavo.
A Fourth-of-July oration in Baltimore, on the moral and political evils of slavery, only four years after the adoption of the Const.i.tution, is an incident worthy of historical recognition, and a place in anti-slavery literature. The following extracts will give an idea of its style and range of thought:
”G.o.d hath created mankind after His own image, and granted them liberty and independence; and if varieties may be found in their structure and color, these are only to be attributed to the nature of their diet and habits, as also to the soil and the climate they may inhabit, and serve as flimsy pretexts for enslaving them.
”What, will you not consider that the Africans are men? That they have human souls to be saved? That they are born free and independent? A violation of these prerogatives is an infringement upon the laws of G.o.d.
”Possessed of Christian sentiments, they fail not to exercise them when opportunity offers. Things pleasing rejoice them, and melancholy circ.u.mstances pall their appet.i.tes for amus.e.m.e.nts. They brook no insults, and are equally p.r.o.ne to forgiveness, as to resentments. They have grat.i.tude also, and will even expose their lives to wipe off the obligation of past favors; nor do they want any of the refinements of taste, so much the boast of those who call themselves Christians.
”The talent for music, both vocal and instrumental, appears natural to them; neither is their genius for literature to be despised. Many instances are recorded of men of eminence among them. Witness Ignatius Sancho, whose letters are admired by all men of taste. Phillis Wheatley, who distinguished herself as a poetess; the Physician of New Orleans; the Virginia Calculator; Banneker, the Maryland Astronomer, and many others, whom it would be needless to mention. These are sufficient to show, that the Africans whom you despise, whom you inhumanly treat as brutes, and whom you unlawfully subject to slavery, are equally capable of improvement with yourselves.
”This you may think a bold a.s.sertion; but it is not made without reflection, nor independent of the testimony of many who have taken pains in their education. Because you see few, in comparison to their number, who make any exertion of ability at all, you are ready to enjoy the common opinion that they are an inferior set of beings, and destined to the cruelties and hards.h.i.+ps you impose upon them.
”But be cautious how long you hold such sentiments; the time may come when you will be obliged to abandon them. Consider the pitiable situation of these most distressed beings, deprived of their liberty and reduced to slavery. Consider also that they toil not for themselves from the rising of the sun to its going down, and you will readily conceive the cause of their inaction. What time or what incitement has a slave to become wise? There is no great art in hilling corn, or in running a furrow; and to do this they know they are doomed, whether they seek into the mysteries of science or remain ignorant as they are.
”To deprive a man of his liberty has a tendency to rob his soul of every spring to virtuous actions; and were slaves to become fiends, the wonder could not be great. 'Nothing more a.s.simulates a man to a beast,' says the learned Montesquieu, 'than being among freemen, himself a slave; for slavery clogs the mind, perverts the moral faculty, and reduces the conduct of man to the standard of brutes.' What right have you to expect greater things of these poor mortals? You would not blame a brute for committing ravages upon his prey; nor ought you to censure a slave for making attempts to regain his liberty, even at the risk of life itself.
”Such are the effects of subjecting man to slavery, that it destroys every human principle, vitiates the mind, instills ideas of unlawful cruelties, and subverts the springs of government.
”What a distressing scene is here before us? America, I start at your situation! These direful effects of slavery demand your most serious attention. What! shall a people who flew to arms with the valor of Roman citizens when encroachments were made upon their liberties by the invasion of foreign powers, now basely descend to cherish the seed and propagate the growth of the evil which they boldly sought to eradicate? To the eternal infamy of our country this will be handed down to posterity, written in the blood of African innocence. If your forefathers have been degenerate enough to introduce slavery into your country to contaminate the minds of her citizens, you ought to have the virtue of extirpating it.