//.mt title Virginia\'s Attitude Toward Slavery and Secession
//.mt author Beverley B. Munford
//.mt created 1909
//.mt cover cover.jpg

.dt The Project Gutenberg eBook of Virginia's Attitude Toward Slavery and Secession by Beverley B. Munford


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VIRGINIA'S ATTITUDE TOWARD SLAVERY AND SECESSION

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<xl>VIRGINIA'S ATTITUDE</xl>

<l>TOWARD</l>

<l>SLAVERY AND SECESSION</l>
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<s>BY</s>

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BEVERLEY B. MUNFORD
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<xs>HUMANITATEM AMOREMQUE PATRIAE COLITE</xs>

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<l>NEGRO UNIVERSITIES PRESS</l>
NEW YORK
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Originally published in 1909
by Longmans, Green, and Co.

Reprinted 1969 by
Negro Universities Press
<sc>A Division of Greenwood Publishing Corp.</sc>
<sc>New York</sc>

Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number 69-16579

<xs>PRINTED IN UNITED STATES OF AMERICA</xs>
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<i>TO</i>

MY WIFE
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<target id='preface'><l>PREFACE</l>
.sp 2

This work is designed as a contribution to the volume
of information from which the historian of the future will
be able to prepare an impartial and comprehensive narrative
of the American Civil War, or to speak more accurately—The
American War of Secession.

No attempt has been made to present the causes which
precipitated the secession of the Cotton States, nor the
states which subsequently adopted the same policy, except
Virginia. Even in regard to that commonwealth the
effort has been limited to the consideration of two features
prominent in the public mind as constituting the most
potent factors in determining her action—namely, devotion
to slavery and hostility to the Union. That the
people of Virginia were moved to secession by a selfish
desire to extend or maintain the institution of slavery,
or from hostility to the Union, are propositions seemingly
at variance with their whole history and the interests
which might naturally have controlled them in the hour
of separation. Yet how widespread the impression and
how frequent the suggestion from the pen of historian and
publicist that the great and compelling motives which led
Virginia to secede were a desire to extend slavery into
the territories and to safeguard the institution within her
own borders, coupled with a spirit of hostility to the
Union and the ideals of liberty proclaimed by its founders.
To present the true attitude of the dominant element of
the Virginia people with respect to these subjects is the
work which the author has taken in hand.

As cognate to this purpose the effort has been made
to show what was the proximate cause which influenced
the great body of the Virginia people in the hour of final
decision. There were unquestionably many and widely
severed causes—some remote in origin and some immediate
to the hour, yet it may be safely asserted that but
for the adoption by the Federal Government of the policy
of coercion towards the Cotton States, Virginia would
not have seceded. That was the crucial and determining
factor, which impelled her secession. She denied the
right of the Federal Government to defeat by force of
arms the aspiration of a people as numerous and united
as those of the Cotton States to achieve in peace their
independence. She believed that such a course and the
exercise of such a power on the part of the Federal Government,
if not actually beyond the scope of its powers as
fixed in the constitution, were clearly repugnant to the
ideals of the Republic, and subversive of the principles for
which their Fathers had fought and won the battles of the
Revolution. Upon the question, shall the Cotton States
be permitted to withdraw in peace, or shall their aspirations
be defeated by force of arms, Virginia assumed no
new position. She simply in the hour of danger and
sacrifice held faithful to the principles which she had ofttimes
declared and which have ever found sturdy defenders
in every part of the Republic.

In the preparation of this volume the author has been
the grateful recipient of the labors of many historians
and publicists, accredited citations from whose works will
be found throughout its pages.

In addition, he desires to acknowledge his indebtedness
to the following gentlemen:

First and foremost, to Dr. Philip Alexander Bruce of
Virginia, for his generous sympathy and invaluable assistance,
with respect to every feature of the book; also to
Edward M. Shepard, Esquire, and Reverend Samuel H.
Bishop of New York and to Colonel Archer Anderson and
Henry W. Anderson, Esquire, of Richmond, for their
kindness in reading his manuscript and making many
helpful suggestions.

For none of the errors of the book, nor for any expression
of opinion, are these gentlemen responsible.

Thanks are due and tendered to Dr. Herbert Putnam,
Librarian of Congress, Dr. H. R. McIlwaine, State Librarian
of Virginia, and Mr. W. G. Stanard, Corresponding Secretary
of the Virginia Historical Society, and to their courteous
assistants, for the generous use accorded the author of the
wealth of historical data in the custody of those institutions.

In addition to the foregoing, acknowledgments are
gratefully made to a great company of librarians, lawyers,
antiquarians, clerks of courts, custodians of private manuscripts
and others who have assisted the author in collecting
from widely separated sections of the Union the mass of
information from which he has drawn, in the preparation
of this work. In many instances, the facts so kindly
furnished do not appear, but have been of service to the
author, in enabling him to form more accurate conclusions.
The willingness exhibited by citizens of states, other than
Virginia, to furnish information with respect to the subject
under consideration, is indicative of a growing desire
throughout the Union to know the facts and appreciate
the viewpoint of our once separated but now united people.
If this book, in presenting the attitude of Virginia, shall
contribute to this result, it will afford the author the
sincerest gratification.

<s>\ \ \ \ Richmond, Virginia, June, 1909</s>
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ERRATA

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Page 142, line 8, for "stately," read "noble."

Page 142, line 10, for "over," read "above."

Page 162, line 7, for "MacMaster," read "McMaster."

Page 162, footnote, for "MacMaster," read "McMaster."

Page 214, line 12, for "<i>Cathargo,</i>" read "<i>Carthago.</i>"

Page 242, footnote, for "Vol. IV." read "Vol. VI."
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.sp 4
.h2
CONTENTS
.sp 2

.ce
#<sc>The Author's Preface</sc>:preface#

.sp 2
.ta r:8 l:55 r:5

<i>Part I</i>

<sc>Virginia's Attitude Toward Slavery</sc>
<sc>and Secession Defined</sc>

I. | Introduction | #1#
II. | Virginia—Slavery and Secession | #10#

<i>Part II</i>

<sc>Virginia Did Not Secede in Order to Extend Slavery</sc>
<sc>into the Territories, or to Prevent its Threatened</sc>
<sc>Destruction Within Her Own Borders</sc>


III. | Virginia's Colonial Record with Respect to Slavery | #15#

IV. | Virginia's Statute Abolishing the African Slave Trade |
 |   and Her Part in Enacting the Ordinance of 1787 | #25#

V. | Slavery and the Federal Constitution— |
  |   Virginia's Position | #29#

VI. | The Foreign Slave Trade— |
  |   Virginia's Efforts to Abolish It| #33#

VII. | Some Virginia Statutes with Respect to Slavery | #41#

VIII. | The Movement in the Virginia Legislature of 1832 |
  |   to Abolish Slavery in the State | #45#

IX. | The Northern Abolitionists and Their Reactionary |
  |    Influence upon Anti-Slavery Sentiment in Virginia | #51#

X. | Negro Colonization—State and National | #60#

XI. | Instances of Colonization by Individual Slaveholders | #66#

XII. | Emancipation and Colonization—Views of |
    |   Jefferson, Clay and Lincoln | #75#

XIII.|  Anti-Slavery Sentiments of Prominent Virginians | #82#

XIV. | Anti-Slavery Sentiments of Prominent Virginians.|
   |   Continued | #91#

XV. | Anti-Slavery Sentiments of Prominent Virginians. |
  |   Concluded | #96#

XVI. | Specimens of Deeds and Wills Emancipating Slaves | #104#

XVII. | Specimens of Deeds and Wills Emancipating Slaves. |
  |   Concluded  | #114#

XVIII. | The Small Number of Slaveholders in Virginia, |
  |   as Compared with Her Whole White Population | #125#

XIX. | The Injurious Effects of Slavery upon the |
   |   Prosperity of Virginia | #128#

XX. | The Custom of Buying and Selling Slaves— |
  |   Virginia's Attitude | #139#

XXI. | The Custom of Buying and Selling Slaves— |
  |   Virginia's Attitude. Concluded | #147#

XXII. | Small Proportion of Slaveholders among Virginia |
  |   Soldiers | #154#

XXIII. | Some of the Almost Insuperable Difficulties which |
  |   Embarrassed Every Plan of Emancipation | #159#

XXIV. | Some of the Almost Insuperable Difficulties which |
  |    Embarrassed Every Plan of Emancipation. Continued | #164#

XXV. | Some of the Almost Insuperable Difficulties which |
  |   Embarrassed Every Plan of Emancipation. Concluded | #175#

XXVI. | The Status of the Controversy Regarding Slavery at |
  |   the Time Virginia Seceded from the Union | #185#

XXVII. | The Status of the Controversy Regarding Slavery at |
  |   the Time Virginia Seceded from the Union. Concluded | #193#

XXVIII. | The Attitude of Certain Northern States | #201#

XXIX. | The Attitude of Certain Northern States. Concluded | #206#

XXX. | The Abolitionists      |#214#

XXXI. | The Abolitionists and Disunion      |#217#

XXXII. | The Abolitionists and Disunion. Concluded      |#225#

XXXIII. | The Emancipation Proclamations and the Virginia |
  |   People | #230#

<i>Part III</i>

<sc>Virginia Did Not Secede From a Wanton Desire to</sc>
<sc>Destroy the Union, or From Hostility to the</sc>
<sc>Ideals of its Founders</sc>

XXXIV. | Virginia's Part in the Revolution | #237#

XXXV. | Virginia's Part in Making the Union under the |
  |   Constitution | #242#

XXXVI. | Virginia's Efforts to Promote Reconciliation |
  |   and Union in 1861 | #248#

XXXVII. | The People of Virginia Declare for Union | #255#

<i>Part IV</i>

<sc>The Attempt of the Federal Government to Coerce</sc>
<sc>the Cotton States—The Proximate Cause of</sc>
<sc>Virginia's Secession</sc>


XXXVIII. | The Coercion of the Cotton States— |
  |   Virginia's Position | #263#

 XXXIX. | The Contest in the Virginia Convention for and |
  |   against Secession | #269#

    XL. | The Contest in the Virginia Convention for and |
  |   against Secession. Concluded | #277#

   XLI. | The Attempted Reinforcement of Fort Sumter and |
  |   its Significance | #284#

  XLII. | The Attempt to Coerce the Cotton States Impels |
  |   Virginia to Secede | #290#

 XLIII. | Conclusion | #301#

 \  | Bibliography | #305#

 \  | Index | #313#
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.sp 4
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<i>PART I</i>

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VIRGINIA'S ATTITUDE TOWARD SLAVERY
AND SECESSION DEFINED
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.sp 4
.h2
I
.ce
INTRODUCTION
.pn 1
.sp 2

The story of the American Civil War presents a subject
fraught with interest, not destined to die with the passing
years. Even the finality of the verdict then rendered
on the issues joined will not abate the desire of men to
fix with precision the political and ethical questions involved
and the motives which impelled the participants
in that deplorable tragedy. The sword may determine
the boundaries of empire or the political destinies of a
people, but the great assize of the world's thought and
conscience tries again and again the merits of controversies
and brings victor and vanquished to the bar of its increasingly
fair and discriminating judgment.

.sp 2
CHARACTER OF WAR

What was the character of the War? Though one of
the greatest wars of modern times, having its rise and fall
before the eyes of all the world, yet men are to-day in
doubt as to the true term by which to describe it.

Was it a Civil War? Such a conception omits the claim
of the North that the Federal Government as such fought
to maintain its constitutional supremacy, and the claim
of the South that the seceding states but exercised their
constitutional rights in seceding, and as states fought to
maintain that principle. A civil war betokens one people,
in the same country, subjects of the same power, at war
among themselves. Here, though afore-time countrymen,
when the battle was joined, there were two rival
governments, and the territories of the contending parties
.pn +1 // 018.png
were distinguished, not by shibboleths and banners, but
by rivers and mountain ranges. It was a sectional rather
than a community war, a conflict between governments
rather than between citizens of the same government.

Was it a Rebellion? Such a conflict indicates a revolt
of citizens or subjects against their acknowledged sovereign.
Whether in the United States the citizen owed allegiance
to the Federal Government as against his State Government
was a question upon which men had divided since
the birth of the Republic. The men of the North responded
to the call of the sovereign to whose allegiance they acknowledged
fealty—the men of the South did the same.
It was a battle between rival conceptions of sovereignty
rather than one between a sovereign and its acknowledged
citizens.

Was it a Revolution? A revolution is a successful
movement of citizens or subjects against their sovereign.
Here the identity of the Sovereign was in dispute, and the
effort, though of unexampled magnitude, was unsuccessful.
In addition the parties to the conflict held irreconcilable
conceptions as to what constituted the right of
revolution—one insisting that it was a God-given right
inherent in any people sufficiently numerous to maintain
a National existence; the other, that it was a mere power
to strike, dependent upon success to prove the legitimacy
of the claim.

.sp 2
PARTIES TO CONFLICT

The parties to the Conflict were not rival nations, but
compatriots of the same flag; joint inheritors of the English
Common Law and the ideals of liberty consecrated by
centuries of heroic struggle; descendants of an ancestry
knit in political sympathy by their successful battle for
independence from the Mother Country, and the achievements
by which they made their new-born nation great;
.pn +1 // 019.png
children of Puritan and Cavalier, Quaker and Huguenot;
Dutchman and Catholic-Frenchman; men of strong
individual and community traits, accustomed to rule and
untutored in the art of surrender.

.sp 2
CAUSES OF WAR

The causes of the War were deep-seated and complex.
They were Old-World antagonisms, religious and political,
antedating, and yet surviving, the settlements at Jamestown
and Plymouth Rock, New Amsterdam, and New Orleans;—

The early development in the two great divisions of the
country, of diverse economic conditions—a land of small
farms and multiplied industrial activities confronting one
of large plantations and agricultural supremacy;—

The Protective Tariff, at first enacted to secure for
American manufactures a chance to compete successfully
with those of the Old World, but, in its results, a burdensome
system, under which the agriculturists of the South
paid onerous tribute to the manufacturers of the North;—

Slavery—an institution which specialized more and
more the interests of the South in the great exporting
staples of cotton, rice and tobacco, driving manufactures
and mining into the more hospitable regions of the North;—an
institution whose life or death was within the exclusive
power of the separate states where it was legalized, and
yet the manifold incidents of whose existence were the
subject of frequent National legislation, and hence ever
recurring occasions of sectional strife;—an institution
which quickened in time among the people of the non-slaveholding
states the conviction that it was a sin, with
the consequent charge that all responsible for its existence
were parties to a crime, thus arousing the bitter resentment
of devout men in the slaveholding states, who, protesting
their innocence of wrong, challenged the right of their
Northern brethren to sit in judgment upon them;—
.pn +1 // 020.png

The Annexation of Texas: A new cause and occasion
for sectional jealousy, precipitating the war with Mexico,
and bringing additional territory into the Union with fresh
disputes over the powers of Congress in regard thereto;—

The Immense Foreign Immigration into the North and
West;—thus developing in those sections the strongest
sentiments of Nationalism, while the South, unaffected
by any such forces, adhered to the early ideals of state
pride and state supremacy;—

State Sovereignty versus National Supremacy;—the
first, the shield behind which aggrieved minorities sought
to curb arrogant majorities and safeguard the rights
and interests of community life; the second, the ideal
by which the preservation of the Union was to be
assured and its dignity and power at home and abroad
vindicated;—

The Missouri Compromise—its enactment and repeal,
the controversies as to the power of Congress to prohibit
slaveholders from migrating with their slaves into the
territories, the enactment by Congress of the Fugitive
Slave Law of 1850 and the attitude of certain Northern
States in attempting to defeat its execution, the Underground
Railroad, the decision in the Dred Scott case, the
armed conflicts in Kansas, the John Brown Raid and the
sympathy evinced at the North for the man and his venture;
and finally:

The asserted right of the Cotton States to withdraw
from the Union, and the declared purpose of the Federal
Government to defeat their aspiration by force of arms.

Add to all the foregoing the vision of mighty armies
struggling for mastery, the terrors and miseries of war—contrasted
with the heroism and devotion which it aroused,
and there results a combination of causes which will
.pn +1 // 021.png
continue to make their compelling appeal to the hearts
and imaginations of men.

.sp 2
THE ISSUES INVOLVED

If the causes of the war were manifold and perplexing,
the exact object for which each of the contending parties
did battle is only less difficult of precise definition. A
brief consideration of some of the many forms in which
the popular voice has sought to express the conception
will serve to illustrate the truth of this suggestion.

"The North fought to preserve the Union—the South,
to destroy it."

That one great element of the Northern people took up
arms at the call of the Federal Government to prevent
a dismemberment of the Union is undoubtedly true. That
another element regarded the maintenance of the Union
under the existing constitution as unworthy of effort is
equally true. The first went forth at the earliest call to
preserve the Union under the old constitution; the second
came later to the battle to fight for a Union with a constitution
which should decree the abolition of slavery.
That the Southern people sought to establish the independence
of their new Confederacy and to that extent a
dismemberment of the Union is true, but that they desired
the destruction of the Union and the principles of liberty
and law which its establishment was designed to assure
are conclusions not easily deducible from their aspirations
or necessities.

"The North fought for empire, the South for independence."

That the North fought to keep within the limits of the
Union the domain stretching from the Potomac to the
Rio Grande is true, but that the great mass of her people
were actuated by a desire to hold the land as tributary
and its people as subjects is not true. The splendid ideal
.pn +1 // 022.png
of a Republic, stretching from ocean to ocean, and securing
to its growing millions the dual blessings which spring
from National integrity and home rule, we may well believe
was ever before them. That one great element of the
Southern people fought for independence and all the
inspiring ideals which the term implies is true, though it
is equally true that joined with them in the battle were
states the dominant elements of whose people cherished
no primal desire for separation from the Union, but resisted
the authorities of the latter because of their convictions
that its policy of coercion was illegal and destructive of
the principle upon which the Republic had been founded.

"The North fought to destroy slavery; the South, to
extend and maintain it."

That slavery was the most potent factor in developing
the conditions which finally precipitated war is true.
That the two parties to the conflict joined battle upon the
issue of its maintenance or destruction seems inconsistent
with their solemnly declared purposes and promises, made
at the time. President Lincoln at his inauguration proclaimed:
"I have no purpose directly or indirectly to
interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where
it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I
have no inclination to do so." This pledge of the President
was but a reaffirmation of the platform of his party, and
both were, in turn, confirmed by the declaration of Congress
that the war was fought, "to defend and maintain
the supremacy of the constitution and to preserve the
Union with all the dignity, equality and rights of the
several states unimpaired."

President Davis presented the attitude of his people
and government when he declared: "All we ask is to be
let alone—that those who never held power over us shall
.pn +1 // 023.png
not now attempt our subjugation by arms." And after
three years of desperate war, he declared to the representatives
of President Lincoln:—

.in +2
.ll -4
.fs 90%
"We are not fighting for slavery. We are fighting for
independence.... Say to Mr. Lincoln for me that I shall
at any time be pleased to receive proposals for peace, on the
basis of our independence. It will be useless to approach
me with any other."[#]
.fs 100%
.ll
.in

That the people of America in the nineteenth century
of the Christian era should have resorted to war in order
to settle questions of constitutional and moral right must
forever constitute an impeachment of the capacity for self-government
and the ethical standards of the men responsible
for its occurrence.

The charge that the people of twenty-three states in four
of which slavery was legalized arose in arms against their
fellow-citizens of the remaining eleven and, despite the
constitutional safeguards with which the institution in the
latter states was confessedly surrounded, invaded their
land, burnt thousands of their homes and killed tens of
thousands of their citizens in a desperate determination
to destroy slavery, is as compromising to American character
as the counter accusation that the people of eleven
states, with no existing menace to their constitutional
rights in regard to slavery, resorted to secession and
aggressive war in order to secure new guarantees for the
safety of the institution. Charges so dishonoring to the
American people should not be made and above all should
not be accepted as true—unless compelled by the inexorable
facts of history.

.sp 2
STATE RIGHTS vs. FEDERAL RIGHTS

"The South fought for States' Rights—Home Rule;
the North, for Federal rights—National Supremacy."
.pn +1 // 024.png

In the large measure of truth contained in this declaration
lay the profound tragedy of the Civil War—a battle
for the supremacy of one of two ideals, thus brought into
antagonism, upon the maintenance of both of which, in
their true proportions, depended so largely the success of
the unique experiment in government established by the
Fathers. In this union of states how were the rights of
personal liberty and community life to be harmonized
with the National ideals and powers essential to its preservation?
Liberty and law—the consent of the governed
and the integrity of the Government—how were these
great ends to be assured? From the birth of the Republic,
there were views radically divergent as to the character
and powers of the government then created; and there
were aspirations of devoutest patriotism alike yearning
for the triumphs of liberty and law, though seeking these
ideals by policies almost irreconcilable. Thus, upon the
fair prospect of the new Republic, there lowered from its
natal hour forebodings of strife and separation. With
these warring ideals, intensified by divergent economic
and political interests, there arose the forces which drove
the shuttle of discord back and forth through the web and
woof of the nation's life, and wrought the forbidding
pattern of sectionalism, division and hate. What were
the causes—what the issues—of that "strange and most
unnatural" war? What were the motives which impelled
the people of the South, utterly unprepared for battle,
to risk the unequal contest, and never to desist until the
hand of destruction had paralyzed the very heart of effort?
What were the motives which impelled the people of the
North to give without stint their wealth of blood and
treasure; to marshal armies more numerous than those
with which Napoleon confronted a world in arms, and,
.pn +1 // 025.png
for four years, to hurl them against the homes of their
brethren?

Analysis is the foe of confusion and the friend of the
light. Motives and methods, grouped and commingled,
present difficulties of right appreciation which ofttimes
vanish if separated into their component parts.

The commonwealth of Virginia bore a not inconspicuous
part in the Civil War. It will subserve the cause of truth
and assist to a clearer understanding of the complex conditions
referred to, if we endeavor to portray the motives
which impelled the people of this one state during those
fateful days of 1860-61.

.fm
.fn #
<i>History of the United States</i>, Rhodes, Vol. IV, p. 515.
.fn-


.sp 4
.h2 pn=+1 // 026.png
II

.ce
<sc>Virginia: Slavery and Secession</sc>
.sp 2

It is not questioned that among the people of Virginia
were men of widely divergent views; Secessionists of the
most ultra type, insisting on the state's right to secede,
and demanding her immediate withdrawal from the
Union; anti-secessionists of the strongest mould, denying
the right of secession and protesting against its attempted
exercise; Unionists who admitted the right in the state,
as a desperate measure of relief, but denying that any
such occasion had arisen; advocates of slavery who regarded
the institution as approved of Heaven,—a blessing to
the blacks, and essential to the safety of the whites;
apostles of emancipation who denounced slavery and
called for its abolition; men who would make Virginia
"neutral territory" between the hostile sections, and
those who would fight for her rights, but "fight within
the Union."

.sp 2
VIRGINIA'S ATTITUDE

None of these elements, separately, spoke the sentiments
of the majority, nor represented the controlling
force in her citizenship. We shall accept as the true
expression of the dominant element the returns from
the ballot box, the enactments of her legislative and
constitutional assemblies, and the deliverances of her
great sons. Tried by these criteria, it may be truthfully
declared that the institution of slavery was regarded with
disfavor by a majority of her people; that they tolerated
its existence as a <i>modus vivendi</i> to meet the dangers and
.pn +1 // 027.png
difficulties of the hour, but looking forward to the time
when the increase of her white population from within
and without, and the decrease of her blacks by emigration
and colonization would render feasible its abolition, with
a maximum of benefit to the slaves and their owners,
and a minimum of danger to society and the state; that
while cherishing an almost romantic love for their commonwealth,
they felt genuine loyalty to the Union, and contemplated
with profound sorrow the suggested withdrawal
therefrom of any group of states; and, finally,
that they carried their state out of the Union and into
the Southern Confederacy because the authorities of the
former sought by force of arms to defeat the latter in
their efforts to achieve independence, and demanded of
Virginia her quota of men to accomplish the deed.

.sp 2
SLAVERY AND SECESSION

Secession they deplored because it broke the married calm
of a union which its makers fondly hoped would endure
forever, but war upon the states seeking independence
they also deplored, because subversive of the principles
upon which the Union was founded. Could the Federal
Government deny to six millions of people the boon of
independence which they were seeking by orderly and
peaceful methods, and still remain true to the principles
of the great Declaration, to maintain which the Fathers
of the Republic had fought and won the battles of the
Revolution? Have people the right to determine for
themselves their political destiny? Are the just powers
of governments to be measured by the consent of the
governed? These were the questions which, carrying
their own answers, impelled the Virginian opponents of
coercion in 1861 to stand, as they believed, for the political
and ethical principles which the Flag symbolized, rather
than for the Flag itself.
.pn +1 // 028.png

That Virginia revered the institution of slavery, and
from selfish motives fought to make more sure the muniments
of its existence; that she desired the destruction
of the Union, and the degenerate abandonment of the
inspiring dreams of liberty and progress, which it was
designed to assure,—are propositions unthinkable to
men acquainted with her history and the genius and aspirations
of her people. It was for no such cause that she
gave her sons to the sword, and her bosom as the battleground
for the fiercest war of modern times. Her people
fought because they felt the occasion made its imperious
demand upon their duty and their honor. Virginia had
persistently declared that the right asserted by the Cotton
States was God-given and inalienable. Thus her sense
of honor, as well as the imperilled right of self-government,
impelled her to battle.

Twenty years after the surrender at Appomattox Lord
Wolseley wrote: "The Right of Self-Government which
Washington won, and for which Lee fought, was no longer
to be a watchword to stir men's blood in the United
States."[#]

We need not accept the conclusion of this distinguished
soldier that the cause of self-government no longer commands
the allegiance of the American people, in order to
believe that amid the trials and conflicts of the Civil War
Virginia stood faithful for the vindication of that great
principle.

.fm
.fn #
<i>R. E. Lee</i>, Wolseley, p. 51.
.fn-


.pb
.sp 4

.h2
<i>PART II</i>
.sp 2

.nf c
VIRGINIA DID NOT SECEDE IN ORDER TO EXTEND
SLAVERY INTO THE TERRITORIES,
OR TO PREVENT ITS THREATENED
DESTRUCTION WITHIN HER
OWN BORDERS
.nf-

.pb


.sp 4
.h2 pn=+3  // 031.png
III

.ce
<sc>Virginia's Colonial Record with Respect to Slavery</sc>
.sp 2

President Lincoln in his inaugural address declared:—"One
section of our country believes slavery is right and
ought to be extended, while the other believes slavery is
wrong and ought not to be extended. This is the only
substantial dispute."

Other voices proclaimed that there existed an "irrepressible
conflict" between the North and the South in
which the abolition or maintenance of slavery was the gage
of battle. The two assertions may be combined and the
question considered whether Virginia seceded either to
extend slavery into the territories or to perpetuate the
institution within her borders.

.sp 2
SLAVERY IN VIRGINIA

In considering these questions it will be well to review
Virginia's record with respect to slavery both during the
period of her existence as a colony and her career as a
state;

To collate the sentiments of her great sons antagonistic
to the institution;

To show the small number of her citizens holding slaves
as compared with the great company of those who possessed
no such interest;

To note the injurious effects upon her prosperity resulting
from the presence of the institution;

To summarize what were considered the almost insuperable
difficulties which embarrassed every plan of
emancipation—difficulties that were augmented and intensified
.pn +1 // 032.png
by the bitterness and partizanship with which,
during the three decades immediately preceding the Civil
War, the subject had become invested;

To present the situation with respect to the controversy
at the time Virginia seceded from the Union; and finally,

To consider the effects, if any, upon her position, of
President Lincoln's Proclamations of Emancipation issued
subsequent thereto.

.sp 2
VIRGINIA'S COLONIAL RECORD

African slaves were first brought to Virginia in 1619 by
a Dutch vessel. George W. Williams, the negro historian
of his race in America, says, "It is due to the Virginia
colony to say that the slaves were forced upon them."[#]

Though slaves were thus introduced as early as 1619,
it was not until 1661 that the institution of slavery was
recognized in Virginia by statute law.[#]

For a long period after their first introduction, very
few slaves were imported. At the end of the first half-century
there were only some two thousand, and as late
as the year 1715 they numbered only about twenty-five
thousand. In the sixty years, however, immediately
preceding the Revolution, they came in ever-increasing
numbers, so that at the latter date they almost equalled
the white population of the colony.[#]

.sp 2
EFFORTS TO EXCLUDE SLAVES

With the great increase of this element in the population,
the colonists were quick to realize their danger[#] and
numerous acts were passed by the Colonial Legislature
designed to lessen, if not actually to stop, further
.pn +1 // 033.png
importations. Alluding to these efforts of the Virginia
people, Mr. Bancroft says:

.in +2
"Again and again they had passed laws restraining the
importation of negroes from Africa, but their laws were
disallowed. How to prevent them from protecting themselves
against the increase of the overwhelming evil was
debated by the King in Council; and on the 10th of December,
1770, he issued an instruction under his own hand
commanding the Governor 'upon pain of the highest displeasure,
to assent to no laws by which the importation of
slaves should be in any respect prohibited or obstructed.'"[#]
.in

Edmund Burke, in his speech on conciliating America,
in response to the suggestion that the slaves might be
freed and used against the colonies, said,

.in +2
"Dull as all men are from slavery, must they not a little
suspect the offer of freedom from the very nation which
.pn +1 //034.png
had sold them to their present masters—from that nation,
one of whose causes of quarrel with those masters is
their refusal to deal any more in that inhuman traffic.
An offer of freedom from England would come rather
oddly, shipped to them in an African vessel, which is
refused an entry into the ports of Virginia or Carolina, with a
cargo of three hundred Angola Negroes."[#]
.in

In addition to legislative enactments, appeals were
addressed directly to the throne. But the great personages
interested in the slave trade proved more influential
with the King than the prayers of his imperilled
people. There is something at once pathetic and prophetic
in the appeals made by these Virginians to their
sovereign against the slave trade. The petition presented
by the House of Burgesses in 1772 recites:

.in +2
"We implore your Majesty's paternal assistance in averting
a calamity of a most alarming nature. The importation
of slaves into the colonies from the coast of
Africa hath long been considered as a trade of great inhumanity,
and under its present encouragement we have
too much reason to fear will endanger the very existence
of your Majesty's American dominions. We are sensible
that some of your Majesty's subjects may reap emoluments
from this sort of traffic, but when we consider that
it greatly retards the settlement of the colonies with more
useful inhabitants and may in time have the most destructive
influence, we presume to hope that the interests of
a few will be disregarded when placed in competition
with the security and happiness of such numbers of your
Majesty's dutiful and loyal subjects. We, therefore, beseech
your Majesty to remove all these restraints on your
Majesty's Governor in this colony which inhibits their
assenting to such laws as might check so pernicious a
consequence."[#]
.in

.pn +1 // 035.png
This petition was reported from a Committee of the
House which included Edmund Pendleton, Richard Henry
Lee, Benjamin Harrison and others of equal prominence.[#]

But the King and Ministers continued to turn deaf
ears and except with respect to more moderate measures
the Royal Veto was interposed to annul all anti-slavery
laws.

.sp 2
ORIGINAL DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

Chief among the causes which aroused the opposition
of the Virginia colonists and placed them in the forefront
of the Revolution was the course of the King with respect
to this momentous subject. When Thomas Jefferson
came to write the Declaration of Independence and to
epitomize the grounds of indictment which the colonists
presented against the British King, it was the latter's
veto of the laws passed by Virginia to suppress the slave
trade, and the active aid lent by his Government to force
the captives of Africa upon his defenseless subjects, that
evoked the fiercest arraignment in that historic document.
Mr. Jefferson declared:

.in +2
"George the Third has waged cruel war against humanity
itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty,
in the persons of a distant people who never offended
him; captivating and carrying them into slavery in another
hemisphere, or to incur a miserable death in their transportation
thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium
of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian King of
Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where
men should be bought and sold, he has prostituted his
negative by suppressing every legislative attempt to
prohibit, or to restrain, this execrable commerce. And
that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished
dye, he is now exciting these very people to
rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of
.pn +1 //036.png
which he has deprived them, by murdering the people on
whom he obtruded them; thus paying off former crimes
committed against the liberties of one people with crimes
which he urges them to commit against the lives of
another."[#]
.in

"These words," says Mr. Bancroft, "expressed precisely
what had happened in Virginia."

.sp 2
REASONS FOR AMENDING DECLARATION

That this portion of the Declaration was stricken out by
Congress before its formal presentation to the world does
not negative the fact that, in thus declaring, Mr. Jefferson
proclaimed the sentiments of his native state. It was
ominous of her future experience with respect to this
baneful subject, that the voice of Virginia was then silenced
in deference to the states of the far South and certain of
their Northern sisters. Mr. Jefferson has left upon record
that this clause in the Declaration of Independence was
stricken out:

.in +2
"In compliance to South Carolina and Georgia, who
had never attempted to restrain the importation of slaves,
and who, on the contrary, still wished to continue it.
Our Northern brethren also, I believe, felt a little tender
under these censures, for though their people had very
few slaves, yet they had been pretty considerable carriers
of them to others."[#]
.in

The biographers of Abraham Lincoln, Nicolay and Hay,
say:

.in +2
"The objections of South Carolina and Georgia sufficed
to cause the erasure and suppression of the obnoxious
paragraph. Nor were the Northern States guiltless;
Newport was yet a great slave mart, and the commerce of
.pn +1 // 037.png
New England drew more advantages from the traffic than
did the agriculture of the South."[#]
.in

.sp 2
VIRGINIA'S ANTI-SLAVERY SENTIMENTS, 1774

But the position of Virginia with respect to slavery and
the vetoes of George III and the slave trade was not left
to be determined by unofficial utterances though coming
from one of her greatest sons. As early as 1774 her people
registered their sentiments in the most varied and emphatic
forms. Mass meetings in many of the counties
adopted resolutions, the purport and tenor of which may
be gathered from those of Fairfax County,—"We take the
opportunity of declaring our most earnest wishes to see
an entire stop forever put to such a wicked, cruel and
unnatural trade."[#]

.sp 2
VIRGINIA'S FIRST CONSTITUTION

In August, 1774, the Virginia Colonial Convention
resolved: "We will neither ourselves import, nor purchase
any slave or slaves imported by any other person,
after the first day of November, next, either from Africa,
the West Indies or any other place."[#]

On the fifth of September, 1774, when the Continental
Congress assembled for the first time, her delegates in that
body submitted the memorial known in history as, "A
Summary View of the Rights of British America," in
which the course of George III was arraigned and the
sentiments of Virginia in regard to the slave trade declared
as follows:

.in +2
"For the most trifling reasons, and sometimes for no
conceivable reason at all, His Majesty has rejected laws of
the most salutary tendency. The abolition of domestic
slavery is the great object of desire in those colonies,
where it was, unhappily, introduced in their infant state.
.pn +1 // 038.png
But, previous to the enfranchisement of the slaves we have,
it is necessary to exclude all further importations from
Africa. Yet, our repeated requests to effect this by prohibitions,
and by imposing duties which might amount
to a prohibition, have been hitherto defeated by His
Majesty's negative; thus preferring the immediate advantage
of a few British Corsairs to the lasting interests
of the American States, and to the rights of human nature
deeply wounded by this infamous practice."[#]
.in

The representatives from Virginia in the Continental
Congress were active in their efforts to secure the adoption
of the Non-Importation Agreement which included a
resolve to discontinue the slave trade and a pledge neither
to hire "our vessels nor sell our commodities or manufactures
to those who are concerned in it."[#]

W. E. B. DuBois declares: "Virginia gave the slave
trade a special prominence and was in reality the leading
spirit to force her views on the Continental Congress."[#]

Nor were these resolves of the Virginia people idle, for
numerous evidences can be cited of the activity of her
vigilance committees. At Norfolk, the committees, finding
that one John Brown had purchased slaves from
Jamaica, reported that we "hold up for your just indignation
Mr. John Brown, merchant of this place ... to the
end ... that every person may henceforth break off all
dealings with him."[#]

.sp 2
VIRGINIA'S BILL OF RIGHTS

Two years later, but before the proclamation of the
Declaration of Independence, Virginia adopted a written
constitution and Bill of Rights. In the preamble to the
former there are set forth the reasons which influenced
.pn +1 // 039.png
the colony to cast off her allegiance to the British King.
Among the foremost was his action in "perverting his
kingly powers," ... "into a detestable and insupportable
tyranny by putting his negative on laws the most
wholesome and necessary for the public good"; and again,
for "prompting our negroes to rise in arms among
us—those very negroes whom, by an inhuman use of
his negative, he hath refused us permission to exclude
by law."[#]

Her Bill of Rights opened with the then novel and far
reaching declaration:

.in +2
"That all men are by nature equally free and independent,
and have certain inherent rights, of which when they
enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any contract
deprive or divest their posterity; namely the enjoyment
of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing
property and pursuing and obtaining happiness and
safety."[#]
.in

With respect to this great document, Mr. Bancroft
declares:

.in +2
"Other colonies had framed Bills of Rights in reference
to their relations with Britain; Virginia moved from charters
and customs to primal principles; from the altercation
about facts to the contemplation of immutable truth.
She summoned the eternal laws of man's being to protest
against all tyranny. The English Petition of Right, in
1688, was historic and retrospective; the Virginia declaration
came out of the heart of nature and announced governing
principles for all peoples in all times. It was the
voice of reason going forth to speak a new political world
into being. At the bar of humanity Virginia gave the
name and fame of her sons as hostages that her public
.pn +1 // 040.png
life should show a likeness to the highest ideals of right
and equal freedom among men."[#]
.in

.sp 2
CANONS OF LIBERTY

This Bill of Rights was incorporated in every subsequent
constitution of Virginia and is to-day a part of her organic
law. Two months after its first adoption came the Declaration
of American Independence. The words of Mason:
"That all men are by nature equally free and independent,"
are re-echoed in the words of Jefferson, "That all men
are created equal," and both declare that among the
inalienable rights of man are "life, liberty and the pursuit
of happiness."

To these principles, Virginia acknowledged allegiance;
to the Bill of Rights, by the unanimous vote of her Constitutional
Convention; and to the Declaration of Independence
by the united voices of her delegates in the
Continental Congress. The institution of slavery could
not square with these great canons. Henceforth its
existence in Virginia could be justified only by the difficulties
and dangers attending its abolition.

These recitals bring us down to the close of Virginia's
life as a colony, and the assumption by her people of the
rights and obligations of statehood. In the more than
one hundred and fifty years of her colonial existence—despite
protests, appeals and statutes—the inflowing tide
from Africa had continued, so that out of a population of
some six hundred thousand souls, over two-fifths were
negro slaves. It was amid such conditions that Virginia
met the problems incident to her birth into statehood, bore
her part in founding the Republic, furnished her quota of
soldiers to resist the armies of Great Britain, and held
with fixed determination her ever advancing border line
against the craft and courage of the Red Men.

.fm
.fn #
<i>History of the Negro Race in America</i>, Williams,
Vol. 1, p. 119.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>History of Slavery in Virginia</i>, Ballagh, p. 34.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>History of the Negro Race in America</i>, Williams,
Vol. 1, p. 133.
.fn-

.fn #
A letter from the celebrated Colonel William Byrd of
"Westover" to Lord Egmont, under date of July 12, 1736, will
serve to illustrate this fact. Colonel Byrd writes, "Your Lord's
opinion concerning Rum and Negroes is certainly very just, and
your excluding both of them from your colony of Georgia will be
very happy...

I wish, my Lord, we could be blessed with the same prohibition.
They import so many negroes here that I fear this colony will
some time or other be confirmed by the name of New Guinea. I am
sensible of the many bad consequences of multiplying the
Ethiopians amongst us. They blow up the pride and ruin the
Industry of our White People, who seeing a Rank of poor creatures
below them, detest work for fear it should make them look like
slaves. Then that poverty which will ever attend upon Idleness
disposes them as much to pilfer as it does the Portuguese....

But these private mischiefs are nothing if compared to the
publick danger. It were therefore worth the consideration of a
British Parliament, my Lord, to put an end to this unchristian
traffick of making merchandise of our Fellow Creatures. At least,
the further importation of them into our Colony should be
prohibited lest they prove as troublesome and dangerous elsewhere
as they have been lately in Jamaica.... All these matters duly
considered, I wonder the Legislature will Indulge a few ravenous
traders to the danger of the Publick Safety." (From Unpublished
Byrd Manuscripts at Lower Brandon, Va.)
.fn-

.fn #
<i>History of United States</i>, Bancroft, Vol. III, p. 410.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Burke's Works</i>, Little, Brown & Co.'s. Ed., Vol. II, p. 135.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Journal of House of Burgesses</i>, p. 131, and <i>Tucker's Blackstone</i>, appendix, note H. Vol. II, p. 351.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Defense of Virginia</i>, Dabney, p. 48.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>History of United States</i>, Bancroft, Vol. IV, p. 445.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Writings of Thomas Jefferson</i>, P. L. Ford, 1892, p. 28.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Abraham Lincoln, A History</i>, Nicolay & Hay, Vol. I, p. 314.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Suppression of the Slave Trade</i>, DuBois, p. 43.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Idem</i>, p. 43.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Writings of Thomas Jefferson</i>, Ford, 1892, Vol. I, p. 440.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Suppression of the Slave Trade</i>, DuBois, p. 45.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Idem</i>, p. 43.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Idem</i>, p. 47.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Hening's Statutes</i>, Vol. IX, pp. 112-113.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Idem</i>, p. 109.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>History of United States</i>, Bancroft, Vol. IV, p. 419.
.fn-


.sp 4
.h2 pn=+1 // 041.png
IV

.nf c
<sc>Virginia's Statute Abolishing the African Slave</sc>
<sc>Trade and Her Part in Enacting the</sc>
<sc>Ordinance of 1787</sc>
.nf-

.sp 2
Foremost among the laws enacted by her General
Assembly after Virginia's declaration of independence from
British rule was her celebrated statute prohibiting the
slave trade. This act was passed in 1778—thus antedating
by thirty years the like action of Great Britain.
By this law, it was provided, "that from and after the
passing of this act no slaves shall hereafter be imported
into this commonwealth by sea or land, nor shall any
slaves so imported be sold or bought by any person whatsoever."
The statute imposed a fine of one thousand
pounds upon the person importing them for each slave
imported, and also a fine of five hundred pounds upon
any person buying or selling any such slave for each slave
so bought or sold. The crime of bringing in slaves is still
further guarded against by a provision which declares that
every slave "shall upon such importation become free."[#]
Of this act, Mr. Ballagh, in his <i>History of Slavery in Virginia</i>,
says, "Virginia thus had the honor of being the first
political community in the civilized modern world to prohibit
the pernicious traffic."[#]

.sp 2
VIRGINIA'S CONQUEST OF THE NORTHWEST

Next in the sequence of great events linked with this
subject was the work of her sons in the preparation and
.pn +1 // 042.png
adoption of the ordinance for the government of the northwest
territory. This imperial domain from which have
been created the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan
and Wisconsin had been conquered by her soldiers, led
by her son, George Rogers Clark, acting under a commission
of her Governor, Patrick Henry, and her Council.[#]
"Virginians," says Mr. Bancroft, "in the service of
Virginia." Virginia claimed the country as comprised
within the limits fixed by her colonial charter. Massachusetts,
Connecticut and New York also asserted claims,
but, as John Fiske declares, "It was Virginia that had
actually conquered the disputed territory."[#] And again
he writes, "Virginia gave up a magnificent and princely
territory of which she was actually in possession."[#] When,
by the valor of her sons, Virginia had won the land from
the English and the Indians, she silenced the murmurings
of sister states and consummated the efforts for union
by formally relinquishing the great domain to the common
weal.

The day that Virginia's deed of cession, March the first,
1784, was accepted by the Continental Congress, Mr.
Jefferson reported his bill—the Ordinance of 1784. This
measure was one of far reaching importance in that it
provided not only for many of the governmental needs
of this great territory, but declared that after the year
1800, slavery should never exist in any portion of the vast
domain west of a line drawn north and south between
Lake Erie and the Spanish dominions of Florida. Had
this clause been retained in the ordinance, slavery would
have been excluded not only from the five states created
.pn +1 // 043.png
out of the northwest territory but from the country south
of it and from which were subsequently formed the states
of Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama and Mississippi.

This provision of the ordinance, however, failed of
adoption—the votes of six states being recorded in its favor,
one less than the requisite majority. Mr. Jefferson's
colleagues present, Hardy and Mercer, refused to join
him in voting for this novel enactment. Its failure was
a matter of profound regret to its author. In a letter to
M. de Munier, Mr. Jefferson wrote:

.in +2
"The voice of a single individual of the state which
was divided, or one of those which were of the negative,
would have prevented this abominable crime from spreading
itself over the new country. Thus we see the fate
of millions unborn hanging on the tongue of one man
and Heaven was silent in that awful moment."[#]
.in

.sp 2
ORDINANCE OF 1787

This ambition of Mr. Jefferson was not destined to
complete defeat. Three years later, the now celebrated
Ordinance of 1787 was enacted into law. "No one was
more active," says Mr. Fiske, "in bringing about this
result than William Grayson of Virginia, who was earnestly
supported by Lee."[#]

Mr. Bancroft says:

.in +2
"Thomas Jefferson first summoned Congress to prohibit
slavery in all the territory of the United States;
Rufus King lifted up the measure when it lay almost
lifeless on the ground, and suggested the immediate
instead of the prospective prohibition; a Congress composed
of five Southern States to one from New England
and two from the Middle States, headed by William Grayson,
supported by Richard Henry Lee, and using Nathan
.pn +1 // 044.png
Dane as scribe, carried the measure to the goal in the
amended form in which King had caused it to be referred
to a committee; and, as Jefferson had proposed, placed
it under the sanction of an irrevocable compact."[#]
.in

.sp 2
VIRGINIA CONFIRMS ORDINANCE OF 1787

The ordinance as passed contained many provisions
in addition to those set out in Virginia's deed of cession.
It was necessary, therefore, that Virginia should by proper
enactment reaffirm her deed. The General Assembly
of Virginia at its next session accordingly passed an act
fixing for all time the validity of both deed and ordinance.[#]
Mr. Bancroft says:

.in +2
"A powerful committee on which were Carrington,
Monroe, Edmund Randolph and Grayson, successfully
brought forward the bill by which Virginia confirmed
the ordinance for the colonization of all the territory
then in the possession of the United States, by freemen
alone."[#]
.in

Thus the old commonwealth which had won the land
from England and the Indians bore a foremost part in the
legislative work by which slavery was forever excluded from
the empire north of the Ohio River.

.fm
.fn #
<i>Hening's Statutes</i>, Vol. IX, p. 471.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>History of Slavery in Virginia</i>, Ballagh, p. 23.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Life of Patrick Henry</i>, W. W. Henry, Vol. I, p.
583.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Critical Period of American History</i>, Fiske, p.
191.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Idem</i>, p. 195.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Writings of Jefferson</i>, Ford, Vol. IV, p. 181.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Critical Period of American History</i>, Fiske, p.
205.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>History of United States</i>, Bancroft, Vol. VI, p.
290.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Hening's Statutes</i>, Vol. XII, p. 780.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>History of United States</i>, Bancroft, Vol. VI, p.
291.
.fn-



.sp 4
.h2 pn=+1 // 045.png
V

.nf c
<sc>Foreign Slave Trade and the Constitution:</sc>
<sc>Virginia's Position</sc>
.nf-
.sp 2

The supreme opportunity for suppressing the importation
of slaves and thus hastening the day of emancipation
came with the adoption of the Federal Constitution. As
we have seen, with every increase in the number of slaves
the difficulties and dangers of emancipation were multiplied.
The hope of emancipation rested in stopping their further
importation and dispersing throughout the land those
who had already found a home in our midst. To put
an end to "this pernicious traffic" was therefore the
supreme duty of the hour, but despite Virginia's protests
and appeals the foreign slave trade was legalized by the
Federal Constitution for an additional period of twenty
years. The nation knew not the day of its visitation—with
blinded eyes and reckless hand it sowed the dragon's
teeth from which have sprung the conditions and problems
which even to-day tax the thought and conscience
of the American people.

This action of the convention is declared by Mr. Fiske,
to have been "a bargain between New England and the
far South."

"New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Connecticut,"
he adds, "consented to the prolonging of the foreign slave
trade for twenty years, or until 1808; and in return
South Carolina and Georgia consented to the clause empowering
Congress to pass Navigation Acts and otherwise
.pn +1 // 046.png
regulate commerce by a simple majority of votes."[#]

.sp 2
OPPOSITION TO FOREIGN SLAVE TRADE

George W. Williams, the negro historian, avers that,

.in +2
"Thus, by an understanding or, as Gouverneur Morris
called it, 'a bargain' between the commercial representatives
of the Northern States and the delegates of South
Carolina and Georgia, and in spite of the opposition of
Maryland and Virginia, the unrestricted power of Congress
to enact Navigation Laws was conceded to the Northern
merchants; and to the Carolina rice planters, as an equivalent,
twenty years' continuance of the African slave trade."[#]
.in

Continuing, Mr. Fiske says, "This compromise was
carried against the sturdy opposition of Virginia." George
Mason spoke the sentiments of the Mother-Commonwealth
when in a speech against this provision of the constitution,
which reads like prophecy and judgment, he said:

.in +2
"This infernal traffic originated in the avarice of British
merchants. The British Government constantly checked
the attempts of Virginia to put a stop to it. The present
question concerns, not the importing states alone, but
the whole Union.... Maryland and Virginia, he said,
had already prohibited the importation of slaves expressly.
North Carolina had done the same in substance. All this
would be in vain if South Carolina and Georgia be at liberty
to import. The Western people are already calling out for
slaves for their new lands; and will fill that country with
slaves if they can be got through South Carolina and Georgia.
Slavery discourages arts and manufactures. The poor despise
labor when performed by slaves. They prevent the
emigration of whites, who really enrich and strengthen
a country. They produce the most pernicious effect on
manners. Every master of slaves is born a petty tyrant.
They bring the judgment of Heaven on a country. As
nations cannot be rewarded or punished in the next world,
they must be in this. By an inevitable chain of causes
.pn +1 // 047.png
and effects, Providence punishes National sins by National
calamities. He lamented that some of our Eastern
brethren had, from a lust of gain, embarked in this nefarious
traffic. As to the states being in possession of the right
to import, this was the case with many other rights, now
to be properly given up. He held it essential, in every
point of view, that the General Government should have
power to prevent the increase of slavery."
.in

"But these prophetic words of George Mason," adds
Mr. Fiske, "were powerless against the combination of
New England and the far South."[#]

Some seven decades later, Virginia erected under the
shadow of her Capitol a bronze statue to commemorate
the fame of this illustrious son.

Governor Randolph and Mr. Madison earnestly supported
their colleague, the former declaring that this
feature rendered the constitution so odious as to make
doubtful his ability to support it; and the latter asserting,
"Twenty years will produce all the mischief that can be
apprehended from the liberty to import slaves. So long a
term will be more dishonorable to the American character
than to say nothing about it in the constitution."[#]

.sp 2
FOREIGN SLAVE TRADE LEGALIZED

Thus it was by the votes of New Hampshire, Massachusetts,
Connecticut, Maryland, North Carolina, South
Carolina and Georgia, and against the votes of New Jersey,
Pennsylvania, Delaware and Virginia, that the slave
trade was legalized by the National Government for the
period from 1787 to 1808.

.sp 2
DISASTERS RESULTING THEREFROM

If it be argued that this provision of the constitution
offered no menace to Virginia or to any other state not
willing to admit the importations, the reply is obvious
.pn +1 // 048.png
that this action of the National Government was deplorable
because it placed the imprimatur of its supreme law upon
the morality as well as legality of the slave trade; and
further, because with the advent from abroad of every
additional slave the difficulties and dangers of emancipating
those in the South—their natural habitat—was increased.
New England and the North were not menaced. Climatic
and economic conditions, as well as their local laws, raised
a protecting barrier. Beneath the hot skies of the South—where
flourished the much sought for crops of cotton, rice
and sugar cane—was the land to which with unerring
instinct the Trader piloted his craft freighted with ignorance
and woe. As long, therefore, as one port remained
open and the National Government sanctioned the traffic,
just so long would the inflowing tide continue, each new
arrival adding to the difficulties of the situation.

Thus the nation, under its new charter, entered upon its
career handicapped by the curse of slavery and further
menaced by the new lease of life accorded the slave trade.
Upon Virginia the maximum of burden rested. She had
within her borders nearly one-third of the whole slave
population of the Union. Hers was the ceaseless task of
guarding against further importations from home or
abroad; of devising some practicable plan for gradually
emancipating the slaves in her midst, and meanwhile to
continue day by day the work of teaching these children
of the Dark Continent an intelligible language, the use of
tools, the necessity for labor and the rudiments of morality
and religion.

.fm
.fn #
<i>Critical Period of American History</i>, Fiske, p. 264.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>History of Negro Race in America</i>, Williams, Vol. I, p. 426.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Critical Period of American History</i>, Fiske, p. 264.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Life and Times of Madison</i>, Rives, Vol. II, p. 446.
.fn-



.sp 4
.h2 pn=+1 // 049.png
VI

.nf c
<sc>The Foreign Slave Trade</sc>
<sc>Virginia's Efforts to Abolish it</sc>
.nf-
.sp 2
Despite Virginia's failure to secure the immediate suppression
of the foreign slave trade, her sons were active
in their efforts to restrict its growth and at the earliest
possible moment to drive the slave ships from the seas.

In the first Congress under the constitution, April,
1789, Josiah Parker of Virginia sought to amend the
Tariff Bill under discussion by inserting a clause levying
an import tax of ten dollars upon every slave brought into
the country.

.in +2
"He was sorry the constitution prevented Congress
from prohibiting the importation altogether. It was
contrary to Revolution principles and ought not to be
permitted.... He hoped Congress would do all in their
power to restore to human nature its inherent privileges;
to wipe off, if possible, the stigma under which America
labored; to do away with the inconsistence in our
principles justly charged upon us; and to show by our
actions, the pure beneficence of the doctrine held out to
the world in our Declaration of Independence."
.in

Mr. Parker was supported by two other Virginians,
Theodoric Bland and James Madison, the latter declaring:

.in +2
"The clause in the constitution allowing a tax to be imposed
though the traffic could not be prohibited for
twenty years, was inserted, he believed, for the very purpose
of enabling Congress to give some testimony of the
sense of America with respect to the African trade. By
.pn +1 // 050.png
expressing a national disapprobation of that trade it is
to be hoped we may destroy it, and so save ourselves from
reproaches and our posterity from the imbecility ever
attendant on a country filled with slaves."[#]
.in

But notwithstanding these appeals the movement was
defeated, though the discussion was evidently fruitful
in bringing to the attention of the country that under
the constitution, Congress had authority not only to levy
a tax of ten dollars per capita on slaves imported, but to
prohibit citizens of the United States from engaging in
the traffic with foreign countries. These latter conclusions
were formally embodied in a report made to Congress on
the 23rd of March, 1790, by a committee of which Josiah
Parker of Virginia was one of the leading members.
The adoption of this report stirred the opponents of the
slave trade to greater activity and numerous petitions
were presented at the next session of Congress from Maryland
and Virginia and almost every one of the Northern
States. In the Virginia petition, the slave trade was
denounced as "an outrageous violation of one of the most
essential rights of human nature."[#]

In his message to Congress, at its session, 1806-7, Mr.
Jefferson, then President, brought to the attention of
that body the fact that under the constitution the time
was at hand when the African slave trade could be abolished,
and urged the speedy enactment of such a law. He said:

.in +2
"I congratulate you, fellow-citizens, on the approach
of a period at which you may interpose your authority
constitutionally to withdraw the citizens of the United
States from all further participation in those violations
of human rights which have so long been continued on the
.pn +1 // 051.png
unoffending inhabitants of Africa, and which the morality,
the reputation and the best interests of our country have
long been eager to proscribe."
.in

An act was accordingly passed prohibiting the slave
trade and imposing forfeitures and fines upon ships and
ships' crews engaged in the traffic. The law also forfeited
slaves so illegally imported and provided that the disposition
of such slaves should be left to the states wherein
they were found.

The African slave trade had flourished so long under the
patronage and support of the leading nations of Christendom
and with the acquiescence, at least, of the United
States during the previous twenty years, that it was
difficult by simple statutory enactment to put an end to
the nefarious traffic. It will be seen, therefore, that the
trade continued from time to time between the coast of
Africa, the United States, West Indies and Brazil, despite
the efforts of the Federal authorities to enforce the laws
made for its suppression. In all these efforts Virginians,
holding official places, were most earnest and energetic
in their warfare against the trade.

In his message to Congress, December 5, 1810, President
Madison declares:

.in +2
"Among the commercial abuses still committed under
the American flag ... it appears that American citizens
are instrumental in carrying on the traffic in enslaved
Africans, equally in violation of the laws of humanity and
in defiance of those of their own country,"
.in

and urges Congress to devise further means for suppressing
the evil.

Again, in his message to Congress of December 3, 1816,
President Madison brings the subject to the attention of
.pn +1 // 052.png
Congress and urges the enactment of such amendments
as will suppress violations of the statute.

In the progress of time, certain slaves brought into the
country in violation of the act were captured and sold,
thus in effect defeating one of the prime objects of the
law, which was to prevent any increase in the slave population.
Thereupon, at the session of Congress, 1819, under
the leadership of Charles Fenton Mercer and John Floyd
of Virginia a bill was passed amending the existing statute,
requiring the President to use armed cruisers off the coasts
of Africa and America to suppress the trade, providing
for the immediate return to Africa of any imported slaves,
directing the President to appoint agents to receive and
care for them on their return and appropriating One
Hundred Thousand Dollars to carry out the general purposes
of the law.[#]

In the House, on motion of Hugh Nelson, of Virginia,
the death penalty was fixed as the punishment for violating
the law, but this provision was stricken out by the Senate.[#]

In February, 1823, Charles Fenton Mercer, a representative
from Virginia, in the House, secured the adoption
of the following joint resolution:

.in +2
"RESOLVED, That the President of the United States
be requested to enter upon and to prosecute from time
to time such negotiations with the maritime powers of
Europe and America as he may deem expedient for the
effectual abolition of the African slave trade and its ultimate
denunciation as Piracy under the laws of Nations by the
consent of the civilized world."[#]
.in

Mr. Mercer, in urging the adoption of this resolution,
.pn +1 // 053.png
denounced the African slave trade "as a crime begun on
a barbarous shore, claimed by no civilized state, and
subject to no moral law; a remnant of ancient barbarism,
a curse extended to the New World by the colonial policy
of the Old."[#]

Mr. Mercer supplemented his congressional action by
visits made at his own expense to the Governments of the
Old World to urge upon them the adoption of the policy
set forth in his resolution.'[#]

It was early appreciated that unless at least a qualified
"right of search" was accorded the war vessels of the
leading nations engaged in the effort to suppress the slave
trade, these efforts would be seriously hindered. Accordingly
the lower house of Congress, in May, 1821,
under the leadership of Charles Fenton Mercer, from
whose committee the resolution was reported, adopted
the recommendation that a "right of search" be accorded
the British Government in return for a like privilege
accorded the United States.[#] This resolution, however,
was defeated in the Senate.

Subsequently President Monroe submitted to Congress
the draft of a treaty with England embodying this provision.
In a special message, under date of May 21, 1824,
he gave at length his reasons for approving the treaty—saying:

.in +2
"Should this convention be adopted there is every
reason to believe that it will be the commencement of a
system destined to accomplish the entire abolition of the
slave trade."
.in

.pn +1 // 054.png

Unfortunately, the ratification of this treaty was defeated
in the Senate, and not until 1862 was the "right of
search" between Great Britain and America established.

In his message to Congress June 1, 1841, President
Tyler writes:

.in +2
"I shall also at the proper season invite your attention
to the statutory enactments for the suppression of the
slave trade which may require to be rendered more effective
in their provisions. There is reason to believe that the
traffic is on the increase.... The highest consideration of
public honor as well as the strongest promptings of humanity
require a resort to the most vigorous efforts to suppress
the trade."
.in

Again, in his message of December 7, 1841, President
Tyler writes:

.in +2
"I invite your attention to existing laws for the suppression
of the African slave trade, and recommend all
such alterations as may give to them greater force and
efficiency. That the American flag is grossly abused
by the abandoned and profligate of other nations is but
too probable."
.in

In 1842, in the preparation of the Ashburton Treaty
President Tyler secured the insertion of a clause providing
for the maintenance and co-operation of squadrons of the
United States and Great Britain off the coast of Africa
for the suppression of the trade.[#]

The ratification of this treaty was urged upon the
Senate by the President in his message of August 11, 1842,
as conducive to the abolition of what he termed the "unlawful
and inhuman traffic."

Though Brazil, by statute, prohibited the African slave
trade in 1831, yet the traffic continued and in this trade
.pn +1 // 055.png
citizens of the United States as ship owners, or crew,
were engaged despite the Federal statutes against such a
practice. Henry A. Wise of Virginia, Consul at Rio
Janeiro, made frequent and earnest reports to the State
Department calling the attention of the authorities to
these violations. Under date of February 18th, 1845,
he writes to the Secretary of State at Washington:

.in +2
"I beseech, I implore the President of the United States
to take a decided stand on this subject. You have no
conception of the bold effrontery and the flagrant outrages
of the African slave trade, and of the shameless manner
in which its worst crimes are licensed here, and every
patriot in our land would blush for our country did he
know and see, as I do, how our citizens sail and sell our
flag to the uses and abuses of that accursed practice."[#]
.in

In his message to Congress, under date of December
4th, 1849, President Taylor writes:

.in +2
"Your attention is earnestly invited to an amendment
of our existing laws relating to the African slave trade
with a view to the effectual suppression of that barbarous
traffic. It is not to be denied that this trade is still in
part carried on by means of vessels built in the United States
and owned or navigated by some of our citizens."
.in

.pn +1 // 056.png
The foregoing recitals will serve to illustrate the uncompromising
attitude of hostility on the part of leading
Virginians toward the African slave trade. They sought
by Federal statutes and concerted action with foreign
nations to drive the pernicious traffic from the seas. They
denounced the trade as inhuman, because it stimulated
men to reduce free men to slavery and then entailed upon
slaves the horrors and dangers of the "middle passage."
They resolutely opposed any addition to the slave population
of America because profoundly convinced that every
such importation was fraught with menace to the social,
economic and moral well-being of the nation and rendered
more difficult the emancipation of those who had already
been brought to her shores. As we have seen, her representatives
at the first meeting of the Continental Congress
had defined Virginia's position in the notable memorial
which declared:

.in +2
"The abolition of domestic slavery is the great object
of desire in those colonies, where it was unhappily introduced
in their infant state. But, previous to the enfranchisement
of the slaves we have, it is necessary to
exclude all further importations from Africa."[#]
.in

This was the philosophy of the situation as defined by
the great statesmen of the Revolutionary period and to
their views their ablest successors in Virginia adhered down
to the outbreak of the Civil War.

.fm
.fn #
<i>Annals of Congress</i>, Vol. I, col. 336.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Suppression of the Slave Trade</i>, DuBois, p. 80.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Annals of Congress</i>, 15th Congress, 2nd section,
part I, pp. 442-3.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Suppression of the Slave Trade</i>, DuBois, p. 120, Note 3.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Annals of Congress</i>, 17th Congress, second session,
pp. 435 and 928.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America</i>,
Wilson, Vol. I, p. 106.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>The Confederate Cause and Conduct in the War Between
the States</i>, McGuire and Christian, p. 17.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Suppression of Slave Trade</i>, DuBois, p. 137.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Letters and Times of the Tylers</i>, Tyler, Vol. II,
p. 219.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>American Slave Trade</i>, Spear, p. 81.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Writings of Jefferson</i>, Ford, Vol. I, p. 440.
.fn-



.sp 4
.h2 pn=+1 // 057.png
VII

.ce
<sc>Some Virginia Statutes with Respect to Slavery</sc>

.sp 2

Having by her act of 1778, prohibiting the importation
of slaves, provided against any increase in their number
from without, Virginia at the close of the Revolution proceeded
to legislate with respect to those already in her midst,
permitting and encouraging their gradual emancipation.

.sp 2
STATUTE PERMITTING EMANCIPATIONS

Under British rule, slaveholders were forbidden to
manumit their slaves, except with the permission of the
Council.[#] In 1782, the General Assembly of Virginia
enacted a law, under which slaveholders were authorized
to emancipate their slaves by deed or will duly made and
recorded.[#]

By an act passed in 1785, it was provided that slaves
brought into the state and remaining twelve months
should be free.[#]

In 1787, acts were passed validating certain manumissions
made by wills prior to 1782, the General Assembly
declaring that it was "just and proper" that "the benevolent
intentions" of the testators should be carried into
effect.[#]

In 1788, an act was passed making the enslaving of the
child of free blacks a crime punishable by death upon the
scaffold.[#]
.pn +1 // 058.png

In 1795, an act was passed allowing a slave to sue <i>in
forma pauperis</i> in any court proceedings affecting his
freedom. He might make complaint to the nearest
magistrate or court and the owner was then required to
give bond to permit the slave to attend the next term of
the court and maintain his cause. If the owner failed or
refused to comply, the slave was taken into the custody
of the state, counsel was assigned to defend his cause
and every process of the law allowed him without cost.[#]
Following the adoption of the foregoing laws, the General
Assembly, in 1803, passed an act to still further safeguard
the rights of negroes who had secured their freedom. By
this last act the authorities were required to keep registers
in each county in which were to be recorded the names
of all the free negroes and also the names of slaves whose
right to manumission would accrue upon the death of the
person having only an estate for life in such slaves.

.sp 2
STATUTE RESTRICTING EMANCIPATION

The effect of these acts facilitating and encouraging
manumissions at length began to appear. At the close
of the Revolution there were less than three thousand
free negroes in Virginia.[#] In the ten years next succeeding,
they reached thirteen thousand, and the census of
1810 records their number at thirty thousand, five hundred
and seventy. Here was a new problem—the presence in
a state dominated by white men of a considerable body
of negroes possessing neither the privileges of the whites
nor amenable to the restrictions imposed upon the great
mass of the blacks. As a result of these conditions, acts
were passed in 1806 providing that no slaves thereafter
manumitted should remain in Virginia. In 1819 an act
was passed authorizing the County Courts to permit such
.pn +1 // 059.png
as were "sober, peaceful, orderly and industrious to remain
in the state."[#] Later, it was provided by statute that
all slaves thereafter manumitted should leave the state
within twelve months from the date of their emancipation.
Thenceforward slaveholders were accorded the right to
manumit their slaves, subject to the claims of their creditors
and to the obligation upon the former slaves of going
beyond the state within twelve months following their
manumission.

While these last mentioned statutes embarrassed the
work of emancipation, they stimulated the sentiment in
favor of colonization. However, despite the difficulties
which confronted them, slaveholders still continued to
emancipate their slaves and hostility to the institution
of slavery—the conviction that it was a burden upon the
commonwealth—became more and more widespread among
the people. The growth of these sentiments continued
until the year 1832. The Rev. Philip Slaughter, a writer
with pro-slavery sympathies, records:

.in +2
"That was the culminating point—the flood tide of anti-slavery
feeling which had been gradually rising for more
than a century in Virginia was then precipitated upon us
before its time by the Southampton convulsion."[#]
.in

To the disastrous effects upon public sentiment of this
tragic event which occurred in August, 1831, must be
added the reactionary influence of the Abolitionists, who
now began their work of agitation and their arraignment,
not simply of slavery nor of slaveholders, but of the
morality and civilization of every community in which
the institution existed. The failure, too, of the General
.pn +1 // 060.png
Assembly of Virginia at its session of 1832 to adopt any
plan for the gradual abolition of slavery or for the removal
beyond the state of the free negroes then within her borders
was also strongly reactionary. Despite the ability and
influence of the anti-slavery leaders in that body no
remedial legislation was adopted and thousands of the
people accepted the result as proof of the fact that the
practical difficulties in the way of emancipation were
such as to shut out the hope of its accomplishment.

.fm
.fn #
<i>Hening's Statutes</i>, Vol. IV, p. 132.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Hening's Statutes</i>, Vol. XI, p. 39.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Hening's Statutes</i>, Vol. XII, p. 182.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Hening's Statutes</i>, Vol. XII, pp. 611 and 613.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Idem</i>, p. 531.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>History of Slavery in Virginia</i>, Ballagh, p. 123.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>History of Slavery in Virginia</i>, Ballagh, p. 121.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Idem</i>, p. 125.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>The Virginian History of African Colonization</i>,
Slaughter, p. 55.
.fn-


.sp 4
.h2 pn=+1 // 061.png
VIII

.nf c
<sc>The Movement in the Virginia Legislature of 1832</sc>
<sc>to Abolish Slavery in the State</sc>
.nf-

.sp 2

The Southampton Insurrection, which occurred in
August, 1831, was one of those untoward incidents which
so often marked the history of slavery. Under the leadership
of one Nat Turner, a negro preacher, of some education,
who felt that he had been called of God to deliver
his race from bondage, the negroes attacked the whites
at night and before the assault could be suppressed fifty-seven
whites, principally women and children, had been
killed. This deplorable event assumed an even more
portentous aspect when it was realized that the leader
was a slave to whom the privilege of education had been
accorded and that one of his lieutenants was a free negro.
In addition there existed a widespread belief among the
whites that influences and instigations from without the
state were responsible for the insurrection.

The General Assembly of Virginia met in regular session
in December, 1831, and the effect upon the popular mind
of this tragic occurrence was evidenced in the numerous
petitions presented praying for the removal beyond the
state of all free negroes, or the enactment of such laws as
should provide for the abolition of slavery. The institution
itself, the feasibility of its abolition, the status of the free
negroes, the danger to the state from their presence, were
thus brought before the Legislature. It was a body containing
many able men but elected without reference to
.pn +1 // 062.png
this great subject, and with no previous interchange of
views or formulation of plans among the advocates
of reform. The discussions which followed were more
notable for the fierce arraignment of the institution than
for the presentation of practical plans for its abolition.

Henry Wilson, in his <i>Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in
America</i>, says of this discussion:

.in +2
"It was one of the ablest, most eloquent and brilliant
debates that ever took place in the Legislature of any of
the states. Most of those who participated in it were
young and rising men who afterward achieved high positions
and commanding influence."[#]
.in

Mr. Ballagh records that:

.in +2
"Day after day multitudes thronged the Capitol to hear
the speeches. The Assembly in its zeal for the discussion
set aside all prudential considerations, such as the possible
effect of incendiary utterances that might make the slave
believe his lot one of injustice and cruelty, and so give
him the excuse of a revolt, or might encourage further
aggressions by Northern Abolitionists."[#]
.in

.sp 2
LEADERS OF THE MOVEMENT

Thomas Jefferson Randolph, Mr. Jefferson's grandson;
Thomas Marshall, son of the Chief Justice; James McDowell,
afterward Congressman and Governor; Charles J.
Faulkner, afterward Congressman and Minister to France,
and William Ballard Preston, afterward Congressman and
Secretary of the Navy in President Taylor's Cabinet, were
among the leaders of the anti-slavery men, and some idea
may be formed of the character of their speeches from the
extracts hereinafter cited.

The principal discussion revolved around the report of
.pn +1 // 063.png
a committee which declared "that it is inexpedient for the
present Legislature to make any legislative enactment
for the abolition of slavery," to which Mr. Preston moved
the substitution of the word "expedient" for "inexpedient,"
and Mr. Bryce moved, as a substitute for both,
that the commonwealth should provide for the immediate
removal of the negroes now free and those who may hereafter
become free "believing that this will absorb all of
our present means." By a vote of 58 to 73 Mr. Preston's
amendment was defeated,[#] and Mr. Bryce's substitute
adopted by a vote of 65 to 58.[#] In line with this declaration,
the House thereupon passed a bill which provided by
a comprehensive and continuous system for the deportation
and colonization of the free negroes of the commonwealth,
and such as thereafter might become free. The
measure carried an appropriation of Thirty-five Thousand
Dollars for the first year (1832) and Ninety Thousand
Dollars for the year 1833 and was adopted by a vote of
79 to 41.[#] In urging its passage, William H. Broadnax
insisted that many owners "would manumit their slaves
if means for their removal were furnished by the state,
but who could not if the additional burden of removal
were placed upon them."[#] This bill, so fraught with
far-reaching consequences, was subsequently defeated in
the Senate by one vote.

.sp 2
PLANS PROPOSED

Several plans for the gradual emancipation and deportation
of the slaves were brought forward and discussed,
but all failed of enactment. Thomas R. Dew declares
that, "no enlarged, wise or practical plan of operations
.pn +1 // 064.png
was proposed by the Abolitionists."[#] And Mr. Ballagh says,
that "will was not wanting but method unhappily was."[#]

.sp 2
THE EFFECTS OF FAILURE

The failure of this General Assembly to adopt any plan
of emancipation or any comprehensive scheme for the
deportation of the free negroes already in the state had a
disastrous effect upon the attitude of thousands of Virginians
towards slavery. Despairing of relief from either
of these sources and yet facing the peril of which the Nat
Turner Insurrection was the warning sign, her lawmakers
sought in repressive legislation to nullify the dangers
of slave insurrection. Many accepted the institution as
permanent and busied themselves marshalling arguments
in vindication of its rightfulness and in refuting with
growing bitterness the assaults of its opponents.

.sp 2
ABOLITIONISTS AND PRO-SLAVERY MEN

But in addition to the Southampton Massacre, and the
failure of the Legislature to enact any effective legislation,
the contemporary rise of the Abolitionists in the North
came as an even more powerful factor to embarrass the
efforts of the Virginia emancipators. Unlike the anti-slavery
men of former years, this new school not only
attacked the institution of slavery but the morality of slaveholders
and their sympathizers. In their fierce arraignment,
not only were the humane and considerate linked
in infamy with the cruel and intolerant, but the whole
population of the slave-owning states, their civilization
and their morals were the object of unrelenting and incessant
assaults. Thus thousands sincerely desiring the
abolition of slavery were driven to silence or into the ranks
of its apologists in the widespread and indignant determination
of Virginians to resent these libels upon their character
and defeat these attempts to excite servile insurrections.
.pn +1 // 065.png

"What have we done to her," said the Rev. Nehemiah
Adams of Boston, "but admonish, threaten and indict
her before God, excommunicate her, stir up insurrection
among her slaves, endanger her homes, make her Christians
and ministers odious in other lands."[#]

From this period, too, may be noticed the gradual
increase in the number of pro-slavery men in Virginia.
This element did not justify slavery simply because of the
difficulties and dangers attending emancipation, but they
asserted that the institution was good in itself, sanctioned
by religion, a blessing to the blacks and essential to the
well-being of the whites. The growth of this new school
in its aggressiveness and the extreme character of its
utterances kept pace with the like development of the
Abolitionists. As the latter denounced slavery as "man-stealing"—and
slaveholders—as "thieves," the former
marshalled Bible texts to show the divine origin and
Heaven-approved character of the institution. As the
Abolitionists portrayed the "degrading" and "brutalizing"
effects of slavery upon the character of slaveholding
communities, the pro-slavery men pointed to the moral
and civic virtues which undoubtedly existed in such
communities, and claimed that these very virtues were
attributable to the institution of slavery. As Abolitionists,
relying upon the insistence that slavery was a "monstrous
oppression," justified slave insurrections to effect freedom,
the pro-slavery men sought to drive into silence their
fellow Virginians of anti-slavery sentiments because any
acknowledgment that it was illegal and that the condition
of the slave was at war with the laws of natural right
warranted the slave in killing his master to secure his
freedom.

.sp 2
.pn +1 // 066.png
THE GROWTH OF PRO-SLAVERY SENTIMENTS

Thus, from 1833 on to the time of the war, the pro-slavery
advocates grew in influence and aggressiveness,
though what proportion of the population of Virginia
they represented it is impossible to determine. Their
extreme utterances undoubtedly gave them great prominence,
as the march of events, in like manner, augmented
their power. The sentiments of the anti-slavery men found
little place in the turmoil of the times. Their position was
strongly analogous to that of the majority of the Northern
people, who, in the midst of the war cries of the Abolitionists,
continued in silence their business pursuits.

.fm
.fn #
<i>Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America</i>,
Wilson, Vol. I, p. 195.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>History of Slavery in Virginia</i>, Ballagh, p. 138.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Journal of House of Delegates</i>, 1832, p. 109.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Idem</i>, p. 110.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Idem</i>, p. 158.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Virginian History of African Colonization</i>,
Slaughter, p. 48.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>An Essay on Slavery</i>, Thomas R. Dew, 1849, p. 6.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>History of Slavery in Virginia</i>, Ballagh, p. 138.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>South Side View of Slavery</i>, Adams, p. 127.
.fn-

.sp 4
.h2 pn=+1 // 067.png
IX

.nf c
<sc>The Northern Abolitionists and Their Reactionary</sc>
<sc>Influence upon Anti-Slavery Sentiment</sc>
<sc>in Virginia</sc>
.nf-

.sp 2
Thomas Jefferson Randolph was the foremost advocate
of gradual emancipation in the Virginia Legislature of
1832. In a pamphlet printed in 1870 reviewing political
conditions in Virginia he makes the following statement
with reference to the subject of emancipation and the
influences which hindered its accomplishment after the
year 1833:

.in +2
"After the adjournment of the Legislature in 1833, the
question was discussed before the people fairly and squarely,
as one of the abolition of slavery. I was re-elected on
that ground in my county. The feeling extended rapidly
from that time in Virginia, Kentucky and Missouri until
Northern abolitionism reared its head. Southern abolition
was reform and an appeal to the master; Northern
abolition was revolution and an appeal to the slave. One
was peaceful and the other mutually destructive of both
races by a servile insurrection. The Southern people
feared to trust to the intervention of persons themselves
exempt by position from the imagined dangers of the
transition."[#]
.in

.sp 2
VIEWS OF PROMINENT VIRGINIANS

George Tucker, Professor of Political Economy, in the
University of Virginia, in his work, <i>The Progress of the
United States in Population and Wealth</i>, published in
1843, referring to the subject, writes:

.pn +1 // 068.png
.in +2
"This is not the place for assailing or defending slavery;
but it may be confidently asserted that the efforts of
Abolitionists have hitherto made the people in the slaveholding
states cling to it more tenaciously. Those efforts
are viewed by them as an intermeddling in their domestic
concerns that is equally unwarranted by the comity due
to sister states, and to the solemn pledges of the Federal
compact. In the general indignation which is thus excited,
the arguments in favor of negro emancipation, once open
and urgent, have been completely silenced, and its advocates
among the slaveholders, who have not changed
their sentiments, find it prudent to conceal them....
Such have been the fruits of the zeal of Northern Abolitionists
in those states in which slavery prevails; and the
fable of the Wind and the Sun never more forcibly illustrated
the difference between gentle and violent means
in influencing men's wills."[#]
.in

In 1847, Dr. Henry Ruffner, President of Washington
College, delivered an address upon the subject of slavery
in Virginia which attracted widespread attention. In
this speech, made in the midst of the growing controversy,
he refers to the reactionary influence of the Abolitionists
as follows:

.in +2
"But this unfavorable change of sentiment is due
chiefly to the fanatical violence of those Northern anti-slavery
men usually called Abolitionists.... They have
not, by honourable means, liberated a single slave, and
they never will by such a course of procedure as they
have pursued. On the contrary they have created new
difficulties in the way of all judicious schemes of emancipation
by prejudicing the minds of slaveholders, and by
.pn +1 // 069.png
compelling us to combat their false principles and rash
schemes in our rear; whilst we are facing the opposition of
men and the natural difficulties of the case in our front."[#]
.in

If it be thought, that Mr. Randolph, Professor Tucker,
and Dr. Ruffner were influenced by their environment
and a desire to shift from the people of Virginia to the
Abolitionists responsibility for the growth in the state
of reactionary sentiments, with regard to slavery, it may
be well to quote the contemporary views of prominent
anti-slavery men of the North.

.sp 2
VIEWS OF CHANNING

Dr. William Ellery Channing, writing in 1835, said:

.in +2
"The adoption of the common system of agitation by
the Abolitionists has not been justified by success. From
the beginning it created alarm in the considerate and
strengthened the sympathies of the free states with the
slaveholder. It made converts of a few individuals but
alienated multitudes.

"Its influence at the South has been almost wholly evil.
It has stirred up bitter passions and a fierce fanaticism
which have shut every ear and every heart against its
arguments and persuasions. These effects are more to
be deplored because the hope of freedom to the slaves
lies chiefly in the disposition of his master. The Abolitionist
proposed indeed to convert the slaveholders; and
for this reason he approached them with vituperation
and exhausted upon them the vocabulary of reproach.
And he has reaped as he sowed.... Thus, with good purpose,
nothing seems to have been gained. Perhaps (though
I am anxious to repel the thought) something has been lost
to the cause of freedom and humanity."[#]
.in

.sp 2
VIEWS OF LINCOLN

In 1837, the Legislature of Illinois adopted a series of
resolutions of a pro-slavery character reprobating the
methods of the Abolitionists. Against the resolutions
.pn +1 // 070.png
as adopted, Abraham Lincoln prepared a memorandum
and, together with Daniel Stone, a fellow member of the
body, had the same spread upon its journal as a more
accurate expression of their views. After referring to the
resolutions, the paper declares:

.in +2
"They believe that the institution of slavery is founded
on both injustice and bad policy, but that the promulgation
of abolition doctrines tends rather to increase than
abate its evils."[#]
.in

This declaration of Mr. Lincoln was at once a protest
and a prophecy.

It is sometimes urged that because of Mr. Lincoln's
youth, at this time, his estimate of the injuries wrought
by the "promulgation of abolition doctrines" is not entitled
to much weight. It is true that he was then in
his twenty-ninth year. A quotation from an even more
notable deliverance, made fifteen years later, will show
.pn +1 // 071.png
that reflection and observation served to confirm his convictions
of the earlier date. In his eulogy on Henry
Clay, delivered in the State House, at Springfield, Illinois,
July 16th, 1852, he said:

.in +2
"Cast into life when slavery was already widely spread
and deeply seated, he did not perceive, as I think no wise
man has perceived, how it could be at once eradicated
without producing a greater evil even to the cause of human
liberty itself. His feeling and his judgment, therefore,
ever led him to oppose both extremes of opinion on the
subject. Those who would shiver into fragments the
Union of these states, tear to tatters its now venerated
constitution, and even burn the last copy of the Bible,
rather than slavery should continue a single hour, together
with all their more halting sympathizers, have received,
and are receiving their just execration; and the name and
opinion and influence of Mr. Clay are fully and, as I trust,
effectually and enduringly arrayed against them."[#]
.in

.sp 2
VIEWS OF WEBSTER

This estimate of Mr. Lincoln had already been anticipated
by that of Mr. Webster who, in his speech of March 7th,
1850, in the United States Senate made a special reference
to the disastrous influence exerted by the Abolitionists
upon the cause of emancipation in Virginia.

.in +2
"Public opinion," he said, "which in Virginia had
begun to be exhibited against slavery and was opening out
for the discussion of the question, drew back and shut
itself up in its castle. I would like to know whether
anybody in Virginia can now talk openly as Mr. Randolph,
Governor McDowell and others talked in 1832, and sent
their remarks to the press? We all know the facts and we
all know the cause; and everything that these agitating
people have done has been not to enlarge but to restrain,
.pn +1 // 072.png
not to set free, but to bind the faster the slave population
of the South."[#]
.in

.sp 2
VIEWS OF DOUGLAS

Stephen A. Douglas, speaking at Bloomington, Illinois,
July 16, 1859, said:

.in +2
"There is but one possible way in which slavery can be
abolished and that is by leaving the state according to the
principle of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, perfectly free to
form and regulate its institutions in its own way. That
was the principle upon which this Republic was founded....
Under its operations slavery disappeared from ... six
of the twelve original slaveholding states; and this
gradual system of emancipation went on quietly, peacefully
and steadily so long as we in the free states minded
our own business and left our neighbors alone. But the
moment the abolition societies were organized throughout
the North, preaching a violent crusade against slavery
in the Southern States, this combination necessarily caused
a counter-combination in the South, and a sectional line
was drawn which was a barrier to any further emancipation.
Bear in mind that emancipation has not taken place
in any one state since the Free-soil Party was organized
as a political party in this country.... The moment the
North proclaimed itself the determined master of the South,
that moment the South combined to resist the attack,
and thus sectional parties were formed and gradual emancipation
ceased in all the Northern slaveholding states."[#]
.in

In this speech, Mr. Douglas not only points out the
methods by which slavery had been abolished in six of the
twelve original slaveholding states, but he bears testimony,
like his great contemporaries, to the reactionary influence
resulting from the attitude of the Northern Abolitionists.

This estimate of Senator Douglas was reaffirmed in the
frank declaration of Thomas Ewing, of Ohio, who, speaking
in the Peace Conference, at Washington, February,
.pn +1 // 073.png
1861, declared: "The North has taken the business of
abolition into its own hands and from the day she did so
we hear no more of abolition in Virginia. This was but the
natural effect of the cause."[#]

.sp 2
VIEWS OF LUNT AND CURTIS

If it be urged that the views of Channing, Lincoln,
Webster, Douglas and Ewing were unfair in their estimate
of the reactionary influence of the Abolitionists, because
of the temper of the times in which they lived, it may be
well to quote the conclusions of publicists not so situated.
Mr. George Lunt, of Boston, writing in December, 1865,
says:

.in +2
"After the years of 1820-21, during which that great
struggle which resulted in what is called the Missouri
Compromise was most active and came to its conclusion,
the States of Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee were
earnestly engaged in practical movements for the gradual
emancipation of their slaves. This movement continued
until it was arrested by the aggressions of the Abolitionists
upon their voluntary action."[#]
.in

Mr. George Ticknor Curtis, of Boston, writing in 1883,
after describing the discussions in the General Assembly
of Virginia in 1831-32, and stating that Thomas Jefferson
Randolph, the leader of the movement for the abolition
of slavery, was re-elected in 1833 from Albemarle, one
of the largest slaveholding counties in the state, because
of his position, declares:

.in +2
"But in the meantime came suddenly the intelligence
of what was doing at the North. It came in an alarming
aspect for the peace and security for the whole South;
since it could not be possible that strangers should combine
together to assail the slaveholder as a sinner and to demand
his instant admission of guilt, without arousing fears of
.pn +1 // 074.png
the most dangerous consequences for the safety of Southern
homes, as well as intense indignation against such an
unwarrantable interference. From that time forth emancipation
whether immediate or gradual could not be considered
in Virginia or anywhere else in the South."[#]
.in

.sp 2
VIEWS OF ROOSEVELT AND SMITH

As representative of a later generation and voicing
sentiments of one more removed from the period of controversy,
the views of Theodore Roosevelt are of value.
Writing in 1898, he says:

.in +2
"In 1833 the abolition societies of the North came into
prominence; they had been started a couple of years previously.
Black slavery was such a grossly anachronistic
and un-American form of evil that it is difficult to discuss
calmly the efforts to abolish it and to remember that
many of these efforts were calculated to do and actually
did more harm than good.... The cause of the Abolitionists
has had such a halo shed around it by the course
of events, which they themselves in reality did very
little to shape, that it has been usual to speak of them
with absurdly exaggerated praise. Their courage and,
for the most part, their sincerity, cannot be too highly
spoken of, but their share in abolishing slavery was far
less than has commonly been represented; any single, non-abolitionist
politician, like Lincoln or Seward, did more
than all the professional Abolitionists combined really to
bring about its destruction."[#]
.in

Writing still later, Mr. William Henry Smith, of Ohio,
in his book, <i>A Political History of Slavery</i>, alluding to
the work of the Abolitionists, says:

.in +2
"What befell is what has always been the experience,
which must needs be ever the experience of society when
men 'encounter with such bitter tongues,' when full play
.pn +1 // 075.png
is given to passion, prejudice and all uncharitableness....
After fifteen years of this commotion, the testimony
of the judicious was 'that the tendency to general emancipation
in the Border States had been checked, and that
the Abolitionists had done more to rivet the chains of the
slave and to fasten the curse of slavery upon the country
than all the pro-slavery men in the world had done or
could do in half a century.'"[#]
.in

.sp 2
EMANCIPATION AND COLONIZATION

Despite, however, the growing embarrassments of the
situation, there remained with the people of Virginia the
conviction that in the dispersion or colonization beyond
her borders, of a substantial part of her negro population,
lay the surest road to ultimate emancipation and relief
from the racial problems incident to slavery. The practice,
therefore, of emancipation by deeds and wills continued,
and individually and by concerted action, the various
schemes for colonization were fostered and encouraged.
The Legislature at its session, 1833, passed a bill appropriating
$18,000.00 per annum, for a period of five years to
assist in transporting and subsisting "free persons of color
who may desire to migrate from Virginia to Liberia."[#]

This appropriation, as we shall see, was followed by
others of larger amounts to further colonization; and, in
no state of the Union, with the possible exception of
Maryland, did the cause receive greater assistance, in
money and sympathy, than in Virginia.


.fm
.fn #
See printed pamphlet T. J. Randolph, September 25th,
1870, on file with Virginia Historical Society.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Progress of Population and Wealth</i>, Tucker, p. 108.
Note—The author concludes his review of slavery in Virginia by
saying: "As the same decline in the value of labor once liberated
the villeins, or slaves, of western Europe, and will liberate the
serfs of Russia, so must it put an end to slavery in the United
States, should it be terminated in no other way."
.fn-

.fn #
<i>The Ruffner Pamphlet</i>, Lexington, 1847.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>The Works of William E. Channing</i>, 1889, American
Unitarian Society, p. 735.
.fn-

.fn #
The following is a full text of the paper:

"Resolutions upon the subject of domestic slavery having passed
both branches of the General Assembly at its present session, the
undersigned hereby protest against the passing of the same.

They believe that the institution of slavery is founded on both
injustice and bad policy, but that the promulgation of abolition
doctrines tends rather to increase than abate its evils.

They believe that the Congress of the United States has no power
under the constitution to interfere with the institution of
slavery in the different states.

They believe that the Congress of the United States has the power
under the constitution to abolish slavery in the District of
Columbia, but that the power ought not to be exercised unless at
the request of the people of the District.

The difference between these opinions and those contained in the
above resolutions, is their reason for entering this protest.

.rj 2
(Signed)\ \ \ \ \ \ \  DAN STONE,
A. LINCOLN."

Representatives from the County of Sangamon.
(<i>Abraham Lincoln, A History</i>, N. & H., Vol. I, p. 140.)
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Abraham Lincoln, Speeches, Letters and State
Papers</i>, N. & H, Vol. I, p. 174.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Webster's Great Speeches</i>, Whipple, p. 619.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Lincoln-Douglas Debates</i>, Columbus, 1860, p. 31.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Proceedings of Peace Convention</i>, Crittenden, p.
142.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>The Origin of the Late War</i>, Lunt, 1865, p. 33.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Life of James Buchanan</i>, Curtis, 1883, p. 278.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Thomas H. Benton</i>, Roosevelt, p. 141.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>A Political History of Slavery</i>, William Henry
Smith, 1903, Vol. I, pp. 40-41.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Virginian History of African Colonization</i>,
Slaughter, p. 67.
.fn-

.sp 4

.h2 pn=+1 // 076.png
X

.ce
<sc>Negro Colonization—State and National</sc>
.sp 2

The idea of colonization seems to have originated with
Mr. Jefferson, who, in 1777, submitted a plan to a committee
of the General Assembly of Virginia.

In 1787, Dr. William Thornton published an address
to the free negroes of the whole country offering to lead
them in person back to Africa.

In December, 1800, the General Assembly passed a
resolution requesting the Governor to communicate with
the President of the United States with the view of purchasing
lands beyond the limits of Virginia for colonization
purposes. A considerable correspondence ensued between
Mr. Monroe, the Governor, and Mr. Jefferson, the President.

Nothing practical, however, resulted from these negotiations,
though on the 27th of December, 1804, Mr. Jefferson
wrote Governor Page: "I beg you to be assured that,
having the object of the House of Delegates sincerely at
heart, I will keep it under my constant attention, and
omit no occasion which may occur of giving it effect."[#]

.sp 2
EARLY SCHEMES OF COLONIZATION


In January, 1805, the Legislature passed another resolution
requesting Virginia's representatives in Congress to
use every effort to secure a portion of the territory of
Louisiana for the colonization "of such people of color
as have been or shall be emancipated in Virginia."

The difficulties with France and England at this time
prevented further prosecution of the subject, but, after
.pn +1 // 077.png
the termination of the war between the United States and
England, a resolution was passed by the General Assembly
of Virginia, in December, 1816, requesting the Governor
to correspond with the President with a view of acquiring
upon the coast of Africa, or at some point in the United
States, an asylum "for such persons of color as are now
free and desire the same," or "that may hereafter be
emancipated in Virginia."

.sp 2
AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY

About the time of this action of the Virginia Legislature
there assembled at Washington on the 21st of December
1816, a body of prominent citizens from various states,
who effected a tentative organization, from which resulted
the American Colonization Society. Over this meeting
Henry Clay presided, and among the notable persons
present were Daniel Webster, Bushrod Washington and
John Randolph of Roanoke. The Rev. Robert Finley,
of New Jersey, and Mr. E. B. Caldwell, at that time Clerk
of the Supreme Court at Washington, were especially
active in bringing about the assemblage. Charles Fenton
Mercer, of Virginia, and Francis Scott Key, of Maryland,
were also among the most zealous friends of the enterprise.
In addition to Randolph and Washington, Bishop William
Meade, Rev. William H. Wilmer, John Taylor, Edmund I.
Lee and other Virginians were also present. Mr. Clay
has left upon record that "the original conception of
the project is to be traced to a date long anterior," to the
meeting and that "the State of Virginia, always prominent
in works of benevolence, prior to the formation of the
American Colonization Society ... had expressed her
approbation of the plan of colonization."[#]

On the first of January, 1817, the permanent organization
.pn +1 // 078.png
of the society was effected by the selection of Mr.
Justice Bushrod Washington, of Virginia, as President,
a position which he held for thirteen years. Judge Washington
was succeeded by Charles Carroll, of Carrollton,
James Madison, Henry Clay and John H. B. Latrobe, the
last named holding office until after the Civil War.

.sp 2
FOUNDING OF COLONY OF LIBERIA

The Society having been organized, immediate steps
were taken to acquire land upon the coast of Africa upon
which to establish the colony. For this purpose Samuel J.
Mills, so well known and venerated for his missionary
labors, and Ebenezer Burgess were sent to Africa, the
money to defray their expenses being raised by Charles
Fenton Mercer and Bishop Meade, of Virginia.[#] The report
of these commissioners established the practicability of
securing the necessary land on the coast of Africa and
establishing the emigrants in their new home. The
Society, however, was without sufficient means for the
successful initiation of its great work and possessed no
relation to the government, state or National. By a
fortuitous train of circumstances and the zeal of certain
of its members, among whom Virginians bore an active
part, all of these objects were in a measure attained.

Under the terms of the Federal statute prohibiting the
foreign slave trade it was provided that any slave whose
importation was attempted in violation of the act should
be seized by the authorities of the state where the importation
occurred, and disposed of at its pleasure. The State
of Georgia had, accordingly, acquired possession of a
number of imported negroes and had advertised them for
sale at Milledgeville, May 4, 1819. Such an event and such
a policy would have defeated the statute, one of whose
objects was to prevent the increase of the slave population.
.pn +1 // 079.png
Learning of these facts, Bishop Meade, of Virginia, was
sent as the representative of the Colonization Society, to
Georgia, where he secured the release of the negroes
advertised to be sold, upon condition that the Society
would reimburse the state for the costs incurred in their
maintenance.[#] George Washington Parke Custis, of Virginia,
offered an island near Cape Charles, Virginia, as
a place of refuge until they could be transported to Africa.[#]
Knowledge of the foregoing facts induced Charles Fenton
Mercer and John Floyd, of Virginia, to present to Congress,
of which they were members, a bill which became
a law in 1819, whereby all negroes imported since the
passage of the act should be returned to their own country,
appointing agents upon the coast of Africa to receive them;
and appropriating $100,000.00 to carry this law into
effect. President Monroe was zealous in enforcing the
provisions of this law, and acted in cordial co-operation
with the Colonization Society to effectuate its purposes.
Under the provisions of the act, territory was acquired
upon the coast of Africa, and there the colony of Liberia
was established. In 1824, in recognition of Mr. Monroe's
services, the inhabitants of the colony named their capital
Monrovia.

.sp 2
VIRGINIA'S EFFORTS AT COLONIZATION

In the great work of the American Colonization Society,
the leading people of Virginia took a most active and
sympathetic interest. This was evinced in the organization
of Auxiliary Societies at Richmond, Norfolk, Fredericksburg,
Petersburg, Alexandria, Lynchburg, Wheeling,
Charlestown, Shepherdstown, Hampton and Harper's
Ferry and in the Counties of Isle of Wight, Sussex, Albemarle,
King William, Dinwiddie, Amherst, Berkeley,
.pn +1 // 080.png
Nansemond, Buckingham, Nelson, Fluvanna, Frederick,
Augusta, Kanawha, Powhatan, Loudoun, Rockingham,
Mecklenburg, Campbell, and others. The officials of
these Societies numbered many of the most prominent
men of Virginia; John Marshall, then Chief Justice of the
United States, was President of the Richmond branch.

The Virginia Auxiliary Societies collected money by
private subscription, and facilitated in every way the
transportation of such free negroes as desired to emigrate.
In 1826, upon the petition of the Societies, the Legislature
of Virginia made its first appropriation to assist in their
work. In addition to those in Virginia, Auxiliary Societies
were organized in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York,
New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Kentucky.

In 1828 the Colonization Society of Virginia was established
and thereafter Virginians directed their energies
largely through this Virginia organization. John Marshall
was elected President of the Virginia Society, and James
Madison, James Monroe, John Tyler and William H.
Broadnax, were among its Vice-Presidents.

By an act passed in 1850 the General Assembly of
Virginia appropriated the sum of $30,000.00 per annum
for five years for the transportation and sustenance of free
negroes who desired to emigrate. Certain qualifications
of the measure limited its effectiveness, and in 1853,
the Virginia Colonization Society secured its repeal and
the enactment of a new law appropriating $30,000.00 per
annum for five years, with much more liberal provisions
as to the method of its expenditure. Private benevolence
supplemented the state. The reports of the Society show
that during the years 1850-51-52 private contributions
from the people of Virginia aggregated over $21,000.00.[#]
.pn +1 // 081.png

The work of the Society was endorsed by the churches
and more and more it assumed the character of a Christian
enterprise. It was commended because it brought relief
to Virginia, blessings to the ex-slaves, greater hope of
freedom to those still in bondage, and carried Christianity
and civilization to Africa. Among the first of many
white men who gave their lives to the cause of colonization
was Samuel J. Mills, who died at sea on his way home
from Africa. Mills was the leader in the band of students
at Williams College, Massachusetts, so well known for their
missionary zeal and labours, and hence has a double claim
upon our gratitude.

.sp 2
ABOLITIONISTS AND PRO-SLAVERY MEN

The problems and difficulties of colonization, admittedly
great, were seriously augmented by the active opposition
of the extreme pro-slavery men at the South and the
Abolitionists at the North. Each of these two antagonistic
forces strenuously opposed the work of colonization, the
first because it facilitated eventual emancipation, the
second, among other reasons, because it rendered conditions
more tolerable and thus postponed the day of the
universal and immediate abolition of slavery.

In addition to the colonizations made through the aid
of the colonization societies, many Virginia slaveholders
emancipated their slaves and at their own expense colonized
them in some of the free states. A few instances will
illustrate the custom and the difficulties often encountered
by these emancipators and their ex-slaves.

.fm
.fn #
<i>Virginian History of African Colonization</i>, Slaughter, pp. 1-6.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>The African Repository and Colonial Journal</i>—Vol. VI, No. 1, p. 13.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Liberia Bulletin. No. 16</i>—February, 1900, p. 21.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Memoir of Bishop Meade</i>, Johns, 1867, p. 120.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>History of United States</i>, McMaster, Vol. IV, p. 65.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Virginian History of African Colonization</i>, Slaughter, p. 100.
.fn-

.sp 4

.h2 pn=+1 // 082.png
XI

.ce
<sc>Instances of Colonizations by Individual Slaveholders</sc>

.sp 2

By the will of Samuel Gist, his slaves were emancipated
and William F. Wickham and Carter B. Page, of Richmond,
appointed trustees to acquire land in some one of
the free states on which to provide homes for the newly
manumitted freedmen. Accordingly, these trustees purchased
two tracts of land in Brown County, Ohio, one
containing one thousand and the other twelve hundred
acres at a cost of $4400.00.[#]

In 1819, the freedmen, consisting of one hundred and
thirteen from Hanover County and one hundred and fifty
from Goochland and Amherst Counties, were transported
to Ohio and settled on the lands purchased, as above indicated,
by the trustees.

The facts are meagre with respect to the reception
accorded these negroes and the measure of success which
attended the colonization. From the best information
obtainable, it seems that they were treated in no very
friendly manner and that, in time, the negroes lost most of
the lands provided for them by their former owner.

Edward Coles, of Albemarle County, inherited from his
father a large number of slaves. Determining to give
them their freedom, he conducted them in April, 1819, to
Illinois, where he established them in their own homes
.pn +1 // 083.png
near the town of Edwardsville, giving to each head of a
family a tract of one hundred and sixty acres of land.[#]
Mr. Coles, like many other Virginians, who attempted a
like emancipation, not only incurred the great pecuniary
loss resulting from the liberation of his slaves and the expenses
of their removal and establishment, but he incurred
the ill will and opposition of the inhabitants of the state in
which they settled.

The biographers of Abraham Lincoln, Nicolay and Hay,
referring to the attitude of the people of Illinois towards
free negroes, record:

.in +2
"Even Governor Coles, the public-spirited and popular
politician, was indicted and severely fined for having
brought his own freedmen into this state and having
assisted them in establishing themselves around him upon
farms of their own."[#]
.in

Mr. Coles was a neighbor and friend of Jefferson, Madison
and Monroe. He was Madison's private secretary and
was appointed by President Monroe Registrar of the Land
Office at Edwardsville, Ill., in March, 1819, a position
of influence and importance. Three years later he was
elected Governor of the state and his career as such was
notable for the great part he bore in defeating the movement
to change the state constitution of Illinois so as
to permit the introduction and maintenance of slavery
within that state. In 1832 Governor Coles removed to
Philadelphia where he lived until his death. When Virginia
seceded, his son, Roberts Coles, volunteered in her
service and was killed at the Battle of Roanoke Island.
.pn +1 // 084.png

By his will, admitted to probate on the 20th of November,
1826, John Ward, Sr., of Pittsylvania, emancipated
all of his slaves, giving to each of them over fifteen years
of age twenty dollars, except to certain enumerated ones,
to whom the sum of one hundred and fifty dollars each
was bequeathed.[#] In April, 1827, these freedmen, emancipated
under the will of Ward (seventy in number), were
transported to Ohio and settled in Lawrence County.[#]

By his will, John Randolph of Roanoke, who died in
1833, emancipated all of his slaves and directed his executor,
Judge William Leigh, to transport them to some one of
the free states and settle them upon lands which he was
directed to purchase for the purpose. The will bequeathed
the sum of thirteen thousand dollars to defray the expenses
incident to their colonization and to pay for the land.

Howe in his <i>Historical Collections of Ohio</i> (Edition of
1891) says:

.in +2
"In 1846 Judge Leigh, of Virginia, purchased 3200
acres of land in this settlement for the freed slaves of
John Randolph of Roanoke. These arrived in the Summer
of 1846 to the number of about four hundred but were forcibly
prevented from making a settlement by a portion of
the inhabitants of the county. Since then acts of hostility
have been commenced against the people of this settlement
and threats of greater held out if they do not abandon
their lands and homes."

"From a statement in the county history issued in 1882
we see that a part of the Randolph negroes succeeded in
effecting a settlement at Montezuma, Franklin Township,
just south of the reservoir."[#]
.in
.pn +1 // 085.png

By his will which was probated March 23, 1848, John
Warwick, of Amherst County, Virginia, emancipated all
his slaves, and in like manner bequeathed his whole estate
to create a fund for removing them to one of the free
states, purchasing farms, and establishing them in their
new homes. The testator indicated that he preferred
Indiana as the place of residence for his slaves.[#] Dr.
David Patteson, of Buckingham County, was appointed
executor and charged with the duties of settling the estate
and removing the freedmen to their new homes. Before
arrangements for their removal to Indiana could be perfected,
that state adopted its constitution of 1851, whereby
free negroes and mulattoes were inhibited from coming
into the state. Accordingly Dr. Patteson purchased for
the ex-slaves a large tract of land in Ohio, near Kenton,
and thither they were transported and settled in their
new homes. The inventory of Mr. Warwick's estate
shows that at the time of his death he owned seventy-four
slaves.[#]

By his will, admitted to probate July 9th, 1849, Sampson
Sanders, of Cabell County, emancipated all of his slaves
and directed his executors to provide for their colonization
"in the State of Indiana, or some one of the free states of
the United States."[#] The testator bequeathed to these
slaves the sum of fifteen thousand dollars, out of which fund
should be paid the amount necessary for the purchase of
land for their homes, the balance to be distributed among
them. Before the intentions of the testator could be
.pn +1 // 086.png
carried into effect, Indiana enacted a law denying to freed
negroes the privileges of settling in that state. Accordingly
these freedmen were carried to Cass County, Mich.,
where they were settled in homes purchased for them
under the provisions of the will of their former owner.
This colony seems to have succeeded, and many of the
descendants of the former slaves of Sanders are to-day living
upon the lands purchased by his bounty.[#]

.sp 2
SENTIMENTAL DIFFICULTIES

In addition to the many difficulties already enumerated,
that invested colonization, there were other deterrent
causes only less real. Was it right to send these newly
manumitted slaves off, upon the hazard of maintaining
themselves in the face of difficulties for which they had
had so little training? This was the question for the
master. What of their future in the far away and unknown
land? That was the question for the slave. Then too,
there came to both a genuine reluctance to meet the pain
of separation. Of the fact of the existence of a strong
affection between masters and slaves, in a great majority
of the homes in Virginia where the institution of slavery
existed, there can be no question. From the great number
of instances illustrating the sorrows of masters and servants
in the hour of separation, we select two.

.sp 2
INSTANCES ILLUSTRATING DIFFICULTIES

David W. Barton, of Winchester, Virginia, emancipated
many of his slaves a short time prior to the Civil
War. Some of these were sent to Liberia, and others,
who from age or youth were not regarded as equal to the
trials of the trip, were settled in this country. Robert T.
Barton, Esq., a son of the emancipator, in a letter to the
author bears testimony to the fact of the affection which
subsisted between the members of his father's family and
these freedmen. "I was quite a small boy at the time,"
.pn +1 // 087.png
he writes, "but I remember the incident perfectly. I
recall the weeping family that parted with these servants,
who were very dear to us."[#]

Traverse Herndon, of Fauquier, who died in 1854, by
his last will emancipated his slaves, some fifty in number,
and made provision for their transportation to Liberia.
Two years later his brother, Thaddeus Herndon, emancipated
his slaves, some twenty in number, and the two
groups of freedmen, except such as were too old to bear
the dangers of the voyage and life in the new country,
were sent to Liberia in the fall of 1857, under the care of
an agent of the American Colonization Society.

The Rev. Charles T. Herndon, of Salem, Virginia, has
furnished the author with an account of the parting
between these freedmen and his father, Thaddeus Herndon,
which occurred on board of the ship "Euphrasia," written
by the Rev. John Seys,[#] a former missionary to Liberia,
.pn +1 // 088.png
who was present on the occasion. The subjoined extract
from Mr. Seys' account of the separation, which was published
soon afterwards in the <i>Maryland Colonization
Journal</i>, presents in the most vivid manner the sorrow
attending the parting of Thaddeus Herndon and his former
slaves, and the reverence and affection with which the
slaves of Traverse Herndon regarded their dead master.

.sp 2
OPPOSITION OF FREEDMEN TO COLONIZATION

Not infrequently the many difficulties which embarrassed
the efforts of Virginia slaveholders to colonize their ex-slaves
at points beyond the state were increased by the
attitude of the slaves themselves. The experience of
John Thom, of Berry Hill, Culpeper County, as related
in a letter to the author under date of July 15th, 1908,
by his son Cameron E. Thom, of Los Angeles, Cal., will
serve as an illustration. Mr. Cameron Thom is at present
a man of venerable years who seems to retain a vivid
impression of the scenes incident to the attempt at colonization
made by his father in the later thirties. Mr. Thom,
.pn +1 // 089.png
after narrating that his father was a soldier in the War
of 1812, where he gained his title as commander of a
Virginia regiment, and was for thirty years a member
of the State Senate, proceeds to write with reference to
his father's attitude towards slavery as follows:

.in +2
"He was not satisfied with it, and was restive under
it. In his discussions of the subject he often quoted as
expressive of his views Mr. Jefferson, who declared that
'We have the wolf by the ears, and it is as dangerous to
let go as it is to hold on.' I believe they were both gradual
emancipationists. The idea of practical and immediate
emancipation through the medium of colonization seems
to have crystallized in his mind and stimulated him to
action. He sent my eldest brother, Catesby Thom, to
Pennsylvania to spy out the land and to make definite
arrangements for the location, settlement and comfort
of the proposed colony. After an absence of several
weeks, he returned and reported that he had selected an
ideal location for the experiment. Every desideratum
seems to have been taken into consideration, climate,
wood, water, fertility of the soil, products, neighbors, etc.

"To carry out my father's plan, the next step was to call
for eighteen volunteers to make up the colony. Here
came a great disappointment. Of the number called for
only one suitable man responded.... The volunteer
idea was abandoned and conscription was resorted to.
When the names of the eighteen chosen ones were announced
the plantation was indeed a house of mourning.
.pn +1 // 090.png
Prayers, protests and petitions came up, but were of no
avail. A complete outfit was made up of three wagons,
twelve oxen, three cows, tools, farming utensils, provisions,
clothing, &c. The expedition got off all right, my brother
Catesby being chief in command, and Uncle Billy Guinn,
the only volunteer, a full second. Before the expiration
of a week from the time of departure, two of the colonists
had deserted and were back at Berry Hill, and in less than
a year nearly all the others had found their way back.
My brother, after some two months' absence, got back
and reported that he would not go through with his experience
again for all the negroes in Virginia.

"I left Virginia for the South in 1848; returning in a
few weeks, I took my final departure from the state in the
early Spring of 1849 for California where I have resided
ever since, never having seen my father again. I believe
he manumitted all or nearly all of the servants by deed or
will."
.in


.fm
.fn #
See <i>Record of Deeds</i>, Vol. A., p. 230, Recorder's
Office, Brown County, Ohio.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Sketch of Edward Coles</i>, Washburne, pp. 47-52.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Abraham Lincoln, A History</i>, N. & H., Vol. I, p. 145.

(Note. The fine imposed upon Governor Coles was subsequently
remitted by an act of the Legislature because the law under which
he was fined had not been published at the date of his offense.)
.fn-

.fn #
See <i>Will Book No. 1</i>, p. 109, Clerk's Office,
Pittsylvania County, Va.
.fn-

.fn #
See <i>Public Ledger of Philadelphia</i>, April 14, 1827.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Historical Collections of Ohio, History of Mercer
County, Ohio</i>, by Henry Howe, 1891, Vol. II, p. 505.
.fn-

.fn #
See <i>Will Book No. 11</i>, p. 575, Clerk's Office,
Amherst County, Va.
.fn-

.fn #
John Warwick was the great-uncle of the Hon. John
Warwick Daniel, now (1908) and for many years past a member from
Virginia in the United States Senate.
.fn-

.fn #
See <i>Will Book A.</i>, p. 391, in the Clerk's Office of
Cabell County, West Virginia.
.fn-

.fn #
See <i>Outlook Magazine</i>, N. Y., February 9th, 1903.
.fn-

.fn #
Under date of March 19, 1907, Mr. Barton writes the
author: "My father manumitted his slaves, or rather, certain of
them, before the war. Under the law as I remember it, it was not
necessary to put on record a deed of manumission of a slave who
was sent out of the state.... I was quite a small boy at the time,
but I remember the incident perfectly. I recall the weeping family
that parted with these servants, who were very dear to us.... Many
years after that I received a visit from one of the women who had
been the assistant in the nursery, and to whom, as a child, I
remember I was very devoted. I do not believe that two near
relations could have had a more affecting greeting. She stayed in
Winchester for nearly a week, coming to my house every day, and
finally went away without bidding us good bye, writing back from
her home that she had done so because she could not stand the
parting. The other servants who went away also kept up with our
family the most affectionate relations for many years, and the old
ones, who could not get away, were supported by my brothers and
myself after the war until they died."
.fn-

.fn #
Mr. Seys records that his experience as a missionary
in Liberia prompted him to visit these emigrants on board ship,
just preparatory to their departure, and at the request of Mr.
Herndon, make them a short address. He then writes: "I closed my
remarks and Mr. Herndon followed me." The latter said: "I may not
see you again, I may as well say all I have to say now." And then
he became so choked for utterance, and tears fell so fast that a
silence ensued only broken by sighs and sobs of the entire party.
Again he continued:

"My heart is too full. I can hardly speak. You know how we have
lived together. Servants, hear me, we have been brothers and
sisters, we have grown up together. We have done the best for you.
For two or three years this has been contemplated and you are now
on the point of starting for the land of your ancestors. Besides
your freedom, we have spent $2,000.00 in procuring everything we
could think of to make you comfortable—clothing, bedding,
implements of husbandry, mechanics' tools, books for the children,
Bibles, a family Bible for each family, all these have been
provided, and when you have been there some few months, we will
send you out another supply of provisions and will continue to do
so. And now, you three brethren, who formed the committee
appointed by the church to watch over your brethren, a word to
you. You are chosen to admonish, guide, counsel the others, not to
lord it over them, but gently and kindly to watch over their
souls; and now, may God bless you. I can never forget you. Write
to me, Washington, you can write; I have provided you with paper.
Keep a journal, put all of your names down, even the children, and
write opposite to each one everything that happens concerning you.
I shall feel much interested in hearing from you—especially will
your Miss Frances. (Here the bare mention of their almost adored
mistress started their grief afresh.) Now, as we may never meet
again, let us part with prayer, let all kneel down, and Brother
Seys will lead in prayer to Almighty God for you all." We knelt
there, and under feelings words but poorly express, engaged in
prayer as best we could amid cries and sobs and tears.
.fn-

.sp 4

.h2 pn=+1 // 091.png
XII

.nf c
<sc>Emancipation and Colonization:</sc>
<sc>Views Of Jefferson, Clay and Lincoln</sc>
.nf-
.sp 2

If it be urged that Virginia had reached the conclusion
that without the dispersion or colonization of the whole
or a large portion of her slave population emancipation
was impracticable, it may be acknowledged that to a
qualified extent this was true. The position, however,
did not involve an abandonment of the principle of emancipation,
but rather the insistence that with emancipation
should go the work of solving the race problem by a method
which gave some assurance of complete success.

That this attitude of Virginia cannot be regarded as
wholly unreasonable or reactionary will appear when we
consider the views of some of the leading friends of negro
emancipation. From the number of those whose sanity
kept pace with their zeal, we select Thomas Jefferson,
Henry Clay and Abraham Lincoln.

.sp 2
VIEWS OF JEFFERSON AND CLAY

Mr. Jefferson in 1820 wrote:

.in +2
"Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate
than that these people are to be free; nor is it less certain
than that the two races, equally free, cannot live in the
same government. Nature, habit, opinion, have drawn
indelible lines of distinction between them."[#]
.in

Writing to Jared Sparks, President of Harvard College,
in 1824, he said:

.in +2
"In the disposition of these unfortunate people there
.pn +1 // 092.png
are two rational objects to be distinctly kept in view.
First, the establishment of a colony on the coast of Africa,
which may introduce among the aborigines the arts of
cultivated life and the blessings of liberty and science.
By doing this, we may make them some retribution for
the long course of injuries we have been committing
on their population.... Second object, and the most
interesting to us, as coming home to our physical and
moral characters, to our happiness and safety, is to provide
an asylum to which we can, by degrees, send the whole of
that population from among us, and establish them under
our patronage and protection, as a separate, free, and
independent people, in some country and climate friendly
to human life and happiness."[#]
.in

.sp 2
VIEWS OF CLAY

Mr. Clay's attitude with respect to the institution of
slavery will appear from his oft-quoted declaration:

.in +2
"Those who would repress all tendencies to liberty and
ultimate emancipation must do more than put down the
benevolent efforts of the Colonization Society, they must
go back to the era of our liberty and independence, and
muzzle the cannon that thunders its annual joyous return—they
must blot out the moral lights around us—they
must penetrate the human soul, and eradicate the light of
reason and the love of liberty."[#]
.in

His sentiments, however, with respect to the wisdom
and necessity for colonizing the manumitted slaves were
equally decided. In an address before the Colonization
Society of Kentucky at Frankfort, December 17, 1829,
Mr. Clay presented at length his reasons for supporting
the movement to colonize all ex-slaves in the Republic
of Liberia. In the course of this address he said:

.in +2
"If the question were submitted, whether there should
be either immediate or gradual emancipation of all the
.pn +1 // 093.png
slaves in the United States, without their removal or
colonization, painful as it is to express the opinion, I have
no doubt that it would be unwise to emancipate them.
For I believe, that the aggregate of the evils which would
be engendered in society upon the supposition of such
general emancipation, and of the liberated slaves remaining
promiscuously among us, would be greater than all the
evils of slavery."[#]
.in

Continuing, he said:

.in +2
"Is there no remedy I again ask for the evils of which
I have sketched a faint and imperfect picture? Is our
posterity doomed to endure forever not only all the ills
flowing from the state of slavery, but all which arise from
incongruous elements of population, separated from each
other by invincible prejudices and by natural causes?
Whatever may be the character of the remedy proposed,
we may confidently pronounce it inadequate, unless it
provides efficaciously for the total and absolute separation,
by an extensive space of water or of land, at least of the
white portion of our population from that which is free of
the colored."[#]
.in

In conclusion he said:

.in +2
"If we were to invoke the greatest blessing on earth,
which Heaven, in its mercy, could now bestow on this
nation, it would be the separation of the two most numerous
races of its population and their comfortable establishment
in distinct and different countries."[#]
.in

.sp 2
VIEWS OF LINCOLN

The biographers of Abraham Lincoln, Nicolay and Hay,
declare:

.in +2
"The political creed of Abraham Lincoln embraced
among other tenets, a belief in the value and promise of
.pn +1 //094.png
colonization as one means of solving the great race problem
involved in the existence of slavery in the United
States.... Without being an enthusiast, Lincoln was a
firm believer in colonization."[#]
.in

Speaking at Springfield, Illinois, June 26, 1857, Mr.
Lincoln said:

.in +2
"I have said that the separation of the races is the only
perfect prevention of amalgamation. I have no right to
say that all the members of the Republican Party are in
favor of this nor to say that as a party they are in favor
of it. There is nothing in their platform directly on the
subject. But I can say a very large proportion of its
members are for it and that the chief plank in that platform—opposition
to the spread of slavery—is most favorable
to that separation. Such separation, if ever effected
at all, must be effected by colonization.... The enterprise
is a difficult one but where there is a will there is
a way; and what colonization needs most is a hearty will.
Will springs from the two elements of moral sense and
self-interest. Let us be brought to believe it is morally
right, and at the same time favorable to, or, at least, not
against our interests, to transfer the African to his native
clime, and we shall find a way to do it, however great the
task may be."[#]
.in

Upon his assumption of the office of President Mr.
Lincoln sought to carry into effect his colonization views.
In his first annual message to Congress—December, 1861—after
alluding to the act "to confiscate property used
for insurrectionary purposes," enacted by Congress at its
extra session, under the operations of which thousands of
slaves had come into the custody of the Federal authorities
and the further fact that some of the states might adopt
.pn +1 // 095.png
similar statutes with similar results, he proceeds to say:

.in +2
"In such cases I recommend that Congress provide for
accepting such persons from such states according to some
mode of valuation in lieu <i>pro tanto</i> of direct taxes, or upon
some other plan to be agreed on with such states respectively;
that such persons, on such acceptance, by the
General Government, be at once deemed free, and that in
any event steps be taken for colonizing both classes (or
the first mentioned if the other shall not be brought into
existence) at some place or places in a climate congenial
to them. It might be well to consider too whether the
free colored people already in the United States could not,
so far as individuals may desire, be included in such
colonization.

"To carry out the plan of colonization may involve the
acquiring of territory, and also the appropriation of money
beyond that to be expended in the territorial acquisition.
Having practised the acquisition of territory for nearly
sixty years the question of constitutional power to do so
is no longer an open one with us....

"If it be said that the only legitimate object of acquiring
territory is to furnish homes for white men this measure
effects their object, for the emigration of colored men leaves
additional room for white men remaining or coming here.
Mr. Jefferson however placed the importance of procuring
Louisiana more on political and commercial grounds than
on providing room for population. On this whole proposition,
including the appropriation of money with the
acquisition of territory, does not expediency amount to
absolute necessity—that without which the government
itself cannot be perpetuated."[#]
.in

As a result of these urgent representations Congress, at
its session of 1862, placed at the disposal of the President
the sum of $600,000.00 to be expended at his discretion
in colonizing with their consent free persons of African
.pn +1 // 096.png
descent in some country adapted to their condition and
necessities.[#]

Mr. Lincoln, with a view of carrying out this act of
Congress, invited a number of prominent colored men to
meet him at the White House on the 14th of August,
1862, and then and there urged upon them the wisdom
of availing themselves of the opportunity thus offered to
make for themselves a home beyond the borders of this
country. Mr. Lincoln said that the action of Congress
in placing at his disposal a sum of money for the purpose
of aiding the colonization of the people of African descent
made it his duty, as it had for a long time been his inclination,
to favor that cause. Continuing, he said:

.in +2
"And why should the people of your race be colonized,
and where? Why should you leave this country? This
is perhaps the first question for proper consideration.
You and we are different races. We have between us a
broader difference than exists between almost any other
two races. Whether it is right or wrong I need not discuss;
but this physical difference is a great disadvantage
to us both as I think. Your race suffer very greatly,
many of them by living among us, while ours suffer from
your presence. In a word, we suffer on each side. If
this be admitted, it affords a reason, at least, why we
should be separated.

"The aspiration of men is to enjoy equality with the
best when free, but on this broad continent not a single
man of your race is made the equal of a single man of ours.
Go where you are treated the best, and the ban is still
upon you. I do not propose to discuss this, but to present
it as a fact with which we have to deal. I cannot alter
it if I would."
.in

In conclusion he said:
.pn +1 // 097.png

.in +2
"I ask you then to consider seriously not pertaining
to yourselves merely, nor for your race and ours for the
present time but as one of the things if successfully managed,
for the good of mankind—not confined to the present
generation."[#]
.in

In his special message to Congress April 16th, 1862,
after alluding to the passage of the bill abolishing slavery
in the District of Columbia, he approves the same and
declares: "I am grateful that the principles of compensation
and colonization are both recognized and practically
applied in this act."[#]


.fm
.fn #
<i>Jefferson Manuscript</i>, Raynor, p. 64.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Writings of Jefferson</i>, Ford, Vol. X, p. 290
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Lincoln and Slavery</i>, Arnold, p. 124.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>The African Repository and Colonial Journal</i>, Vol.
II, No. 1, p. 5.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>The African Repository and Colonial Journal</i>, Vol.
II, p. 12.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Idem</i>, p. 23.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Abraham Lincoln, A History</i>, N. & H., Vol. VI, p.
355.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Abraham Lincoln, Speeches, Letters and State
Papers</i>, N. & H., Vol. I, p. 235.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Messages and Papers of the Presidents</i>, Vol. VI, p.
64.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>The Life, Public Services and State Papers of
Abraham Lincoln</i>, Raymond, p. 504.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>The Life, Public Services and State Papers of
Abraham Lincoln</i>, Raymond, p. 504.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Messages and Papers of the Presidents</i>, Vol. VI, p.
73.
.fn-

.sp 4

.h2 pn=+1 // 098.png
XIII

.ce
<sc>Anti-slavery Sentiments of Prominent Virginians</sc>
.sp 2

No account of Virginia's record in regard to slavery
would be complete which failed to set forth the position of
her foremost men with respect to the institution. From a
mass of data we have selected the following declarations as
fairly expressive of their sentiments. We have not recorded
the views of Virginians, however worthy, who were not
by birth, training and sympathies, representative of the
dominant element of her people.

.sp 2
ANTI-SLAVERY SENTIMENTS PRIOR TO 1810

Richard Henry Lee, speaking in the Virginia House of
Burgesses 1772, in support of a bill prohibiting the slave
trade, said:

.in +2
"Nor, sir, are these the only reasons to be urged against
the importation. In my opinion not the cruelties practised
in the conquest of South America, not the savage
barbarity of a Saracen, can be more big with atrocity than
our cruel trade to Africa. There we encourage those poor
ignorant people to wage eternal war against each other; ... that
by war, stealth or surprise, we Christians
may be furnished with our fellow-creatures, who are no
longer to be considered as created in the image of God as
well as ourselves and equally entitled to liberty and freedom
by the great law of Nature, but they are to be deprived forever
of all the comforts of life and to be made the most
wretched of the human kind."[#]
.in

Patrick Henry, writing on the 18th day of January, 1773,
said:
.pn +1 // 099.png

.in +2
"Is it not a little surprising that Christianity, whose chief
excellency consists in softening the human heart, cherishing
and improving its finer feelings, should encourage a
practice so totally repugnant to the first impressions of
right and wrong? What adds to the wonder is that this
abominable practice has been introduced in the most
enlightened ages....

"Would any one believe I am the master of slaves of my
own purchase! I am drawn along by the general inconvenience
of living here without them. I will not, I cannot
justify it.... I believe the time will come when an
opportunity will be offered to abolish this lamentable evil.
Everything we can do is to improve it, if it happens in our
day; if not, let us transmit to our descendants, together
with our slaves, a pity for their unhappy lot and an abhorrence
for slavery."[#]
.in

At another time he wrote: "Our country will be peopled.
The question is, shall it be with Europeans, or Africans?...
Is there a man so degenerate as to wish to see
his country the gloomy retreat of slavery?"[#]

George Washington, writing in 1786, to Robert Morris,
of Philadelphia, after alluding to an Anti-slavery Society of
Quakers in that city and suggesting that unless their practices
were discontinued, "None of those whose misfortune
it is to have slaves as attendants will visit the city if they
can possibly avoid it," continues:

.in +2
"I hope it will not be conceived from these observations
that it is my wish to hold the unhappy people, who are the
subjects of this letter, in slavery. I can only say that
there is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I
do to see a plan adopted for the abolition of it. But there
is only one proper and effectual mode by which it can be
accomplished, and that is by legislative authority; and this,
as far as my suffrage will go, shall never be wanting."
.in
.pn +1 // 100.png

Writing in the same year to John F. Mercer, he said:

.in +2
"I never mean, unless some particular circumstance shall
compel me to it, to possess another slave by purchase, it
being among my first wishes to see some plan adopted by
which slavery in this country may be abolished by law."[#]
.in

George Mason, speaking in the Virginia Convention of
1788 having the adoption of the Federal Constitution under
consideration, said:

.in +2
"Mr. Chairman, this is a fatal section (Article 1, Section
9) which has created more dangers than any other. The
first clause allows the importation of slaves for twenty years.
Under the royal government this evil was looked upon as a
great oppression, and many attempts were made to prevent
it; but the interest of the African merchants prevented its
prohibition. No sooner did the Revolution take place
than it was thought of. It was one of the great causes of
our separation from Great Britain. Its exclusion has been
a principal object of this state, and most of the states in the
Union. The augmentation of slaves weakens the state;
and such a trade is diabolical in itself and disgraceful to
mankind; yet by this constitution, it is continued for
twenty years. I have ever looked upon this as a most
disgraceful thing to America. I cannot express my detestation
of it."[#]
.in

John Tyler, Sr., speaking in the same Convention in
condemnation of the clause permitting the slave trade:

.in +2
"Warmly enlarged on the impolicy, iniquity and disgracefulness
of this wicked traffic. He thought the reasons
urged by gentlemen in defense of it were inconclusive and
ill-founded. It was one cause of the complaints against
British tyranny that this trade was permitted. The Revolution
had put a period to it; but now it was to be revived.
He thought nothing could justify it.... His earnest
.pn +1 // 101.png
desire was that it should be handed down to posterity that
he had opposed this wicked cause."[#]
.in

Edmund Randolph, in 1789, wrote to Madison that he
desired to go to Philadelphia to practise law, saying, "For
if I found that I could live there I could emancipate my
slaves, and thus end my days without undergoing any
anxiety about the injustice of holding them."[#]

St. George Tucker,[#] in his edition of Blackstone's Commentaries,
reviewing the origin of slavery in Virginia, and
the status of the institution at the time he writes, 1803,
declares:

.in +2
"Among the blessings which the Almighty hath showered
on these states, there is a large portion of the bitterest
draught that ever flowed from the cup of affliction. Whilst
America hath been the land of promise to Europeans and
their descendants, it hath been the vale of death to millions
of the wretched sons of Africa.... Whilst we adjured
the God of Hosts to witness our resolution to live free, or
die; and imprecated curses on their heads who refused to
unite with us in establishing the empire of freedom, we
were imposing upon our fellowmen who differ in complexion
from us, a slavery ten thousand times more cruel
than the utmost extremity of those grievances and oppressions
of which we complained."[#]
.in

At the conclusion of his carefully prepared article
.pn +1 // 102.png
showing the efforts made by the people of Virginia during
the period of British rule to suppress the slave trade, their
prompt prohibition of the traffic immediately upon the
assertion of their independence, and the various statutes
enacted to mitigate the hardships of the institution, he
uses these earnest yet almost pathetic words:

.in +2
"Tedious and unentertaining as this detail may appear
to all others, a citizen of Virginia will feel some satisfaction
in reading a vindication of his country from the opprobrium,
but too lavishly bestowed upon her, of fostering
slavery in her bosom, whilst she boasts a sacred regard
for the liberty of her citizens, and of mankind in
general."[#]
.in

The foregoing quotations express the sentiments of the
leading Virginians of the Revolutionary period with respect
to slavery.

.sp 2
ANTI-SLAVERY SENTIMENTS FROM 1810-1831

The following quotations, taken from speeches and
letters of the period between 1810 and 1831, express the
sentiments of men, many of whom, though contemporaries
of Washington and Mason and Henry, yet survived them by
a quarter of a century.

Jefferson, in his <i>Notes on Virginia</i>, wrote:

.in +2
"Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we
have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the
minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God;
that they are not violated but with His wrath? Indeed I
tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that
His justice cannot sleep forever."[#]
.in

Writing in 1820 to John Holmes, he said:

.in +2
"I can say with conscious truth that there is not a man
.pn +1 // 103.png
on earth who would sacrifice more than I would to relieve
us from this heavy reproach, in any practicable way. The
cession of that kind of property—for so it is misnamed—is a
bagatelle which would not cost me a second thought if, in
that way, a general emancipation and expatriation could be
effected; and gradually, and with due sacrifice, I think it
might be; but as it is, we have the wolf by the ears and can
neither hold him nor safely let him go. Justice is in one
scale, and self-preservation in the other."[#]
.in

John Tyler, in February, 1820, speaking in Congress as a
Representative from Virginia when the bill for the admission
of Missouri was under discussion, together with the amendment
prohibiting the admission of slaves into the territories,
said:

.in +2
"Slavery has been represented on all hands as a dark
cloud and the candor of the gentleman from Massachusetts,
Mr. Whitman, drove him to the admission that it would be
well to disperse this cloud. In this sentiment I entirely
concur with him. How can you otherwise disarm it? Will
you suffer it to increase in its darkness over one particular
portion of this land till its horrors shall burst upon it?...
How is the North interested in pursuing such a
course? The man of the North is far removed from its
influence; he may smile and experience no disquietude.
But exclude this property from Missouri by the exercise of
an arbitrary power; shut it out from the territories; and I
maintain that you do not consult the interests of this Union.

"The gentleman from Massachusetts also conceded that
for which we contend—that by diffusing this population
extensively you increase the prospects of emancipation.
What enabled New York, Pennsylvania and other states to
adopt the language of universal emancipation? Rely on it,
nothing but the paucity of the number of their slaves.
That which would have been criminal in those states not
to have done would be an act of political suicide in Georgia
.pn +1 // 104.png
or South Carolina to do. By this dispersion you also
ameliorate the condition of the black man."[#]
.in

John Randolph of Roanoke, speaking in Congress, March
2, 1826, said:

.in +2
"My feelings and instincts were in opposition to slavery
in every shape; to the subjugation of one man's will to that
of another; and, from the time I read Clarkson's celebrated
pamphlet, I was, I am afraid, as mad as Clarkson himself.
I read myself into this madness, as I have read myself into
some agricultural improvements; but, as with these last, I
worked myself out of them.... The disease will run
its course. It has run its course in the Northern States;
it is beginning to run its course in Maryland. The natural
death of slavery is the unprofitableness of its most expensive
labor."[#]
.in

Replying to a Northern member in Congress, in 1826, he
said: "Sir, I envy neither the head nor the heart of the man
from the North who arises here to defend slavery upon
principle."[#]

Francis W. Gilmer, writing to William Wirt, from England
in July, 1824, said:

.in +2
"I begin to be impatient to see Virginia once more.
It's more like England than any other part of the United
States—slavery <i>non obstanti</i>. Remove the stain—blacker
than the Ethiopian's skin, and annihilate our political
schemers and it would be the fairest realm on which the
sun ever shone."[#]
.in

John Marshall, writing in 1826, said:

.in +2
"I concur with you that nothing portends more calamity
and mischief to the Southern States than their slave population.
.pn +1 // 105.png
Yet, they seem to cherish the evil, and to view
with immovable prejudice and dislike everything which
may tend to diminish it. I do not wonder that they should
resent any attempt, should one be made, to interfere with
the rights of property, but they have a feverish jealousy
of measures which may do good without the hazard of harm,
that I think very unwise."[#]
.in

James Monroe, speaking in the Virginia Constitutional
Convention on the 2nd of November, 1829, said:

.in +2
"What has been the leading spirit of this state ever
since our independence was attained? She has always
declared herself in favor of the equal rights of man. The
Revolution was conducted on that principle. Yet there
was at that time a slavish population in Virginia. We hold
it in the condition in which the Revolution found it, and
what can be done with this population?... As to the
practicability of emancipating them, it can never be done
by the state itself, nor without the aid of the Union....

"Sir, what brought us together in the Revolutionary War?
It was the doctrine of equal rights. Each part of the country
encouraged and supported every other part. None
took advantage of the other's distresses. And if we find
that this evil has preyed upon the vitals of the Union and
has been prejudicial to all the states where it has existed,
and is likewise repugnant to their several state constitutions
and Bills of Rights, why may we not expect that they will
unite with us in accomplishing its removal?"[#]
.in

Benjamin Watkins Leigh, speaking in the Virginia Constitutional
Convention of 1829-30, said:

.in +2
"I wish indeed that I had been born in a land where
domestic and negro slavery is unknown—no, sir,—I misrepresent
myself—I do not wish so. I shall never wish
.pn +1 // 106.png
that I had been born out of Virginia—but I wish that
Providence had spared my country this moral and political
evil. It is supposed that our slave labor enables us to
live in luxury and ease, without industry, without care.
Sir, the evil of slavery is greater to the master than to the
slave. He is interested in all their wants, all their distresses,
bound to provide for them, to care for them, to
labor for them, while they labor for him, and his labor is by
no means the less severe of the two. The relation between
master and slave imposes on the master a heavy and painful
responsibility."[#]
.in

James Madison, in 1831 wrote concerning slavery and
the American Colonization Society:

.in +2
"Many circumstances of the present moment seem to
concur in brightening the prospects of the Society and
cherishing the hope that the time will come when the
dreadful calamity which has so long afflicted our country
and filled so many with despair, will be gradually removed,
and by means consistent with justice, peace, and general
satisfaction; thus giving to our country the full enjoyment
of the blessings of liberty, and to the world the full benefit
of its great example."[#]
.in

.fm
.fn #
<i>Life of R. H. Lee</i>, Lee, Vol. I, p. 18.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>The True Patrick Henry</i>, Morgan, p. 246.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Life of Patrick Henry</i>, William Wirt Henry, Vol. I, p. 114.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>The Writings of Washington</i>, Marshall, Vol. II, p.
159.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Madison Papers</i>, Vol. II, p. 1391.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Letters and Times of the Tylers</i>, Tyler, Vol. I, p. 154.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Life of Edmund Randolph</i>, Conway, p. 125.
.fn-

.fn #
Judge Tucker, who was professor of law at William &
Mary College, made it a part of his course of lectures to
demonstrate the moral and economic objections to slavery.

Mr. Roosevelt points out that Thomas H. Benton acquired his
deep-rooted antagonism to the institution while studying
Blackstone "as edited by the learned Virginian Judge Tucker who in
an appendix treated of and totally condemned black slavery in the
United States." (<i>Thomas H. Benton</i>, Roosevelt, p. 297).
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Tucker's Blackstone</i>, Vol. II, Appendix, note H., p. 31.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Idem</i>, p. 53.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Writings of Jefferson</i>, Ford, Vol. III, p. 267.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Idem</i>, Vol. VII, p. 157.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Letters and Times of the Tylers</i>, Tyler, Vol. I, p. 312.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Abridgment of Debates in Congress 1789-1856</i>, Vol. VIII, p. 40.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>American Conflict</i>, Greeley, Vol. I, p. 109.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Kennedy's Life of Wirt</i>, Kennedy, Vol. II, p. 188.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>John Marshall, Life, Character and Judicial
Services</i>, Dillon, Vol. I, p. 216.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Debates of Virginia Convention of 1829-30</i>, p. 149.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Idem</i>, p. 173.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Life of James Madison</i>, Hunt, p. 369.
.fn-


.sp 4

.h2
XIV

.ce
<sc>Anti-Slavery Sentiments of Prominent Virginians</sc> \ \ (Continued)
.pn +1 // 107.png
.sp 2

ANTI-SLAVERY SENTIMENTS, 1832

The anti-slavery sentiments of prominent Virginians,
expressed in the speeches delivered in the notable debate
which occurred in the Virginia Legislature of 1832, may
well be considered in a group by themselves. The speakers
were all young men and represented a later generation
than those from whom quotations have already been
given. Many of them were destined to fill important
roles in the political life of the state and some of them,
with undiminished influence, survived the period of the
Civil War. McDowell became Governor of the state and
a member of Congress; Preston was a member of Congress,
a member of President Taylor's Cabinet, and one of the
leading spirits in the Virginia Convention of 1861; Randolph
was repeatedly returned to the Legislature and was
a prominent member of the Reform Convention of 1850-51,
and Faulkner was for years a member of Congress and also
Minister to France.

The position of these Virginians was significant as
representative of the widespread anti-slavery sentiments
which pervaded the state. Chandler, of Norfolk County,
represented the largest slaveholding county in Tide-water
Virginia; Broadnax and Bolling, two large slaveholding
counties in the Black Belt; Randolph and Marshall,
counties in the Piedmont section; Preston, the Southwest;
McDowell, the Upper Valley, and Berry and Faulkner,
.pn +1 // 108.png
the two counties in the extreme lower end of the valley.

Thomas Marshall, of Fauquier County, speaking in the
Virginia House of Delegates, January 14th, 1832, when
the subject of the gradual abolition of slavery was under
discussion, said:

.in +2
"Wherefore, then, object to slavery? Because it is
ruinous to the whites, retards improvements, roots out
an industrious population—banishes the yeomanry of
the country—deprives the spinner, the weaver, the smith,
the shoemaker, the carpenter, of employment and support.
The evil admits of no remedy, and it is increasing and will
continue to increase until the whole country will be inundated
by one black wave covering its whole extent, with a
few white faces here and there floating on the surface."[#]
.in

John A. Chandler, a representative from Norfolk County,
speaking on the 17th of January in the same debate, said:

.in +2
"It will be recollected, sir, that when the memorial
from Charles City was presented by the gentleman from
Hanover, and when its reference was opposed, I took
occasion to observe that I believed the people of Norfolk
County would rejoice could they even in the vista of time
see some scheme for the general removal of this <i>curse</i>
from our land. I should have voted, sir, for its rejection
because I was desirous to see a report from the committee
declaring the slave population an evil and recommending
to the people of this commonwealth the adoption of some
plan for its riddance."[#]
.in

William H. Broadnax, speaking as a representative
from the County of Dinwiddie, on the 19th of January, in
the same debate, said:

.pn +1 // 109.png
.in +2
"That slavery in Virginia is an evil and a transcendent
evil it would be idle and worse than idle for any human
being to doubt or deny. It is a mildew which has blighted
in its course every region it has touched from the creation
of the world. Illustrations from the history of other
countries and other times might be instructive and profitable
had we time to review them, but we have evidence
tending to the same conviction nearer at hand in the short
histories of the different states of this great confederacy
which are impressive in their admonitions and conclusive
in their character."[#]
.in

Henry Berry, speaking as a representative from Jefferson
County, on the 20th of January, in the same debate,
said:

.in +2
"Sir, I believe that no cancer on the physical body was
ever more certain, steady and fatal in its progress than
is this cancer on the political body of the State of Virginia.
It is eating into her very vitals. And shall we act the
part of a puny patient, suffering under the ravages of a
fatal disease, who would say the remedy is too painful,
the dose is too nauseous, I cannot bear it; who would close
his eyes in despair and give himself up to death? No,
sir, I would bear the knife and the cautery, for the sake
of health. I would never despair of the Republic. For
myself, I would abandon hope on this subject and the
state together."[#]
.in

Charles James Faulkner, speaking as a representative
from Berkeley County, on the 20th of January, in the
same debate, said:

.in +2
"Wherever the voice of your people has been heard
since the agitation of this question, it has sustained your
determination and called for the present enquiry. I have
heard of county meetings, county petitions, and county
.pn +1 // 110.png
memorials; I have heard from the North, the East, and
the South. They are all, with one voice, against the
continuance of slavery. None for it. The press, too,
that mirror of public sentiment, that concentrated will of
a whole community, has been heard from one extremity
of the state to the other. Its power is with us, its moral
force is united, efficient and encouraging. In this city,
the capital of the Old Dominion, the heart of the commonwealth,
which by one ventricle receives and through the
other discharges the life blood of intelligence and public
spirit throughout your empire, aye, and from a quarter
and from many quarters where such a voice was least
expected its tones have been firm, manly, and intrepid.
Honor, sir, to those who dare speak the truth in the worst
of times."
.in

In conclusion he said:

.in +2
"In the language of the wise and prophetic Jefferson,
'you must approach it, you must bear it, you must adopt
some plan of emancipation, or worse will follow.'"[#]
.in

James McDowell, speaking as a representative from
Rockbridge County, on the 21st of January, in the same
debate, said:

.in +2
"Sir, you may place the slave where you please—you
may dry up to your uttermost the fountains of his feelings,
the springs of his thought—you may close upon his mind
every avenue of knowledge and cloud it over with artificial
night—you may yoke him to your labors as the ox which
liveth only to work and worketh only to live—you may
put him under any process, which, without destroying
his value as a slave, will debase and crush him as a rational
being—you may do this and the idea that he was born to
be free will survive it all. It is allied to his hope of immortality—it
is the ethereal part of his nature which
oppression cannot reach; it is a torch lit up in his soul by
.pn +1 // 111.png
the hand of the Deity and never meant to be extinguished
by the hand of man."[#]
.in

Thomas Jefferson Randolph, speaking as a representative
from Albemarle County, on the 21st of January, in
the same debate, said:

.in +2
"Does slavery exist in any part of civilized Europe?
No, sir, in no part of it. America is the only civilized
Christian nation that bears the opprobrium. In every
other country where civilization and Christianity have
existed together they have erased it from their codes."[#]
.in

Philip A. Bolling, speaking as a representative from
Buckingham County, on the 25th of January, in the same
debate, said:

.in +2
"Mr. Speaker, it is vain for gentlemen to deny the fact
that the feelings of society are fast becoming adverse to
slavery. Moral causes which produce that feeling are on
the march and will on until the groans of slavery are
heard no more in this else happy country. Look over this
world's wide page—see the rapid progress of liberal feelings—see
the shackles falling from nations who have long
writhed under the galling yoke of slavery. Liberty is
going over the whole earth, hand in hand with Christianity."[#]
.in

.fm

.fn #
<i>Virginia Slavery Debate</i>, 1832, White, Speech of
Thomas Marshall, p. 6.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Idem</i>, Speech of J. A. Chandler, p. 3.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Idem</i>, Speech of William H. Broadnax, p. 10.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Idem</i>, Speech of Henry Berry, p. 2.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Idem</i>, Speech of C. J. Faulkner, p. 5 and p. 22.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Idem</i>, Speech of James McDowell, p. 20.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Idem</i>, Speech of T. J. Randolph, p. 15.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Idem</i>, Speech of Philip A. Bolling, p. 15.
.fn-

.sp 4

.h2 pn=+1 // 112.png
XV

.ce
<sc>The Anti-Slavery Sentiments of Prominent Virginians</sc> \ (Concluded)
.sp 2

The period from 1833-1860 witnessed, as we have seen,
the rise and progress of the abolition movement at the
North and the growth of pro-slavery sentiment in Virginia
and the South. These conditions are reflected in the
deliverances of many prominent anti-slavery Virginians,
and by a growing indisposition on the part of others of
this element to publicly declare their sentiments or to
take part in the discussions, which, with growing bitterness,
marked the times.

.sp 2
ANTI-SLAVERY SENTIMENTS FROM 1833-1860

George Washington Parke Custis, speaking on the
21st of January, 1833, before the American Colonization
Society, said:

.in +2
"Some alarmists tell us that the slave population is to
be freed. And, sir, does any one regret that the hope is
held out, that with our own consent, we shall one day see
an end of slavery? Should this Society be, as I doubt
not it will, the happy means of producing this result, it will
be renowned as having done one of the greatest and best
deeds that have blessed the world."[#]
.in

The following extract from a speech of William C. Rives
serves not only to illustrate his anti-slavery sentiments,
but the rise of the two antagonistic parties—the Abolitionists
in the North and the Pro-slavery men in the
.pn +1 // 113.png
South. The speech of Dr. Ruffner, delivered ten years
later, also indicates the same condition and the fresh
difficulties with which the cause of gradual emancipation
in Virginia was thus confronted.

William C. Rives, speaking in the United States Senate
on the 6th day of February, 1837, after deprecating the
action of Mr. Webster in presenting abolition petitions
as precipitating controversy over a subject with respect to
which Congress had no jurisdiction, then replied to the
position of Mr. Calhoun, that slavery was a beneficent
institution, as follows:

.in +2
"But, sir, while I have been thus prepared and determined
to defend the constitutional rights of the South
at every hazard, I have not felt myself bound to conform
my understanding and conscience to the standard of
faith that has recently been set up by some gentlemen
in regard to the general question of slavery. I have not
considered it a part of my duty as a representative from
the South, to deny, as has been done by this new school,
the natural freedom and equality of man; to contend that
slavery is a positive good; that it is inseparable from the
condition of man; that it must exist in some form or other
in every political community; and that it is even an
essential ingredient in Republican government. No, sir,
I have not thought it necessary, in order to defend the
rights and institutions of the South, to attack the great
principles which lie at the foundation of our political
system, and to revert to the dogmas of Sir Robert Filmer,
exploded a century and a half ago by the immortal works
of Sidney and Locke....

"In pursuing this course I have the satisfaction of reflecting
that I follow the example of the greatest men and
purest patriots who have illustrated the annals of our country—of
the Fathers of the Republic itself.

"It never entered into their minds, while laying the foundation
of the great and glorious fabric of our free government,
.pn +1 // 114.png
to contend that domestic slavery was a positive good—a
great good. Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Marshall,
the brightest names of my own state, are known to have
lamented the existence of slavery as a misfortune and an
evil to the country, and their thoughts were often anxiously,
however unavailingly, exercised in devising some scheme of
safe and practical relief, proceeding always, however, from
the states which suffered the evil....

"In following such lights as these, I feel that I sin against
no principle of republicanism, and against no safeguard of
Southern rights and Southern policy when I frankly say in
answer to the interrogatory of the gentleman from South
Carolina, that I do regard slavery as an evil—an evil not
uncompensated, I know, by collateral effects of high value
on the social and intellectual character of my countrymen;
but still in the eye of religion, philanthropy and reason, an
evil."[#]
.in

Charles Fenton Mercer, in his work, <i>An Exposition of
the Weakness and Inefficiency of the Government of the
United States</i>, published in 1845, said:

.in +2
"How shall we approach the horrid subject of slavery, the
blackest of all blots, the foulest of all deformities? Here
are a people descended from the very centre of civilization
and free institutions of Europe, bearing with them the full
tide of liberal principles, and the very cap and essence of
liberty, and boasting not only of their descent, but that they
are more than worthy of their ancestors, that have sanctioned
slavery in its most abject form, and now, by actual
enumeration, have upwards of three millions of them."[#]
.in

R. R. Howison, the Virginia historian, in his <i>History of
Virginia</i>, published in 1848, alluding to slavery in the
state, said:
.pn +1 // 115.png

.in +2
"We apprehend that in general, the people of Virginia
hold slavery to be an enormous evil, bearing with fatal
power upon their prosperity. This sentiment has been
gaining ground during many years.... Under these circumstances,
we hail with pleasure any indications that this
part of our population (the slave portion) is decreasing in
number and that the time shall come when Virginia shall
be a free state."[#]
.in

Dr. Henry Ruffner, President of Washington College,
delivered in 1847 an address which was printed in pamphlet
form and widely distributed, dealing with the subject of
slavery and emancipation. Referring to the attitude and
efforts of the Abolitionists and the effect upon anti-slavery
sentiment in the state, he said:

.in +2
"But, fellow-citizens, shall we suffer this meddlesome
sect of Abolitionists to blind our eyes to the evils of slavery
and to tie up our hands when the condition of the country,
and the welfare of ourselves and our children, summon us
to immediate action?...

"Having failed in their first mode of action by denunciatory
pamphlets and newspapers, and by petitions to
Congress, the most violent class of Abolitionists have now
formed themselves into a political party aiming to subvert
the Federal Constitution which guarantees the rights of
slaveholders, and to destroy the Federal Union which is
the glory and safeguard of us all. Thus they have armed
against themselves every American patriot; and what is
most remarkable, they have met from the opposite extreme
those Southern politicians and ultra pro-slavery men—called
'Chivalry' and 'Nullifiers,' who so often predict and
threaten a dissolution of the Union."[#]
.in

Matthew F. Maury, writing in 1851, said:

.in +2
"I am sure you would rejoice to see the people of Virginia
.pn +1 // 116.png
rise up to-morrow and say, 'From and after a future day,
say January 1st, 1855, there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary
servitude in Virginia.' Although this would not
strike the shackle from off a single arm nor command a
single slave to go free, yet it would relieve our own loved
Virginia of that curse."[#]
.in

Bishop William Meade in 1854, writing of slavery, said:

.in +2
"While we must acknowledge that the advantage of the
African trade notwithstanding the cruelties accompanying
it has been on the side of that people both temporally and
spiritually; yet we can never be brought to believe that
the introduction into, and the multiplication of slavery in
Virginia has advanced either her religious, political, or
agricultural interests. On the contrary we are confident
that it has injured all."
.in

In 1857, alluding to the foregoing statement, he wrote:

.in +2
"I have been for the last fifty years, and more especially
for the last thirty, travelling much the length and breadth
of Virginia, making observations for myself, conversing
with intelligent farmers, politicians, ministers of the gospel,
and other Christians on the subjects referred to above.
... I have not only reconsidered them myself, but freely
conversed with many sound-minded persons concerning
the views there presented; and the result has been an
increased conviction that they are correct and have been
in time past, and still are held by the great body of our citizens,
Christians, and statesmen."[#]
.in

The statement of Howison, made in 1848—that, "in general,
the people of Virginia hold slavery to be an enormous
evil, bearing with fatal power upon their prosperity," is
confirmed by these conclusions of Bishop Meade, expressed
ten years later.

.pn +1 // 117.png
Robert E. Lee writing in December, 1856, said:

.in +2
"In this enlightened age, there are few, I believe, but will
acknowledge that as an institution slavery is a moral and
political evil in any country. It is useless to expatiate
on its disadvantages. I think it, however, a greater evil
to the white than to the black race, and while my feelings
are strongly enlisted in behalf of the latter, my sympathies
are strongly for the former...."

"While we see the course of the final abolition of slavery
is onward, and we give it the aid of our prayers and all
justifiable means in our power, we must leave the progress
as well as the result in His hands, who sees the end and
chooses to work by slow influences."[#]
.in

.sp 2
RESULTS OF ANTI-SLAVERY SENTIMENTS

If it be urged that despite the foregoing anti-slavery sentiments
the institution remained intrenched in the laws of
Virginia, and supported by a strong body of public opinion,
it may be replied that the views of these Virginians, and
others of like mind, were nevertheless productive of far-reaching
and beneficent results. They were effective in
robbing slavery of many of its most abhorrent and oppressive
incidents. Under the public opinion thus generated
the institution in Virginia assumed, as a rule, the patriarchal
character—master and slave being bound by ties of
mutual obligation and affection. Many of the legal hardships
inseparable from the system were reduced to a
minimum. Thus the breaking up of families, by sale of
their members, was confined as nearly as possible to the
distribution of estates and the collection of debts by process
of law. In all the category of disreputable callings,
there were none so despised as the slave-trader. The
odium descended upon his children and his children's
children. Against the legal right to buy and sell slaves for
profit, this public sentiment lifted a strong arm, and rendered
.pn +1 // 118.png
forever odious the name of "Negro-trader." The
good results of these conditions were evidenced in the higher
measure of character, courtesy and capacity, which, as a
whole, distinguished the negroes of Virginia.

.sp 2
NUMBER OF EMANCIPATIONS IN VIRGINIA

The position of these Virginians was also of great importance
in keeping before the mind of the people the conception
that slavery was an abnormal institution, and that
with her growth in wealth and white population, Virginia
could and would free herself from what Robert E. Lee described
as "a moral and political evil." Furthermore these
sentiments were productive of an actual emancipation, the
character and extent of which has been little appreciated.
If devotion to the cause is to be measured by the actual
manumissions effected, then Virginia's emancipators could
contemplate with pride their record. George Wythe liberated
his slaves at the close of the Revolution. Robert
E. Lee, executor of George Washington Parke Custis, left
his place at the front with the Army of Northern Virginia
to emancipate the slaves of his testator as directed by the
latter in his will.[#] Between these two there stretches a
long line of emancipators, who, without compensation,
liberated thousands of slaves. Mr. Ballagh estimates this
number as high as one hundred thousand.[#] These slaveholders
incurred not only the pecuniary loss of this great
emancipation, but in many instances the expense of colonization.
When, too, it is remembered that their
communities were often thus further burdened by the
problems incident to the presence of an increasing body
of freedmen, the full import of the beneficence is better
appreciated. That many of these ex-slaves, despite statutes
.pn +1 // 119.png
and the efforts of masters and others to settle them at
points beyond the state, remained in Virginia is attested by
the Federal census, from which it appears that in 1860
there were still fifty-eight thousand and forty-two free
negroes within her borders.

.fm
.fn #
See <i>Proceedings of Sixteenth Annual Meeting of
American Colonization Society</i>, January, 1833, p. XVII.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Congressional Debates</i>, Vol. XIII, part I, p. 717.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>An Exposition of the Weakness and Inefficiency of
the Government of the United States</i>, p. 167.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>History of Virginia</i>, Howison, Vol. II, p. 519.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>The Ruffner Pamphlet</i>, Lexington, 1847.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Life of Matthew F. Maury</i>, Corbin, p. 131.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Old Churches, Ministers and Families of Virginia</i>,
Vol. I, pp. 89-90, note.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Life of R. E. Lee</i>, Fitzhugh Lee, p. 64.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Will Book No. 4</i>, p. 267, Clerk's Office, Alexandria
County, Virginia.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>History of Slavery in Virginia</i>, Ballagh, p. 144.
.fn-


.sp 4
.h2 pn=+1 // 120.png
XVI

.ce
<sc>Specimens of Deeds and Wills Emancipating Slaves</sc>
.sp 2

An examination of a few of the great number of deeds
and wills which are to be found on record throughout
Virginia will serve to illustrate the motives of her emancipators
and the many difficulties which confronted them.
These emancipations may be grouped in three periods,—from
1782 to 1806, from 1806 to 1833, and from 1833
to the outbreak of the Civil War. Each of these periods
had its peculiar characteristics with reference to the
problem of emancipation in Virginia. From 1782 to 1806
the law permitted emancipation without qualification,
and public opinion, in the state, while deploring the
existence of slavery was willing to permit the slaveholders
to control, in large measure, the times and methods of its
abolition. The period from 1806 to 1833 marked the
years when anti-slavery sentiment showed increasing
strength. The antipathy, however, to the presence of
the free negro was equally pronounced and resulted in the
laws which required his removal from the state within a
year after his emancipation. This requirement invested
emancipation with new, practical, as well as ethical difficulties.
This period opened with the act which denied
to slaveholders the unqualified right of emancipation—and
it ended with the Nat Turner Insurrection and the
futile attempts of the General Assembly to successfully
meet the difficulties of the situation. The years from
.pn +1 // 121.png
1833 to 1860 were burdened with all the difficulties of
the previous periods, as well as with the embarrassments
growing out of the efforts of the Abolitionists beyond
the state and of the pro-slavery advocates within her
borders.

An examination of the following extracts from the
deeds and wills of emancipators will serve to illustrate
the truth of these views.

.sp 2
SPECIMENS OF DEEDS AND WILLS, 1782-1806

Extract from deed of Joseph Hill, of Isle of Wight
County, dated March 6th, 1783:

.in +2
"I, Joseph Hill, of Isle of Wight County in Virginia,
after full and deliberate consideration, and agreeable to
our Bill of Rights, am fully persuaded that freedom is
the natural life of all mankind, and that no law, moral or
divine, hath given me a just right or property in the
persons of any of my fellow-creatures, and desirous to fulfil
the injunction of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, by
doing to all others as I would be done by in a like situation
... do hereby emancipate and set free all and every of
the above named slaves, &c."[#]
.in

Extract from deed of Charles Moorman, of Campbell
County, dated September 1st, 1789:

.in +2
"I, Charles Moorman, from mature consideration and
the conviction of my own mind, being fully persuaded
that freedom is the natural right of all mankind, and that
no law, moral or divine, has given me a right to or property
in the persons of any of my fellow-creatures, and being
desirous to fulfil the injunction of our Lord and Saviour,
Jesus Christ, by doing to others as I would be done by—do
therefore declare that having under my care twenty-eight
slaves, (naming them), I do for myself, my heirs,
executors and administrators, hereby release unto them
.pn +1 // 122.png
the said slaves all my rights, interest, claims or pretensions
of claims whatsoever to their persons or any estate they
may acquire, &c."[#]
.in

Extracts from deeds of Robert Carter, of Westmoreland
County, each dated the 1st day of January, 1793:

.in +2
"Whereas the General Assembly of the Commonwealth
of Virginia did in the year seventeen hundred and eighty-two
enact a law entitled 'An Act to Authorize the Manumission
of Slaves,' know all men by these presents that I,
Robert Carter, of Nomony Hall, in the County of Westmoreland,
do under the said act for myself, my heirs,
executors and administrators, emancipate and forever
set free from slavery the following slaves." (Here follow
the names of the slaves, twenty-seven in number.)[#]
.in

And on the same day a similar deed emancipating thirty
slaves.[#]

Extract from deed of Francis Preston, of Washington
County, dated the 20th day of September, 1793:

.in +2
"Whereas my negro man, John (alias) John Broady,
claims a promise of freedom from his former master,
General William Campbell, for his faithful attendance
on him at all times, and more particularly while he was
in the army in the last war, and I who claim the said negro,
in right of my wife, daughter of said General William
Campbell, feeling a desire to emancipate the said negro
man John as well for the fulfilment of the above mentioned
promise as the gratification of being instrumental of
promoting a participation of liberty to a fellow-creature,
who by nature is entitled thereto, do by these presents,
.pn +1 // 123.png
for myself, my heirs, executors and administrators, fully
emancipate and make free, to all intents and purposes, the
said negro man John (alias) John Brody from me and my
heirs forever."[#]
.in

Extract from the will of Richard Randolph, Jr., admitted
to record in Clerk's Office of Prince Edward County,
April 8th, 1797:

.in +2
"In the first place—to make retribution as far as I am
able to an unfortunate race of bondsmen over whom
my ancestors have usurped and exercised the most lawless
and monstrous tyranny, and in whom my countrymen
by their iniquitous laws in contradiction of their own
Declaration of Rights ... have vested me with absolute
property; ... to exculpate myself to those who may
perchance think or hear of me after death from the black
crime which otherwise would be imputed to me of voluntarily
holding the above mentioned miserable beings in
the same state of abject slavery in which I found them
on receiving my patrimony at lawful age; to impress my
children with just horror at a crime so enormous and
indelible, and to adjure them in the last words of a fond
father never to participate in it ... I do declare that it
is my will and desire, nay, most anxious wish, that my
negroes, all of them, be liberated, and I do declare them
by this writing free and emancipated to all intents and
purposes whatsoever."[#]
.in
.pn +1 // 124.png

Extract from the will of George Washington, dated
July 9th, 1799, recorded in the Clerk's Office of Fairfax
County:

.in +2
"Upon the decease of my wife, it is my will and desire
that all the slaves whom I hold in my own right shall
receive their freedom. To emancipate them during her
life would, though earnestly wished by me, be attended
with such insuperable difficulties on account of their
intermixture by marriage with the dower negroes as to
excite the most painful sensations, if not disagreeable
consequences to the latter, while both descriptions are in
the occupancy of the same proprietor; it not being in my
power under the tenure by which the dower negroes are
held to manumit them."
.in

The will further provides that all slaves who at the
time of their emancipation are unable, by reason of old
age, bodily infirmities, or youth, to support themselves
shall be cared for out of his estate, the testator declaring:

.in +2
"I do moreover most pointedly and most solemnly
enjoin it upon my executors hereafter named, or the
survivors of them, to see that this clause respecting slaves
and every part thereof be religiously fulfilled at the epoch
at which it is directed to take place without evasion,
neglect or delay, after the crops which may then be in
the ground are harvested, particularly as it respects the
aged and infirm; seeing that a regular and permanent fund
be established for their support as long as there are subjects
requiring it."[#]
.in

Extract from the will of Jesse Bonner, of Dinwiddie,
dated 8th April, 1797, and admitted to probate 17th
April, 1803:

.in +2
"Item: I leave the use of the plantation whereon I now
.pn +1 // 125.png
live and my New Survey adjoining it to my beloved wife,
Rebecca Bonner, during her life or widowhood; also all the
negroes belonging to me.

"Item: My will and desire is that all the above negroes
which I have lent to my beloved wife, Rebecca Bonner,
namely (here the slaves, fifteen in number, are named),
with all their increase from this day, be emancipated and
go free at the death or marriage of my beloved wife,
Rebecca Bonner.

"Item: My will and desire is that if I have no child the
plantation whereon I now live together with my New
Survey, be given to my negroes and their heirs forever,
after the death or marriage of my beloved wife, Rebecca
Bonner." [#]
.in

The reader will observe, that in many of the foregoing
extracts the anti-slavery sentiments of the emancipators
are freely and vigorously expressed and the act of emancipation
is, in many instances, based upon the conviction
that slavery was repugnant alike to the political institutions
of the state and the principles of the Christian religion.

.sp 2
SPECIMENS OF DEEDS AND WILLS, 1806-1833

During the time from 1806-1833 there seems to have
been a diminution in the number of emancipations, especially
in the earlier years of that period. This was doubtless
to be accounted for by the difficulties, resulting from
the law, which required the removal of the slave from
the state within twelve months next succeeding his emancipation.
However, with the increase in the facilities
of travel, some of these practical difficulties were overcome,
and during the latter years of the period the number
of emancipations annually made were as large as, if not
larger than, previous to the enactment of the law.

Extract from the will of Charles Ewell, of Prince William
.pn +1 // 126.png
County, dated 8th October, 1823, and admitted to probate
3rd November, 1823:

.in +2
"It is my will that all the increase of my negroes named
shall be free at the age of twenty-five, and their increase,
if any, to be free at the same age (those only who were
born before their parents arrived at the age of twenty-four),
those born after to be liberated with their mothers,"[#]
.in

Extract from the will of John Smith, of Sussex County,
dated 9th November, 1825, and admitted to probate 2nd
March, 1826:

.in +2
"At the death of my beloved wife, I direct that all of
my negroes, without regard to age, sex or condition, with
all their future increase, be, by my executor, sent to the
African Colonization Settlement, established for the removal
of free black persons of color from the United States;
and believing freedom to be the natural birthright of all
persons and having spent many of my best days in defense
thereof, I do hereby declare all of my said slaves or negroes,
with their future increase ... to be emancipated and
free ... from and after the death of my said wife. And
I do hereby give and grant to each of said negroes so
emancipated, without regard to age, sex or condition, one
good serviceable hat, one pair shoes and stockings, blanket
and one year's provisions, exclusive of ship provisions
on board, to carry with them.... I hereby direct my
executors to pay all expenses of removing said emancipated
slaves out of any money that may be in their
hands belonging to my estate."[#]
.in

Extract from the will of John Ward, Sr., of Pittsylvania
.pn +1 // 127.png
County, dated the 30th day of July, 1826 and recorded the
20th of November, 1826:

.in +2
"It is my will and desire that all my slaves now living
or which may be living at the time of my death be free and
I do hereby bequeath to each and every one of them their
freedom immediately upon my death in as full and unlimited
a manner as the laws of Virginia will admit of. But should
any of my slaves choose not to avail themselves of this bequest
of their freedom with the conditions which the law
may annex, then it is my will and desire that they have the
privilege of choosing their master who may take them at
the valuation of two good men, to be chosen by my executors,
and should the females thus electing choose to keep
any of their children with them it is my will that said
children be at liberty to obtain their freedom at the age of
twenty-one years in the same manner.... I give to all
my slaves over fifteen years at the time of my death each
the sum of twenty dollars—excepting Davy and Nancy,
having already given them one hundred and fifty dollars
each."[#]
.in

Extract from the will of Martha E. Peyton, of Prince
William County, dated the 30th June, 1831, and admitted
to probate October 3rd, 1831:

.in +2
"Secondly, I do hereby will and direct that after my
debts are paid in the manner aforesaid that all my negroes
without exception shall be emancipated and have their
freedom; they having served me during my life and as I
am unwilling for them to be kept in slavery or owned by any
person after my death."[#]
.in

Extract from the will of Aylette Hawes, of Rappahannock
County, dated the 9th August, 1832, and admitted
to probate 7th October, 1833:
.pn +1 // 128.png

.in +2
"I do hereby free and emancipate all my slaves that I
may own at my death, that I may not hereafter dispose
of; such of the said slaves that are old and infirm, I wish to
have the liberty of choosing their place of residence with
any of my relations, and to receive from my estate such
assistance as, with the work they are able to do, will render
them profitable without being an encumbrance where they
live; and to Jack, who, besides being old and infirm, is also
afflicted in his legs, I leave fifty dollars. Such of my said
slaves as are so nearly white as to render it unsafe for them
to go to Liberia I desire may be sent to the State of Ohio, or
where slavery is not tolerated, at the expense of my estate.
I desire my said slaves thus sent at the expense of my
estate to Ohio, to be put under the protection and patronage
of David S. Dodge and his family and that the said
David S. may be amply compensated from my estate for
any trouble or expense he may be at in patronizing the said
slaves. I desire all my other slaves to be transferred to the
proper agent of the African Colonization Society, with
twenty dollars each, for their transportation to Liberia."[#]
.in

Extract from will of John Randolph of Roanoke, dated
May, 1819, admitted to probate in 1833:

.in +2
"I give to my slaves their freedom, to which my conscience
tells me they are justly entitled. It has a long
time been a matter of deepest regret to me that the circumstances
under which I inherited them and the obstacles
thrown in the way by the laws of the land have prevented
my emancipating them in my lifetime, which it is my full
intention to do in case I can accomplish it."
.in

The will makes provision for the purchase of land in some
one of the free states and for removing the ex-slaves,
.pn +1 // 129.png
some three hundred and fifty in number, to their new homes
to be provided for them thereon, the same to be equipped
with farming utensils, etc.[#]

Extract from will of William H. Fitzhugh of Ravensworth,
Fairfax County, dated March 21, 1829:

.in +2
"After the year 1850 I leave all my negroes unconditionally
free, with the privilege of having the expenses
of their removal to whatever places of residence they may
select, defrayed. And as an encouragement to them to
emigrate to the American Colony on the coast of Africa,
where I believe their happiness will be most permanently
secure, I desire not only that the expense of their emigration
may be paid but that the sum of fifty dollars shall be
paid to each one so emigrating on his or her arrival in
Africa."
.in

The will makes provision for a fund to carry out the foregoing
directions.[#]


.fm

.fn #
<i>Deed Book No. 15</i>, p. 122, in Clerk's Office, Isle
of Wight County, Virginia.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Deed Book No. 2</i>, p. 418, in Clerk's Office,
Campbell County, Virginia.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Deed and Will Book No. 18</i>, p. 213, in the Clerk's
Office, Westmoreland County, Virginia.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Idem</i>, p. 244.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Deed Book for Year 1793</i>, in Clerk's Office of
Washington County, Abingdon, Virginia.
.fn-

.fn #
See <i>Will Book</i> for 1797, Clerk's Office, Prince
Edward County, Farmville, Virginia.

Note: Mr. Randolph explained in his will that he did not
emancipate his slaves by deed because at the date his will was
written they were still bound for certain debts of his father from
whom he inherited them. In accordance with his will they were all,
some two hundred in number, finally set free. Richard Randolph was
the brother of John Randolph of Roanoke and a stepson of St.
George Tucker.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Life of Washington</i>, Irving, Vol. V, p. 439.
.fn-

.fn #
See <i>Will Book for Year 1803</i>, Dinwiddie Court-House,
Virginia.
.fn-

.fn #
See <i>Will Book M.</i>, p. 103, Prince William County,
Virginia.
.fn-

.fn #
See <i>Will Book K.</i>, p. 322, Clerk's Office of Sussex
County.

Note: The inventory of Smith's estate shows that he owned
forty-three slaves at the time of his death. Testator was a
soldier in the Revolutionary Army.
.fn-

.fn #
See <i>Will Book No. 1</i>, p. 109, Clerk's Office,
Pittsylvania County, Virginia.
.fn-

.fn #
See <i>Will Book N.</i>, p. 383, Prince William County,
Virginia.
.fn-

.fn #
See <i>Will Book A.</i>, p. 16, Clerk's Office,
Rappahannock County, Virginia.

Note: Hawes was for many years a member of Congress from Virginia
and the inventory of his estate shows that at the time of his
death, he owned one hundred and five slaves.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Life of John Randolph</i>, Garland, Vol. II, p. 149.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Will Book No. 1</i>, p. 57, Clerk's Office, Fairfax
County, Virginia. Mr. Fitzhugh was the maternal uncle of Mrs.
Robert E. Lee.
.fn-

.sp 4

.h2 pn=+1 // 130.PNG
XVII

.ce
<sc>Specimens of Deeds and Wills Emancipating Slaves</sc> \ (Concluded)
.sp 2
SPECIMENS OF DEEDS AND WILLS, 1833-1860

The deeds and wills during the period from 1833 to the
Civil War made increasingly large provisions for the removal
and colonization of the freedmen. It may be also noted
that arraignments of slavery became very rare during that
period. The same influences which almost hushed the
voice of anti-slavery orators in Virginia, were effective in
banishing from the deeds and wills of emancipators expressions
which might give aid and comfort to the men who
were daily denouncing the civilization and morality of the
state. Though these arraignments might almost stop the
discussion of slavery in Virginia, yet they could not destroy
the sentiment in favor of emancipation. The liberation of
slaves continued without diminution down to the outbreak
of the Civil War. It may be also noted that these instances
of emancipation go far to disprove the charge that the
Virginia friends of negro colonization were inspired simply
by a desire to remove the free negroes from the state in
order to make more sure the tenure by which they held
their slaves. John Randolph of Roanoke, General Blackburn,
Bishop Meade, William Henry Fitzhugh and George
Washington Parke Custis were all leaders in the colonization
movement, and all of them emancipated their slaves.

Extract from the will of Samuel Blackburn of Bath
County, dated the 30th of October, 1834:

.in +2
"That all the slaves of which I may die seized and
.pn +1 // 131.png
possessed, without distinction of age or sex, be, and they
are hereby, declared free and forever emancipated, &c....
And as soon as the necessary arrangements can be
made by my executors they shall be transported to the
American Colony in Liberia and the expense of transportation
be charged upon my estate, real and personal. It is,
however, expressly and implicitly understood that if any
of my slaves aforesaid refuse to accept this boon it will be
the duty of my executors and they are hereby requested
so to do, to sell to the highest bidder in terms of the sale
all who thus refuse and persevere in refusal, as slaves for
life. And here let me admonish and warn these people
how they let slip this golden moment of emancipating themselves
and their posterity forever from that state of slavery
and degradation in which I found them and in which many
of them have long served me."
.in

By a codicil the testator provided that with respect to
any slaves who might refuse to accept their freedom upon
condition that they be transported to Liberia, his executors
should not sell them separately but in families and by
private sale to considerate masters.[#]

Extract from the will of Carter H. Edlow of Prince
George County, dated the 20th of March, 1838, and admitted
to probate the 13th of August, 1844:

.in +2
"I desire that my estate shall be kept together and cultivated
to the best advantage until a sufficient sum can be
raised to pay my debts, should there be any deficiency in
the amount of money on hand and debts due me, and to
raise a sufficient sum to pay for the transportation of my
slaves to any free state or colony which they may prefer
and give to each slave fifty dollars on their departure....
It is not my wish to force them away without their consent;
in the event of any of them preferring to remain in slavery
they must take the disposition hereinafter directed."
.in
.pn +1 // 132.png

The testator then devises the residuum of his estate to
his nieces, along with such of his slaves as refuse to accept
freedom.[#]

Extract from deed of William Meade, of Clarke County,
dated the 29th of April, 1843:

.in +2
"Know all men by these presents that I, William Meade,
of the County of Clarke and State of Virginia, with a view of
preparing a certain female mulatto slave, named Lucy, for
the enjoyment of the freedom hereinafter bestowed upon
her, have ... bound the said female, Lucy, now about
seventeen years of age, to a certain J. W. Stockton, residing
in the State of Pennsylvania, until the said Lucy arrives
at the age of twenty-one years, &c. ... do give and grant
unto the said Lucy her freedom forever and do hereby
manumit her from my service, forever, &c."[#]
.in

Extract from the will of Thacker V. Webb, of Orange
County, admitted to probate August 28th, 1843:

.in +2
"I will and direct that at and after my death, my slaves,
James, Joseph, Kendall, Judy and all the remainder of them
both old and young (not enumerated and specified by their
respective names) and all the future increase of all the
females be, and they are hereby fully and entirely liberated,
and forever emancipated and set free from the involuntary
service of all and every person or persons whatsoever; and
that no operation of any law whatsoever shall be allowed,
or in any wise prevent the said slaves from receiving and
enjoying their full, entire and complete freedom and
emancipation, I will and direct that my executor or administrator
hereinafter named, shall procure a home for the
slaves, or persons above liberated, in some non-slaveholding
.pn +1 // 133.png
state, and for this purpose I hereby appropriate the
sum of four thousand dollars, to be laid out in land,
farming utensils, and bearing their expenses, and if any
overplus shall remain, I direct it to be equally divided
among them all, and given to the fathers and mothers for
their joint use and benefit."[#]
.in

Extract from will of Albert Early, of Madison County,
dated the 25th of May, 1839, admitted to probate 25th
day of November, 1847:

.in +2
"I give and bequeath unto my above named executors
all the negro slaves that I now own or may own ... I do
most solemnly and seriously request and exhort them to
do with my said negro slaves as I now prescribe, that it
is my wish that they ... should be liberated so that they
may enjoy all the liberties and blessings of a free and
independent people, and not approving the custom of
liberating slaves to remain in the United States, I would
recommend to my said executors to select for their residence
some section of country which ... may supply
them, the above named negro slaves, with all the comforts
and necessaries that may render their lives as agreeable
and easy as possible."
.in

The will further authorizes the executors to sell so much
of the lands and other property of the testator as may be
necessary to pay his debts and then to apply so much of
the proceeds as the above named "executors may think
proper for the removal and settlement of my above named
negro slaves."

The will concludes:

.in +2
"That it is owing to no malignity of feelings towards
my relations that I have thus disposed of my negro slaves,
but because I think they own enough of them without
.pn +1 // 134.png
mine and I think that they are a general evil and withal
I deprecate the principle."[#]
.in

Extract from the will of John Warwick, of Amherst
County, admitted to probate March 20th, 1848:

.in +2
"I, John Warwick, of the County of Amherst, ... do
make, publish and declare this my last true will and
testament....

"First: The future condition of my slaves has long been
a subject of anxious concern with me, and it is my deliberate
intention, wish, and desire that the whole of them be
manumitted and set free as soon after my demise as the
growing crops shall be safe and the annual hires terminated,
not later than the end of the year of my death, to be
removed, or so many of them as I do not manumit and
send to a free state during my life, with the exception
hereinafter named, and settled in one or more of the free
states of this Union under the care and direction of my
executors, hereinafter appointed. Indiana is my choice.

"Second: To carry out the above bequest ... next to
the payment of any debts I may owe, my funeral expenses,
and the charges of administration of my estate, I hereby
declare that it is my wish and intention that my slaves
shall on being emancipated have the whole of my estate
now in being, or hereafter to be acquired, ... for the
purpose of creating a suitable fund in the hands of my
executors for their comfortable clothing, outfit, travelling
expenses and settlement in their new homes".[#]
.in

Extract from the will of Frances Eppes of Henrico
County, admitted to probate February 7th, 1848.
.pn +1 // 135.png

.in +2
"It is my will and desire that all my slaves shall be
emancipated and set free—and I do hereby emancipate
and set free the following slaves, and the increase of the
females among them, namely—" (Here follow the names
of the slaves, twenty-seven in number)—"And with a
view to accomplish this my intention in an effectual manner
it is my will and desire that at my decease all my slaves
of every description be committed to the special care
and trust of my friends Joseph J. Pleasants of the County
of Hanover, in this state, and Joseph Jones of the State of
Ohio....

"It is my will and desire that after all my just debts
are paid, all the property of every description of which I
may die seized, or the proceeds arising therefrom as may
seem best to my executors hereinafter named, be divided
among the said slaves so emancipated in such manner as
the executors may deem fair and proper."[#]
.in

Extract from the will of Sampson Sanders, of Cabell
County, admitted to probate July 9th, 1849:

.in +2
"It is my will and desire that all my slaves of every
age and sex be free at the time of my death from all involuntary
servitude....

"I hereby direct my executors ... to collect so much
of my estate as may be necessary to buy land for my said
slaves in the State of Indiana or some one of the free states
of the United States of America as may be necessary for
their comfortable support ... assigning each head of a
family their proper proportion of land ... binding the
heads of families and other young men for the comfortable
support of the old and decrepit or weakly slaves during
their natural lives. I hereby give and bequeath to my
said slaves $15,000.00 to be paid out of my estate by my
executors aforesaid."[#]
.in
.pn +1 // 136.png

Extract of will of Joseph Early, of Madison County,
dated 22nd of December, 1852, and admitted to probate
August 24th, 1854:

.in +2
"My will is that my executors hereinafter named send
my negroes that I now have to Liberia—give each of the
men,—three in number—fifty dollars each and Verindy
and all her children, one hundred dollars, to take with
them, besides getting them out, and bacon enough to last
them six months after they get to Liberia."[#]
.in

Extract from the will of William D. Jennings, of Henrico
County, admitted to probate August 1st, 1853:

.in +2
"I hereby manumit, emancipate and set free all the rest
and residue of my slaves, viz.:" (Here follow the names
of the slaves, thirty-four in number) "and request that
they shall be sent to and settled in Africa, in some good
location, to be approved by my executor, after conference
with the agent of the American Colonization Society, at
Washington City."
.in

The will further provides that after paying the debts of
the estate the balance shall be applied:

.in +2
"To the expenses of removal to, and settling in Africa,
of all the slaves hereby emancipated. After defraying the
expenses of their said removal to Africa, it is my will and
desire that the whole surplus of my estate then remaining
(after paying debts and legacies) shall be divided among
my said emancipated slaves as follows, viz.:—" (Here
follow the names of the slaves).[#]
.in

Extract from the will of Traverse D. Herndon, of Fauquier
County, dated the 2nd of December, 1854, and
admitted to probate 25th of December, 1854:
.pn +1 // 137.png

.in +2
"Third: I desire that the servants formerly the property
of Col. George Love, whose names and number have been
sent on to the Colonization Society (The number thus
designated were forty-eight, two have since been born)
shall be sent to Liberia, so as to carry out the arrangements
made with that society for their liberation, and I further
wish that their expenses shall be paid to Baltimore, Md.,
and that my wife shall give them such an amount of money
as she may think advisable."[#]
.in

Extract from the will of Arthur B. Davies, of Amherst
County, admitted to probate March 21st, 1853:

.in +2
"It is my will and desire that all my slaves, fifteen in
number and named as follows,—" (Here follow their
names) "together with their future increase, shall be
liberated and become invested with their freedom at my
death, and for the purpose of removing them to some free
state if that be lawful, or to Liberia if that shall become
necessary, it is my will and desire that the debt now due
to me by Charles S. Brown be collected and be used as a
fund to effect that object. It is my further wish that in
case any of my said slaves shall of their own free will and
accord prefer remaining in slavery rather than accepting
freedom under the provisions of this clause, then it is my
desire that they shall be permitted to choose masters
amongst any of my legatees hereinafter mentioned, and
thereafter to become their slaves for life—the parents in
such case to choose also for such of their infant children
as may not be capable of making their own election."[#]
.in

Extract from the will of Philip Lightfoot, of Culpeper
County, admitted to probate May 21st, 1855:

.in +2
"I hereby emancipate and set free all the slaves I may
possess or be entitled to at the time of my decease, who
.pn +1 // 138.png
are to enjoy their freedom as fully as if they had been
born free. I give to each of my said slaves, without
distinction of age or sex, the sum of one hundred dollars,
to be paid to them respectively when my executor shall
deliver to them their discharge from service. Moreover
my executor is required to clothe each of them well, furnishing
to each the necessary quantity of blankets and
cause them to be moved to some place, or site, where they
can enjoy their freedom, and I desire the clothing and
expenses attending their removal to be paid out of my
estate with the money on hand or money that can be first
collected.

"My old and infirm negroes (if any) are to be supported
in a suitable manner by my estate."[#]
.in

Extract from the will of William Smith, of Orange
County, admitted to probate September 28th, 1857:

.in +2
"It is my will and desire that my house servant, Maria,
my man, Paul, and my woman, Celia, be allowed to choose
their masters or mistresses or either, and when they have
made such selection, I hereby give and bequeath them to
such person or persons as they may respectively select,
provided the person or persons, so selected by them, will
take them as their property, but if they cannot be thus
disposed of, then my executors are to select suitable
places for them where they will be well clothed and taken
care of upon the most reasonable and best terms they can,
paying out of my estate such sums of money as may be
necessary for this purpose."[#]
.in

Extract from the will of George Washington Parke
Custis, of Fairfax County, admitted to probate December
7th, 1857:

.in +2
"And upon the legacies of my four granddaughters
.pn +1 // 139.png
being paid, and my estates that are required to pay the said
legacies being free of debt, I give freedom to my slaves,
the said slaves to be emancipated by my executors in such
manner as to my executors may seem most expedient
and proper, the said emancipation to be accomplished in
not exceeding five years from the time of my decease.

"I do constitute and appoint as my executors, Lieut.-Col.
Robert Edward Lee, Robert Lee Randolph, of 'Eastern
View', Right Rev. Bishop Meade and George Washington
Peter."[#]
.in

Extract from deed of Eliza W. Cocke, of Smithfield,
dated January 5th, 1857:

.in +2
"Know all men by these presents that I, Eliza W. Cocke,
of the Town of Smithfield, in the County of Isle of Wight,
in the State of Virginia, from motives of benevolence have
manumitted and set free from slavery, &c."[#]
.in

Extract from the will of Louisa Muschett, of Prince
William County, dated 19th March, 1856, and admitted
to probate on the 12th February, 1858:

.in +2
"I will and desire all my servants to be hired out for
three years, and at the end of that time, to be free, each
grown servant to have fifty dollars, and each child to have
twenty-five dollars."[#]
.in

Extract from the will of Robert Tinsley, of Amherst
County, dated March 12, 1859, and admitted to probate
January 20, 1862:
.pn +1 // 140.png

.in +2
"It is my will and desire that the residue of my slaves
and future increase be emancipated and removed at the
expense of my estate to one of the free states of this Union.
Although there are some legal impediments, I suppose
with the provisions I intend for them they can be settled
in Ohio, or some other of the Western States. I wish
them settled in families upon tracts of land to be purchased
and secured to them to the amount of one hundred
dollars a head, and furnished with a substantial suit of
clothes suitable to the season and plain provisions sufficient
for a year's supply, and this is to be done as soon as sufficient
funds can be raised from collection of debts in aid
of any money I may leave on hand....

"If the slaves cannot be settled in Ohio, or some other
free state of this Union, I wish them properly equipped
and sent to Liberia at the expense of my estate."[#]
.in

No attempt has been made to present extracts from all
the great number of deeds and wills which are to be found
of record in the various clerks' offices throughout Virginia
but the foregoing have been selected as fairly representative,
both with respect to the time of their execution, the
different sections of the state in which they are to be
found, and the social position of the emancipators. They
are also illustrative of the great number of emancipations
and of the difficulties and expenses incurred by Virginia
slaveholders in effectuating that result.

.fm
.fn #
<i>Will Book No. 14</i>, p. 263, Clerk's Office, Bath
County, Virginia.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Will Book No. 1</i>, p. 90, New Records, Clerk's
Office, Prince George County, Virginia.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Deed Book B.</i>, p. 467, Clerk's Office, Clarke
County, Virginia.

Note: William Meade was the Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of
Virginia from 1829 to 1862.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Will Book No. 10</i>, p. 17, Clerk's Office, Orange
County, Virginia.
.fn-

.fn #
See <i>Will Book No. 8</i>, p. 202, Clerk's Office,
Madison County, Virginia.
.fn-

.fn #
See <i>Will Book No. 11</i>, p. 577, Clerk's Office,
Amherst County, Virginia.

Note: The appraisement of Mr. Warwick's estate showed that he
owned seventy-four slaves at the time of his death, and his
executor, Dr. David Patteson, removed them to the State of Ohio.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Will Book No. 12</i>, p. 495, Clerk's Office, Henrico
County, Virginia.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Will Book A.</i>, p. 391, Clerk's Office, Cabell
County, West Virginia.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Will Book No. 9</i>, p. 421, Clerk's Office, Madison
County, Virginia.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Will Book No. 14</i>, p. 188, Clerk's Office, Henrico
County, Virginia.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Will Book No. 25</i>, p. 274, Clerk's Office, Fauquier
County, Virginia.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Will Book No. 13</i>, p. 51, Clerk's Office, Amherst
County, Virginia.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Will Book F.</i>, p. 222, Clerk's Office, Culpeper
County, Virginia.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Will Book No. 12</i>, p. 267, Clerk's Office, Orange
County, Virginia.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Will Book No. 7</i>, p. 267, Clerk's Office, Fairfax
County, Virginia.

Note: Robert E. Lee qualified as executor under this will and
executed in 1862 the necessary papers emancipating the testator's
slaves of whom there were one hundred and ninety-six.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Deed Book No. 39</i>, p. 344, Clerk's Office, Isle of
Wight County, Virginia.
.fn-

.fn #
See <i>Will Book Q.</i>, p. 433, Clerk's Office, Prince
William County, Virginia.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Will Book No. 16</i>, p. 106, Clerk's Office, Amherst
County, Virginia.
.fn-

.sp 4

.h2 pn=+1 // 141.png
XVIII

.nf c
<sc>The Small Number of Slaveholders in Virginia</sc>
<sc>as Compared with Her Whole White Population</sc>
.nf-

.sp 2

Among the many widespread misconceptions which
existed with respect to slavery in Virginia, was the impression
that the great majority of her citizens were slaveholders;
that the slaves were scattered throughout the
state, enriching by their labors every community, and that
thus their emancipation was opposed from purely pecuniary
motives. A presentation of the actual conditions will suffice
to demonstrate that this impression was erroneous.
The facts show that the slaveholders constituted a small
minority of the population, and that, with comparatively
few exceptions, the great body of the slaves were to be
found within certain well defined sections of the state.

The United States census for 1860 fixes the white population
of Virginia at 1,047,299 and the number of slaveholders
at 52,128.[#] Admiral Chadwick, in his work,
<i>Causes of the Civil War</i>, says: "Of the 52,128 slaveholders
in Virginia, one-third held but one or two slaves;
half held one to four; there were but one hundred and fourteen
persons in the whole state who owned as many as a
hundred each, and this out of a population of over a million
whites."[#]

Thus, out of a population of over one million, only some
.pn +1 // 142.png
fifty odd thousand men, women and children, were slaveholders,
one-third of whom held only one or two slaves.
If to the slaveholders be added such a number as would
fairly represent those who were indirectly interested in
a pecuniary way in slavery, the fact remains, that the
overwhelming majority possessed no such incentive to
support the institution.

.sp 2
AREA AND POPULATION OF STATE

By this same census the area of Virginia was fixed at
64,770 square miles, divided into one hundred and forty-eight
counties. By an analysis of the census returns, it
will appear that in the portion of the state lying west of
the Blue Ridge Mountains, embracing eighty counties and
37,992 square miles, there were 596,293 whites and only
66,766 slaves; while in the remaining sixty-eight counties
containing 26,778 square miles, there were only 451,006
whites and 424,099 slaves. Even with respect to this last
mentioned portion of the state the slaves were not evenly
distributed but were congested in certain well defined
localities. Thus of the 424,099 slaves in the sixty-eight
counties lying east of the Blue Ridge, 173,109 were in
twenty-two counties situated between James River and
the North Carolina border known as the "Black Belt,"
the white population of which was only 128,303.

.sp 2
"ARROGANT SLAVEHOLDERS"

The foregoing facts have an important bearing upon the
statement so often found in the writings of historians and
publicists, that the white population of Virginia and the
South was composed in large measure of "slaveholders,
arrogant and rich," and "poor whites," and that in the
Civil War the former fought to defend their property
interests in slaves, and the latter from a deep-seated fear
that emancipation would reduce them to the social level
of the blacks. It would seem impossible for such conditions
to exist in counties and cities where the whites
.pn +1 // 143.png
largely outnumbered the blacks. "Arrogant slaveholders,"
counting their slaves by the scores and dominating the
social and economic fortunes of their white neighbors,
could be found only in sections where the slaves greatly
outnumbered the whites. While agriculture was undoubtedly
the pursuit in which a great majority of the people
of Virginia was engaged, yet this majority was not made
up of "arrogant slaveholders" and "poor whites." The
United States census showed that the great body of her
white people were small farmers, wage-earners, mechanics,
merchants and professional men, with some not inconsiderable
number of miners, fishermen and employees in
manufactories. The prosperous, among this more numerous
element of her population, had little or no pecuniary
interests in slave property, while the poorer classes entertained
as little fear for the preservation of their social status
from the abolition of slavery, as they had pecuniary stake
in its maintenance.

.fm
.fn #
<i>8th Census</i>, 1860, Vol. on Agriculture, p. 245.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Causes of the Civil War</i>, American Nation Series,
Chadwick, p. 33.
.fn-


.sp 4

.h2 pn=+1 // 144.png
XIX

.ce
<sc>The Injurious Effects of Slavery upon the Prosperity of Virginia</sc>
.sp 2

From the foregoing statistics it appears that the slaveholders
of Virginia constituted a small minority of her
population, and that the slaves themselves were so grouped
that the pecuniary advantage of their presence to the state—if
any such advantage existed—was limited to certain
well defined portions of her territory. That the institution
of slavery, however, was a positive disadvantage to the
material prosperity of Virginia is proved by the fact that
free states, not half so richly endowed with natural
resources, had far outstripped her in wealth and population,
and also that as between the white and the slave sections of
the commonwealth, the former were more prosperous.

Mr. Bancroft, writing in 1856, affirmed the truth of this
position.

.in +2
"Washington," he says, "was the director of his community
of black people in their labor, mainly for their own
subsistence. For the market, they produced scarcely anything
but a 'little wheat'; and after a season of drought
even their own support had to be eked out from other resources,
so that with all his method and good judgment he,
like Madison of a later day, and in accord with common
experience in Virginia, found that where negroes continued
on the same land, and they and all their increase were
maintained upon it, their owner would become more and
more embarrassed or impoverished."[#]
.in
.pn +1 // 145.png
.sp 2
THE BLIGHT OF SLAVERY UPON VIRGINIA

Again the same author, contrasting the profitable character
of slavery in the Cotton States, with its unprofitableness
in Maryland and Virginia, says: "In the Northern-most
of the Southern States slavery maintained itself, not
as an element of prosperity, but as a baneful inheritance."[#]

In no way were the injurious effects of slavery more
potent or more manifest than in retarding the growth of the
white population of the state. The presence of the institution
not only turned the tide of immigration from Virginia,
but, during the three decades preceding the Civil War, it
promoted a steady exodus of the whites from the slaveholding
sections. Admiral Chadwick records that, "Nearly
400,000 Virginians were, in 1860, living in other states—nearly
all of them Western, 75,874 in Ohio alone."[#]

Not only are the foregoing recitals true but it is equally
true that their direful import was profoundly appreciated.
Not all the people of Virginia lived in a Fool's Paradise.
They balanced the known burdens of slavery against the
anticipated burdens of emancipation—they compared the
dangers and losses of present conditions with the problems
of a future in which the slaves would be free, yet still in
their midst; but by no calculation could the continuance of
slavery be upheld because of the pecuniary benefits derived
from its existence. The published sentiments of Virginians
during the three decades immediately preceding the Civil
War will serve to confirm this position.

.sp 2
INJURIOUS EFFECTS OF SLAVERY

Among the petitions presented to the Virgina Convention
of 1829-30, was one from the citizens of Staunton,
praying the abolition of slavery.

.in +2
"We waive," the petition recited, "at present the considerations
.pn +1 // 146.png
of religion and humanity, which belong to this
momentous subject, and present it as a naked question
of policy, wisdom and safety.... We affirm that the
possession and management of slaves form a source of endless
vexation and misery within the house, and a waste and
drain on the farm; ... that the waste of the products
of the land, nay, of the land itself is bringing poverty upon
all its inhabitants; that this poverty and the supineness of
our population either prevent the institution of schools
through the country or keep them in the most languid and
inefficient condition; and that the same causes must
obviously paralyze all our schemes and efforts for the needful
improvement of the country....

"It is conceded on all hands that Virginia is in a state
of moral and political retrogression among the states of the
Confederacy.... We humbly suggest our belief, that the
slavery which exists, and which, with gigantic strides, is
gaining ground amongst us, is, in truth, the great efficient
cause of the multiple evils which we all deplore. We cannot
conceive that there is any other cause sufficiently
operative to paralyze the energies of a people so magnanimous,
to neutralize the blessings of Providence, included
in the gift of a land so happy in its soil, its climate,
its minerals and its waters and to annul the manifold advantages
of our Republican freedom and geographical position.
If Virginia has already fallen from the high estate, and if
we have assigned the true cause of her fall, it is with utmost
anxiety that we look forward to the future, to the fatal
termination of the scene."[#]
.in

To show that the views here expressed by the citizens
of Staunton were not peculiar to the people of that locality
we insert extracts from speeches made two years later
by representatives in the Virginia Legislature, from counties
as widely separated as Fauquier and Rockbridge,
Berkeley and Buckingham.
.pn +1 // 147.png

Thomas Marshall, of Fauquier County, speaking in 1832,
in the Virginia House of Delegates, said:

.in +2
"Our towns are stationary, our villages almost everywhere
declining and the general aspect of the country
marks the course of a wasteful, idle, reckless population,
who have no interest in the soil, and care not how much
it is impoverished. Public improvements are neglected,
and the entire continent does not present a region for
which Nature has done so much and art so little. If
cultivated by free labor, the soil of Virginia is capable of
sustaining a dense population among whom labor would be
honourable, and where the busy hum of men would tell
that all were happy and that all were free."[#]
.in

.sp 2
VIEWS OF FAULKNER AND BOLLING

In the same debate, Charles J. Faulkner, of Berkeley
County, said:

.in +2
"Sir, if there be one who concurs with that gentleman,
(Mr. Gholson, of Brunswick) in the harmless character of
that institution, let me request him to compare conditions
of the slaveholding portion of this commonwealth, barren,
desolate and seared, as it were, by the avenging hand of
Heaven, with the descriptions which we have of this same
country from those who first broke its virgin soil. To
what is this change ascribable? Alone to the withering,
blasting effects of slavery."[#]
.in

Philip A. Bolling, of Buckingham County, said:

.in +2
"If we turn our eyes to that part of the country which
lies below the mountains, and particularly below the falls
of the rivers, it seems as if some judgment from Heaven
had poured over it and scarred it; fields once cultivated
are now waste and desolate; the eye is no longer cheered
.pn +1 // 148.png
by the rich verdure that decked it in other days; no, sir,
but fatigued by an interminable wilderness of worn out,
gullied, piney old fields."[#]
.in

.sp 2
VIEWS OF McDOWELL AND HARRISON

James McDowell, in the same debate, said:

.in +2
"Sir, it is true of Virginia, not merely that she has not
advanced, but that in many respects she has greatly
declined; and what have we got as a compensation for this
decline? As a compensation for this disparity between
what Virginia is and what she might have been? Nothing
but the right of property in the very beings who have
brought this disparity upon us. This is our pay; this is
what we have gotten to remunerate us for our delinquent
prosperity; to repay us for our desolated fields; our torpid
enterprise; and in this dark day of our humbled importance,
to sustain our hopes and to soothe our pride as a
people."[#]
.in

Jesse Burton Harrison, in an article published in the
<i>American Quarterly Review</i>, December, 1832, sets out at
length the poverty of Virginia, and the disastrous effects
of slavery upon her industrial development.

.in +2
"What," says Mr. Harrison, "is now the productive
value of an estate of lands and negroes in Virginia? We
state as a result of extensive inquiries, embracing the last
fifteen years, that a very great portion of the larger plantations,
with from fifty to one hundred slaves, actually
bring their proprietors in debt at the end of the short
term of years, notwithstanding what would once, in Virginia,
have been deemed very sheer economy; that much the larger
part of the considerable land-owners are content if they
barely meet their plantation expenses without a loss of
capital, and that those who make any profit, it will, in
.pn +1 // 149.png
none but rare instances, average more than one to one
and a half per cent, on the capital invested. The case
is not materially varied with the smaller proprietors.
Mr. Randolph of Roanoke, whose sayings have so generally
the raciness and truth of proverbs, has repeatedly said in
Congress that the time was coming when the masters
would run away from their slaves, and be advertised by
them in the public papers.... Of the white emigrants
from Virginia, at least half are hard working who carry
away with them little beside their tools and a stout heart
of hope. The mechanics' trades have failed to give them
bread. Commerce, she has little, shipping none, and it
is a fact that the very staple of the state, tobacco, is not
exported by her own capital. The state does virtually
a commission business in it. All the sources of prosperity,
moral and economical, are deadened; there is
general discontent with one's lot; in some of the first
settled and choicest part of her territory symptoms are
not wanting of desolate antiquity. And all this in youthful
America, and in Virginia too, the fairest region of
America and with a race of people inferior to none in the
world in its capacity to constitute a prosperous nation."
.in

.sp 2
VIEWS OF HENRY RUFFNER

In the address of Dr. Henry Ruffner, President of
Washington College, delivered in 1847, heretofore quoted
from, the author by a mass of statistics shows how slavery
had injured the state by decimating its white population,
paralyzing its agriculture and almost destroying its manufacturing
and commercial interests.

.in +2
"We esteem it," says Dr. Ruffner, "a sad, a humiliating
fact which should permeate the heart of every Virginian,
that from the year 1790 to this time, Virginia has lost
more people by emigration than all the old free states
together. Up to 1840, when the last census was taken,
she had lost more by near three hundred thousand.... She
has sent, or we should rather say, she has driven from her
soil, at least one-third of all the emigrants who have gone
.pn +1 // 150.png
from the old states to the new.... It is in the last period
of ten years from 1830 to 1840, that this consuming plague
of slavery has shown its worst effects in the old Southern
States.... East Virginia actually fell off twenty-six thousand
in population; and with the exception of Richmond
and one or two other towns, her population continues to
decline. Old Virginia was the first to sow this land of
ours with slavery; she was also the first to reap the full
harvest of destruction."
.in

The author then proceeds to show from the report of
Professor George Tucker, of the University of Virginia,
that in New England agriculture yields an annual value
averaging one hundred and eighty dollars per hand; and
the Southern States a hundred and thirty dollars per hand;
and proceeds: "Now it is admitted on all hands that
slave labor is better adapted to agriculture than to any
other branch of industry; and that, if not good for agriculture,
it is really good for nothing."

Referring to the subject of manufactures, and the blighting
influence of slavery thereon, the author says: "Of
all the states in this Union, not one has on the whole such
various and abundant resources for manufacturing as
our own Virginia both East and West."

Notwithstanding these advantages, the author demonstrates
from the census that the state has scarcely entered
upon the work of manufacturing her raw material. Thus
in four leading manufactures, the output in New York
was twenty-one millions, New Jersey, six millions, and
Pennsylvania, sixteen millions in value; while that of
Virginia was two and three-fourths millions. With
respect to the commerce of the state, the author, after
pointing out her exceptional advantages growing out of
her fine harbors and numerous rivers, declares:
.pn +1 // 151.png
.in +2
"That the commerce of our old slave-eaten commonwealth
has decayed and dwindled away to a mere pittance
in the general mass of American trade.

"The value of her exports, which, twenty-five or thirty
years ago, averaged four or five millions a year shrunk by
1842 to two millions eight hundred and twenty thousand
dollars, and by 1845 to two million one hundred thousand
dollars."

"Her imports from foreign countries were, in the year
1765, valued at upwards of four millions of dollars; in
1791 they had sunk to two and one-half millions; in 1821
they had fallen to a little over one million; in 1827 they
had come down to about half this sum; and in 1843 to the
half of this again, or about one-quarter of a million; and
here they have stood ever since—at next to nothing."...

"Why should every commercial improvement, every
wheel that speeds the movement of trade, serve but to
carry away from the slave states more and more of their
wealth for the benefit of the great Northern cities?
The only cause that can be assigned is that where
slavery prevails, commerce and navigation cannot flourish,
and commercial towns cannot compete with those in the
free states."[#]
.in

.sp 2
VIEWS OF R. R. HOWISON

R. R. Howison, in his <i>History of Virginia</i>, published in
1848, replying to the question whether the state has
prospered: "As her physical resources would warrant us
in expecting: has she held her place in the great march
of American States during the present century?" answers:

.in +2
"It has long been the sad conviction of her most enlightened
children that these questions must be answered
in the negative.... It must, therefore, be regarded as a
truth, but too fully established, that Virginia has fallen
below her duty; that she has been indolent while others
have been laborious; that she has been content to avoid
a movement positively retrograde while others have gone
.pn +1 // 152.png
rapidly forward. Her motion compared with that of
Massachusetts and Ohio might, in familiar terms, be likened
to the heavy stage coach of the past century, competing
with the fine steam car of the present.

"For this sluggishness and imbecility many causes might
be assigned, ... but there are three sources in which, as
we believe, the evil dispositions of our state so naturally
flow that they ought to receive special notice."
.in

.sp 2
VIRGINIA'S INDUSTRIAL STATUS, 1852

These were, want of popular educational facilities, lack
of internal improvements, and the existence of slavery.[#]
The author says:

.in +2
"The last and most important cause unfavorably affecting
Virginia which we shall mention is the existence of
slavery within her bounds. We have already seen the
origin and progress of this institution. As to its evils,
we have nothing new to offer; they have long been felt
and acknowledged by the most sagacious minds in our
state."[#]
.in

Bishop Meade, in a note to his history, <i>Old Churches,
Ministers and Families in Virginia</i>, published in 1857,
referring to the injurious effects of slavery upon Virginia's
agricultural development, says: "That the agriculture of
Virginia has suffered in times past from the use of slaves,
we think most evident from the deserted fields, impoverished
estates and emigrating population."[#]

In 1852, the Virginia Agricultural Society was organized,
having among its membership and founders, the foremost
planters and citizens of the state. From an address
issued at the time, we make the following compilations
and extracts:
.pn +1 // 153.png

After reciting that Virginia was a community of farmers—eight-tenths
of her industry being expended upon the
soil, the address proceeds to point out that out of thirty-nine
millions of acres she tills only a little over ten millions;
that New York, on the other hand, with twenty-nine and
a half millions, has subdued to the plough twelve and a
quarter; while Massachusetts has reclaimed from the
forests, quarry and marsh, two and one-tenth out of her
little territory of five millions of acres; that the live stock
of Virginia was worth only $3.31 for every arable acre; the
live stock of New York, $6.07; and the live stock of Massachusetts,
$4.52; that the proportion of hay for the same
quantity of land was eighty-one pounds for Virginia, six
hundred and seventy-nine pounds for New York, and six
hundred and eighty-four pounds for Massachusetts; that
whilst the population of Virginia had increased during the
previous ten years in a ratio of eleven to sixty-six, New
York had increased twenty-seven to fifty-two, and Massachusetts
thirty-four to eighty-one. The address then proceeds:

.in +2
"In the above figures, carefully selected from the data
of authentic documents, we find no cause for self-gratulation,
but some food for meditation. They are not without
use to those who would improve the future by the past.
They show that we have not done our part in the bringing
of land into cultivation; that notwithstanding natural
advantages which greatly exceed those of the two states
drawn into parallel with Virginia, we are yet behind them
both....

"When we contemplate our field of labor and the work
we have done in it, we cannot but observe the sad contrast
between capacity and achievement. With a widespread
domain, with a kindly soil, with a climate whose sun
radiates fertility and whose very dews distill abundance,
.pn +1 // 154.png
we find our inheritance so wasted that the eye aches to
behold the prospect."[#]
.in

Henry A. Wise, in the canvass of 1856, preliminary to his
election to the office of Governor, depicted the financial
and industrial conditions then existing in Virginia.

.in +2
"Commerce," said he, "has long ago spread her sails
and sailed away from you. You have not, as yet, dug
more than coal enough to warm yourselves at your own
hearths; you have not yet spun more than coarse cotton
enough in the way of manufacture to clothe your own
slaves. You have no commerce, no mining, no manufactures.
You have relied alone upon the single power
of agriculture—and such agriculture! Your sedge patches
outshine the sun. Your inattention to your only source
of wealth has scarred the very bosom of mother earth."[#]
.in

It will be observed that neither the authors of the
address issued by the Agricultural Society of Virginia, nor
Governor Wise, attribute the poverty and backwardness
of Virginia to the institution of slavery. Their statements,
however, are none the less valuable as showing the status—financial
and industrial—to which Virginia had been
reduced.

.fm
.fn #
<i>History of United States</i>, Bancroft, Vol. VI, p. 179.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Idem</i>, p. 262.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Causes of Civil War</i>, Chadwick, p. 35.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Niles' Register</i>, Vol. XXXVI, No. 932, p. 356.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Virginia Slavery Debate</i>, 1832, White, Speech of
Thomas Marshall, p. 6.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Idem</i>, Speech of Charles J. Faulkner, p. 7.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Virginia Slavery Debate</i>, 1832, White, Speech of
Philip A. Bolling, p. 14.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Idem</i>, Speech of James McDowell, p. 18.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>The Ruffner Pamphlet.</i>
.fn-

.fn #
<i>History of Virginia</i>, Howison, Vol. II, pp. 510-511.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>History of Virginia</i>, Howison, Vol. II, p. 517.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Old Churches, Ministers and Families of Virginia</i>,
Meade, Vol. I, p. 90.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States</i>, Olmstead,
Vol. I, pp. 187-189.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>The Impending Crisis in the South</i>, Helper, p. 90.
.fn-


.sp 4

.h2 pn=+1
XX

.nf c
<sc>The Custom of Buying and Selling Slaves</sc>—
<sc>Virginia's Attitude</sc>
.nf-

.sp 2

But it is charged that while slavery was unprofitable in
Virginia, as a system of labor, yet the state had become a
"breeding ground" where slaves were reared and sold for
profit and that the advantages accruing from this traffic had
destroyed all sentiment in favor of emancipation, and so
lowered the moral standards of the people that, in 1861,
they stood ready to fight for the maintenance of slavery
and the inter-state slave trade.

Mr. Fiske says:

.in +2
"The life of the anti-slavery party in Virginia was short.
After the abolition of the African slave trade in 1808 had
increased the demand for Virginia-bred slaves in the states
farther south, the very idea of emancipation faded out of
memory."[#]
.in

The biographers of Lincoln, Nicolay and Hay, say:

.in +2
"The condition of Virginia had become anomalous; it
was little understood by the North and still less by her own
citizens.... She still deemed she was the mother of
Presidents: whereas she had degenerated into being like
other Border States, the mother of slave breeders and of an
annual crop of black-skinned chattels to be sold to the
cotton, rice, and sugar planters of her neighboring commonwealths....
However counterfeit logic or mental reservations
concealed it, the underlying feeling was to fight, no
.pn +1 // 156.png
matter whom, and little matter how, for the protection of
slavery and slave property."[#]
.in

.sp 2
CHARACTER OF VIRGINIANS, 1860

Let us apply to these charges what in lieu of a better
term we will call the law of probabilities. Is it probable
that the anti-slavery sentiments alluded to as being so
strong in Virginia immediately succeeding the Revolution
would have perished as early as 1808, simply because
slaves had appreciated in value? While Washington and
Henry and Mason died prior to 1808, yet their great compatriots
Jefferson, Marshall, Madison and Monroe lived to
dates long subsequent, filling the highest positions in the
gift of the state and nation.

Will it be seriously urged that these men and others, of
only less prominence, lost their influence with their countrymen
because of the debasing influences of the domestic
slave trade?

Again, it may be questioned whether between the date
indicated, and the outbreak of the Civil War, the Virginians
had so further degenerated as to stand ready to fight for
slavery and property in slaves. While Virginia, in the
period of the Civil War, presented no statesmen comparable
to those of the Revolution, yet in all the elements of inspiring
manhood, valor, sacrifice and devotion, her people were
not one whit behind their ancestors. The debasing effects
of "slave breeding" had not corrupted the great body of
her people: if so, how can we account for the bearing of
Virginians at Gettysburg, and on other fields of test only
less heroic? Speaking of their part in that historic battle,
Charles Francis Adams says:

.in +2
"If in all recorded warfare there is a deed of arms, the
.pn +1 // 157.png
name and memory of which the descendants of those who
participated therein should not wish to see obliterated from
any record, be it historian's page or battle flag, it was the
advance of Pickett's Virginian Division across the wide
valley of death in front of Cemetery Ridge. I know in all
recorded warfare of no finer, no more sustained and deadly
feat of arms."[#]
.in

.sp 2
CHARACTER OF LEE AND HIS SOLDIERS

What of the Cadets at the Battle of New Market? Were
those young heroes the sons of "slave breeders" and
nurtured in homes darkened by such a debasing practice?
What of the spirit and bearing of the great body of Virginia
soldiers who followed Lee, and what place shall they
and their commander take in the estimation of the world's
best thought and conscience? President Roosevelt says:

.in +2
"The world has never seen better soldiers than those
who followed Lee, and their leader will undoubtedly rank
as, without any exception, the very greatest of all the
great captains that the English-speaking peoples have
brought forth."[#]
.in

What of Lee's character as a man, aside from his genius
as a soldier? Lord Wolseley says:

.in +2
"I have met many of the great men of my time, but Lee
alone impressed me with the feeling that I was in the presence
of a man who was cast in a grander mould, and made
of different and of finer metal than all other men. He is
stamped upon my memory as a being apart and superior to
all others in every way; a man with whom none I ever
knew, and very few of whom I have read, are worthy to be
classed. I have met but two men who realized my ideas
of what a true hero should be; my friend, Charles Gordon
was one, General Lee was the other."[#]
.in
.pn +1 // 158.png
.sp 2
RHODES' ESTIMATE OF LEE

James Ford Rhodes says:

.in +2
"A careful survey of his (Lee's) character and life must
lead the student of men and affairs to see that the course
he took was, from his point of view, and judged by his
inexorable and pure conscience, the path of duty to which
a high sense of honor called him. Could we share the
thoughts of that high-minded man as he paced the broad
pillared veranda of his stately Arlington house, his eyes
glancing across the river at the flag of his country waving
over the dome of the capitol, and then resting on the soil
of his native Virginia, we should be willing now to recognize
in him one of the finest products of American Life."[#]
.in

If such were the character of the Virginians of the Civil
War period, is it reasonable to speak of their "degeneracy"
under the debasing influence of "slave breeding"
and "the slave trade?" "Do men gather grapes of thorns
or figs of thistles?"

Again, how was it possible that this system of breeding
slaves for market could have so established itself in Virginia,
and inspired the great body of her citizenship with a
willingness to fight for its maintenance, in view of the
existence of a public opinion which pursued with relentless
ostracism the men who engaged in the traffic? For no
offense was the public opinion of Virginia so merciless as
for that of buying and selling slaves. More than for any
other crime, the disgrace of its guilt passed beyond the
offender to his innocent offspring. The existence of this
public sentiment is an historic fact of unquestioned
verity.

.sp 2
HOSTILITY TO NEGRO-TRADERS

Writing in 1854, Reverend Nehemiah Adams, of Boston,
who visited Virginia in that year, says: "Negro traders are
.pn +1 // 159.png
the abhorrence of all flesh. Even their descendants where
they are known, and the property acquired in the traffic,
have a blot upon them."[#]

Abraham Lincoln, speaking on the 16th of October, 1854,
at Peoria, Illinois, says:

.in +2
"Again, you have among you a sneaking individual of
the class of native tyrants known as a slave-dealer. He
watches your necessities and crawls up to buy your slaves
at a speculative price. If you cannot help it, you sell to
him, but if you can help it, you drive him from your door.
You despise him utterly; you do not recognize him as a
friend, or even as an honest man. Your children must not
play with his; they may rollick freely with the little negroes,
but not with the slave-dealer's children.... If he grows
rich and retires from business, you still remember him, and
still keep up the ban of non-intercourse upon him and his
family."[#]
.in

It would seem impossible to reconcile the existence of
this public sentiment with the idea that the state had
degenerated into "the mother of slave breeders," and that
her people, enamored of the profits, were given over to the
work of rearing and selling slaves.

.sp 2
ANTI-SLAVERY SENTIMENT, 1832

Against the charge, however, that the abolition of the
foreign slave trade in 1808 and the contemporaneous
invention of the cotton gin so enhanced the market value
of slaves as to destroy the sentiment previously existing
in Virginia for their emancipation, we place the well-attested
fact that anti-slavery sentiment did not die at the
time and for the causes specified. The truth is just to the
contrary. Anti-slavery sentiments among the people grew
.pn +1 // 160.png
steadily during the next quarter of a century. The setback
which occurred in 1832-33 arose, as we have seen, from other
causes. The existence of the strongest anti-slavery sentiment
at the latter date cannot be questioned. Said Charles
James Faulkner in the great debate in the Virginia Legislature
of 1832: "Sir, I am gratified to perceive that no
gentleman has yet arisen in this hall, the avowed advocate
of slavery. The day has gone by when such a voice could
be listened to with patience or even forbearance."[#]

George Ticknor Curtis, of Boston, writing a half century
later, says: "It may be asserted as positively as anything
in history that in the year 1832 there was nowhere in the
world a more enlightened sense of the wrong and evil of
slavery than there was among the public men and people
of Virginia."[#]

Was the anti-slavery sentiment of 1833 a reminiscence
or a growth? Had it simply survived with diminishing
strength the fervor of the Revolution or was it an increasing
power which had its origin at that period? The Rev.
Dr. Philip Slaughter writes: "That (1831) was the culminating
point—the flood-tide of anti-slavery feeling which
had been gradually rising for more than a century in
Virginia."[#]

Thomas Jefferson Randolph in his speech before the
Legislature of 1832 deplored the fact that Mr. Jefferson had
not lived: "to see the revolution of the public mind of
Virginia. He has not lived to see a majority of the House
of Delegates in favor of abolition in the abstract."[#]

Washington and Jefferson have both left on record the
.pn +1 // 161.png
fact that the people of Virginia of the Revolutionary period
would not tolerate any proposal of emancipation. Mr.
Randolph in his speech just quoted from said: "Sixty-two
years ago when a proposition was made in the Legislature
of Virginia by one of the oldest, ablest and most respected
members ... to ameliorate the condition of the slaves he
was ... denounced as an enemy of his country."

The constitutions of the ante and post-Revolutionary
periods in Virginia all required property qualification as a
prerequisite to the suffrage, and apportioned representation
in the General Assembly to the several cities and
counties on the basis of property and white population,
rather than on the latter alone. Under this system, the
slaves being taxed as property, the slaveholders and their
counties exercised a power far in excess of that enjoyed
by their brethren in the non-slaveholding sections. The
General Assembly elected every state official, including the
Governor and the judges of the higher courts, and thus in
the hands of that body was lodged complete control of
every department of the state government.

.sp 2
GROWING POWER OF NON-SLAVEHOLDERS

The constitution of 1830 admitted to the suffrage, in addition
to property-owners, only the citizen "who for twelve
months next preceding (the election) has been a housekeeper
and head of a family ... and shall have been
assessed with a part of the revenue of the commonwealth
within the preceding year and actually paid the same."
But this constitution retained in the hands of the General
Assembly the election of all the state officials, including the
Governor, and continued in force the "mixed basis" in
apportioning representatives among the several cities and
counties.[#] With suffrage thus restricted, with a General
.pn +1 // 162.png
Assembly in which property in slaves secured for the slaveholders
and their counties an additional representation
over that of the non-slaveholders, and with every officer
of the state government elected by the Legislature thus
constituted, the political dominance of the slaveholding
counties over the non-slaveholding counties will be readily
appreciated. The scheme was alike inequitable and un-Republican,
yet it was not until the Reform Convention
of 1850-51 that white manhood suffrage was established,
the privilege of electing all state officials accorded to the
people, and the changes made with respect to the basis of
representation which would have eventually accorded to
all the counties and cities representation in the General
Assembly in proportion to their white populations.[#] To
strip the slaveholding counties of their political power, to
admit on an equal basis to the suffrage every white man in
the commonwealth, and to accord to the electorate thus
constituted the privilege of electing every high state
official did not indicate the growth of pro-slavery sentiment.
These achievements of the Convention were confessedly
the most signal victories for liberty and progress which
had marked the history of Virginia since her liberation from
British rule. These fundamental changes in the constitution
and in the relative rights and powers of the slaveholders
and the slaveholding sections, as compared with
the non-slaveholders and non-slaveholding sections, were
ratified by the people by a vote of 75,748 to 11,063—only
five counties in the state out of the one hundred and forty-eight
giving majorities in the negative.[#]

.fm
.fn #
<i>Old Virginia and Her Neighbors</i>, Fiske, Vol. II, p.
191.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Abraham Lincoln, A History</i>, N. & H., Vol. III, p.
413.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Lee at Appomattox and Other Papers</i>, Adams, p. 425.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Thomas H. Benton</i>, Roosevelt, p. 34.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Robert E. Lee</i>, Wolseley, p. 12.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>History of the United States</i>, Rhodes, 1904, Vol.
III, p. 413.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>South Side View of Slavery</i>, Adams, p. 78.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Abraham Lincoln, Letters, Speeches and State
Papers</i>, N. & H., Vol. I, p. 194.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Virginia Slavery Debate</i>, 1832, White.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Life of James Buchanan</i>, Curtis, 1883, Vol. II, p.
277.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Virginian History of African Colonization</i>,
Slaughter, p. 55.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Slavery Debate</i>, 1832, White, T. J. Randolph's
Speech, p. 13.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Code of Virginia</i>, 1849, pp. 35 to 45.
.fn-

.fn #
Article III, Section 1, and Article IV, Section 5,
Constitution of Virginia, 1851.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Representation in Virginia</i>, Chandler, 1896, p. 7.
.fn-


.sp 4

.h2 pn=+1 // 163.png
XXI

.nf c
<sc>The Custom of Buying and Selling Slaves</sc>—
<sc>Virginia's Attitude</sc> \ (Concluded)
.nf-

.sp 2

Approaching the subject from another side, and reviewing
all the sources of evidence, we may reach certain fairly
accurate conclusions. At the close of the Revolution,
Virginia was the largest slaveholding state in the Union.
There soon grew up the conviction that in the dispersion or
colonization beyond her borders of at least a large portion
of this population lay the only method of effectually solving
the slavery and racial problems. In consequence of this
condition, various movements were evolved, some designedly
for the attainment of these objects and others,
while without such purpose, yet working to the same end.

.sp 2
DEPORTATION OF SLAVES FROM VIRGINIA

As we have seen, slaves when emancipated were required
to leave the state within one year from such date. Masters,
ex-slaves and colonization societies were, therefore,
all earnest to achieve this result. Hence arose the first
cause for deportation—an influence and custom which continued
up to the Civil War.

The prospects of improving their fortunes by emigrating
to the newer states of Kentucky, Missouri and the South
impelled large numbers of slaveholders to leave Virginia.
They carried their slaves with them and hence
arose a second cause which operated to deport each year
many slaves from the state.

The ever increasing difficulty of obtaining (especially on
the part of large slaveholders) any appreciable profit from
.pn +1 // 164.png
the labor of their slaves in the grain and tobacco fields of
Virginia induced these proprietors to purchase cotton and
sugar plantations in the South and thither from time to
time to transport their slaves. These slaveholders did not
always emigrate themselves. They simply changed the
situs of their slaves, the latter being often accompanied by
the sons of their masters. Thus a third cause carried
annually from Virginia many hundreds of slaves.

The high prices which slaves commanded on the plantations
of the far South and in the sparsely settled portions of
the Southwest engendered the practice of buying slaves in
Virginia and selling them for profit in those sections. Despite
the opprobrium attached to this custom there were
men willing to engage in the traffic and from choice or
necessity there were slaveholders who supplied at least a
portion of the demand. Hence, the fourth cause which
contributed to the yearly deportation of slaves from
Virginia.

Neither the United States census nor any other official
data avail to fix the number of slaves which annually went
from Virginia for each of the four several reasons above
referred to. It is evident, however, that, as a rule, publicists
not informed as to the conditions have combined
these exportations and attributed them all to the custom
of selling slaves. We are safe in concluding, therefore, that
the number of slaves <i>sold</i> annually from Virginia has been
grossly exaggerated; that the custom was revolting to the
moral sense of her people and maintained against an outraged
rather than a sympathetic public sentiment.

Most of the writers who have laid this damaging accusation
at the door of the Virginia people have not attempted
to fortify their position by authority or data of any kind.
Others have and a careful analysis of the facts submitted
.pn +1 // 165.png
will assist in determining the measure of truth contained in
the original charge.

.sp 2
ESTIMATE OF WILLIAM HENRY SMITH

The recent work, <i>A Political History of Slavery</i>, by
William Henry Smith, will serve to illustrate the character
of publications last referred to. The author after pointing
out that the Cotton and Rice Producing States looked to the
older commonwealth for supplies of laborers, proceeds:

.in +2
"Mr. Mercer, one of the ablest of the members of
that remarkable Convention (the Virginia Convention of
1829-30) said that the tables of the natural growth of the
slave population demonstrated ... that an annual revenue
of not less than a million and a half of dollars had
been derived from the exportation of a part of that increase.
Seven years later the <i>Virginia Times</i> published an estimate
of the money arising from the sale of slaves exported during
the year 1836 making the aggregate $24,000,000.00,
which showed the enormous profitableness of slave breeding."[#]
.in

In support of this conclusion the author appends to his
text three notes, as follows:

.in +2
First: "The <i>Times</i> gave the whole number exported at
120,000 of whom 80,000 were taken out of the state by
their owners who removed to new states and 40,000 were
sold to dealers. The average price per head was $600."
(<i>Niles Register</i>, Vol. LI, p. 83.)

Second: "In the Legislature of Virginia in 1832 Thomas
Jefferson Randolph declared that Virginia had been converted
into 'one grand menagerie where men are reared for
the market like oxen for the shambles.' This was confirmed
by Mr. Gholson, another member." (See Reports in
the <i>Richmond Whig</i>, 1832.)

Third: "In Virginia and other grain-growing states the
.pn +1 // 166.png
blacks do not support themselves, and the only profit their
masters derive from them is, repulsive as the idea may
justly seem, in breeding them, like other live stock, for the
more Southern states." (American Colonization Society,
1833.)
.in

.sp 2
SPEECH OF MR. MERCER

An examination of the speech made by Mr. Mercer on the
occasion referred to, will show that he was answering the
slaveholders' charge that they paid upon their slaves more
than their just proportion of taxes, when compared with
the amount paid by the land-owners of the state; he
pointed out that for the four years following 1820 the land
tax averaged $181,000.00 per annum and the slave tax
$159,000.00, but for the current year (1829) the land tax
amounted to $175,000.00 and the slave tax $97,000.00.
"These facts," said Mr. Mercer, "bear me out in the position
that in the current year the capital in slaves is taxed less
than that in land." The census showed an increase in the
number of slaves still in the hands of their Virginia masters,
while the "tables of the natural growth of this population"
also demonstrated that large numbers must have been
exported beyond the state. The portion of increase in the
slave population, thus exported, Mr. Mercer estimated at
a value of one and a half million dollars per annum. It will
be observed that he makes no attempt to distribute this
exportation between the various classes heretofore referred
to. Indeed, the averment that "the tables of the natural
growth of the slave population" demonstrated that an
annual revenue of any specific sum had been derived from
their exportation is, of course, inaccurate. The tables
referred to simply indicate the normal rate of increase and
the consequent number of slaves which must have been
exported. Whether the excess had been emancipated, or
carried, or sent, or sold by their masters did not, of course,
.pn +1 // 167.png
appear. Mr. Mercer was not discussing the slave trade—he
was pointing out the increase in the number of slaves
which should normally accrue to their masters and the consequent
reasonableness of the tax imposed upon them as
compared with that assessed against the lands.

It is believed that this explanation of the subject of Mr.
Mercer's speech will qualify the conclusion which Mr.
Smith has drawn from the statement cited in his text.

.sp 2
ESTIMATE OF VIRGINIA TIMES

The author next refers to an "estimate of the money
arising from the sale of slaves during the year 1836—making
the aggregate $24,000,000.00." This estimate is cited
as that of the <i>Virginia Times</i> and an explanation of how the
figures are arrived at is set out by the author in the first of
the three notes above quoted.

By reference to Volume LI of <i>Niles' Register</i>, page 83, in
which the extract from the <i>Virginia Times</i> appears, it will
be seen that the latter paper does not attempt any discussion
of the subject, any marshalling of statistics or any
conclusions of its own drawn therefrom. It simply recites
in an item of ten lines—that—"We have heard intelligent
men estimate the number of slaves exported from Virginia
within the last twelve months at 120,000." The item
further recites that of this number "not more than one-third
have been sold, the others having been carried by
their owners, who have removed, which would leave in the
state the sum of $24,000,000.00 arising from the sale of
slaves."

.sp 2
THE SALE OF SLAVES EXAGGERATED

"We have heard intelligent men estimate" is a somewhat
different statement from that of the author's text in
which the <i>Virginia Times</i> is made to fix the exportation for
the year 1836 at 120,000, 40,000 of whom were sold to
dealers. How little value, however, can be attached to
"the estimate" will be appreciated when we recall that an
.pn +1 // 168.png
exportation of 120,000 slaves per annum would in four
years have depopulated the state of every single slave.
The census showed that there were 469,758 slaves in Virginia
in 1830 and 490,865 in 1860. By no possible process
of computation can the Virginians of the period from 1830
to 1840 be charged with "the enormous profitableness of
slave-breeding," arising from annual sales of 40,000 slaves,
and a quarter of a century later their descendants be convicted
of the crime of fighting to perpetuate the traffic.
There would have been no slaves from which the commerce
could have derived a supply.

In his second note, Mr. Smith makes a quotation from
the speech of Mr. Randolph in the Virginia Legislature of
1832 wherein the latter is made to declare "that Virginia
had been converted into one grand menagerie where men
are reared for the market like oxen for the shambles."

By reference to the whole sentence and its exact quotation
it will appear that Mr. Randolph's statement was not
intended to warrant the conclusion here sought to be conveyed.
Mr. Randolph said:

.in +2
"How can an honourable mind, a patriot and a lover of his
country, bear to see this ancient Dominion, rendered illustrious
by the noble devotion and patriotism of her sons in
the cause of liberty, converted into one grand menagerie
where men are to be reared for market like oxen for the
shambles?"[#]
.in

In the third note Mr. Smith cites an extract from the
report of the "American Colonization Society, 1833."

.sp 2
MR. SMITH'S ERRONEOUS CITATIONS

A careful examination of the report of the American
Colonization Society, submitted at its meeting 1833, fails
.pn +1 // 169.png
to show any such statement—or any phrases or sentiments
from which such an accusation could be inferred. The
report in its whole tenor and contents is just to the contrary.
Thus at page 16, referring to the condition of public
sentiment in Virginia, it says:

.in +2
"That mighty evil (slavery) beneath which the minds of
men had bowed in despair, has been looked at as no longer
incurable. A remedy has been proposed; the sentiments of
humanity, the secret wishes of the heart on this momentous
topic have found a voice and the wide air has rung with it."
.in

Again, at page 17 it says: "Nearly half the colonists in
Liberia have emigrated from Virginia; and many citizens of
that state have sought aid from the Society for removing
thither their liberated slaves during the last year."[#]

A like inspection of the reports of the Society for the
years from 1827 to 1837 inclusive shows no such statement
as that cited by Mr. Smith in his footnote. The leading
officers of the Society were Virginians and its work had their
cordial sympathy and co-operation. Mr. Smith has evidently
accepted the statement of some other writer without
examining for himself the original sources of information.[#]

.fm

.fn #
<i>A Political History of Slavery</i>, William Henry
Smith, 1903, Vol. I, p. 3.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Slavery Debate</i>, Virginia Legislature, 1833, Speech
of T. J. Randolph, p. 13.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Report of American Colonization Society</i> presented January 20,
1833, pp. 16 and 17.
.fn-

.fn #
Professor Hart, of Harvard University, in his recent work,
<i>Slavery and Abolition</i>, says:

"The fact that some thousands of negroes every year left the
Border States for the South seemed to show that there was profit
in keeping them alive; but recent investigation seems to establish
that the greater number of these negroes were taken in a body by
the men who owned them to settle in other states." (<i>Slavery and
Abolition</i>, Hart, p. 124).
.fn-


.sp 4

.h2 pn=+1 // 170.png
XXII

.ce
<sc>Small Proportion of Slaveholders Among Virginia Soldiers</sc>
.sp 2

The accusation that the people of Virginia of the
Civil War period stood ready to fight "no matter whom
and little matter how, for the protection of slavery and
slave property," because of the profits derived from the
inter-state slave trade, would seem to acquit those Virginians
who derived no benefit from the traffic. We have seen,
from the facts heretofore presented, what a small proportion
of the people of Virginia were owners of slaves; and
all available data indicate a still less proportion of slaveholders
among the soldiers which the state contributed
to the armies of the Southern Confederacy.

Professor A. B. Hart, of Harvard University, says: "Out
of 12,500,000 persons, in the slave-holding communities
in 1860, only about 384,000 persons—or one in thirty-three—was
a slaveholder."[#]

The same author estimates that each slaveholder was
the head of a family and that, therefore, 350,000 white
families in the South, out of a total of 1,800,000, owned
slaves; though 77,000 of these families owned only one
slave each, and 200,000 of the remaining owned less than
ten slaves each.[#]

The author is, of course, in error in assuming that every
slaveholder was the head of a family. Doubtless in a
.pn +1 // 171.png
large majority of cases such was the fact. The Federal
census, however, from which his first figures are taken,
is correct in showing the exact number owning slaves.
This number included men, women and children, and,
not infrequently, a number of persons were part owners
of the same slave or slaves, and yet each was enumerated
as a slaveholder.

Admiral Chadwick's analysis of the census returns for
Virginia shows that of the 52,128 slaveholders in the
state, one-third held but one or two slaves, half one to four,
and that but one hundred and fourteen persons held as
many as one hundred each. He also points out the fact
that the great majority of the soldiers in the ranks of the
Confederate Armies, from Virginia and the South, possessed
no such interest.

.sp 2
SLAVEHOLDERS IN THE RANKS

From a mass of data bearing more directly upon the
number of slaveholders in the ranks of the Virginia soldiers,
we select two citations:

Major Robert Stiles, late a prominent member of the
Richmond Bar, referring to the personnel of the Richmond
Howitzers (of which he was a member) and the motives
which impelled them to fight, writes:

.in +2
"Why did they volunteer? For what did they give
their lives?... Surely, it was not for slavery they fought.
The great majority of them had never owned a slave,
and had little or no interest in the institution. My own
father, for example, had freed his slaves long years before."[#]
.in

This command was composed of representatives of the
leading families in the city of Richmond, at that time
the largest slaveholding city in the state. Here one would
expect to find the slaveholding soldiers.
.pn +1 // 172.png

Dr. Hunter McGuire, the medical director of the Stonewall
Brigade, has left on record his estimate of the number
of slaveholders in the ranks of that command—which,
being drawn from all portions of the state, was more
representative of the citizenship of Virginia, East and West:

.in +2
"The Stonewall Brigade of the Army of Northern
Virginia," writes Dr. McGuire, "was a fighting organization.
I knew every man in it, for I belonged to it for a
long time; and I know that I am in proper bounds when
I assert, that there was not one soldier in thirty who
owned or ever expected to own a slave."[#]
.in

But it is also urged that, while men without slaves
filled the ranks of the Virginia regiments, yet slaveholders
led these soldiers into battle as they had led the people
into revolution.

.sp 2
SLAVEHOLDERS AMONG THE LEADERS

It is obviously impracticable to present the facts with
reference to each one of the prominent leaders which
Virginia gave to the armies of the Confederacy. By
universal accord her five most notable generals were,
Robert E. Lee, "Stonewall" Jackson, Joseph E. Johnston,
A. P. Hill and J. E. B. Stuart—to whom may be added
Fitzhugh Lee and Matthew F. Maury, as only less prominent
but no less representative of her leading soldiers.

In dealing with these men, and their relation to slavery,
we pass from the domain of conjecture into the realm of
fact.

Robert E. Lee never owned a slave, except the few he
inherited from his mother—all of whom he emancipated
many years prior to the war.[#]
.pn +1 // 173.png

"Stonewall" Jackson never owned but two slaves, a
man and a woman, both of whom he purchased at their
own solicitation. He immediately accorded to them the
privilege of earning their freedom, by devoting the wages
received for their services to reimburse him for the purchase
money. This offer was accepted by the man, who,
in due time, earned his freedom. The woman declined
the offer, preferring to remain a servant in General Jackson's
family.[#]

Joseph E. Johnston never owned a slave and, like
General Lee, regarded the institution with great disfavor.[#]

A. P. Hill never owned a slave, and regarded slavery as
an evil, much to be deplored.[#]

J. E. B. Stuart inherited one slave from his father's
estate; and, while stationed as a lieutenant in the United
States Army at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, purchased
another. Both of these he disposed of some years prior
to the war—the first, because of her cruelty to one of his
children, and the second, to a purchaser who undertook
to return the slave to his former home in Kentucky.[#]

Fitzhugh Lee never owned a slave.[#]

Matthew F. Maury never owned but one slave, a woman
who remained a servant and member of his family until
.pn +1 // 174.png
her death, some years after the war.[#] As we have seen,
he characterized the institution as "a curse."[#]


.fm
.fn #
<i>Slavery and Abolition</i>, Hart, p. 67.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Idem</i>, p. 68.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Four Years Under Marse Robert</i>, Stiles, p. 49.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>The Confederate Cause and Conduct, in the War
Between the States</i>, McGuire and Christian, p. 22.
.fn-

.fn #
See letter from his eldest son, General G. W. Custis
Lee, to the Author, dated February 4, 1907, on file in Virginia
Historical Society.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>The Confederate Cause and Conduct in the War Between
the States</i>, McGuire and Christian, p. 22.
.fn-

.fn #
See letter from his nephew, Dr. George Ben Johnston,
of Richmond, Va., dated April 17, 1907, to the Author, on file in
Virginia Historical Society.
.fn-

.fn #
See letter from his son-in-law, James Macgill, dated
April 20, 1908, to the Author, on file in Virginia Historical
Society.
.fn-

.fn #
See letter from his widow, Mrs. Flora Stuart, to the
Author, dated March 25, 1908, on file in Virginia Historical
Society.
.fn-

.fn #
See letter from his brother, Daniel M. Lee, to the
Author, dated May 28, 1908, on file in Virginia Historical
Society.
.fn-

.fn #
See letter from his son, Colonel Richard L. Maury,
to the Author, dated June 1, 1907, on file in Virginia Historical
Society.
.fn-

.fn #
See <i>Life of Matthew F. Maury</i>, Corbin, p. 131.
.fn-


.sp 4
.h2 pn=+1 // 175.png
XXIII

.nf c
<sc>Some of the Almost Insuperable Difficulties</sc>
<sc>which Embarrassed Every Plan of</sc>
<sc>Emancipation</sc>
.nf-
.sp 2
The problems and difficulties which beset emancipation
in Virginia may be summarized as follows:

First: The legal rights of the slaveholders and their
creditors;

Second: The moral and physical well-being of the slaves;
and

Third: The political and social interests of the state.

To these inherent difficulties should be superadded the
lack of free discussion and the growth of bitterness and
reactionary sentiments occasioned largely by partisan and
ofttimes criminal instigations coming from beyond the
state.

.sp 2
LEGAL RIGHTS OF SLAVEHOLDERS

It will not be questioned that of all men, except the
slaves themselves, the slaveholders were most deeply
interested in the subject of emancipation. They possessed
a direct pecuniary interest in the slaves and were usually
the owners of large tracts of land dependent, it was believed,
for cultivation, upon their labor. Thus it was thought
that emancipation without compensation involved not
only the loss of their slaves, but a great depreciation in
the value of their lands. In addition to these direct
losses would come the burden of caring for the poor, the
afflicted, and the criminal classes of the ex-slaves, not to
mention the cost of educating the rising generation—the
.pn +1 // 176.png
major part of all of which would fall upon the communities
where the ex-slaves lived, and thus upon the remnant of
property left to their former owners.

To the foregoing embarrassments must be added the
rights of creditors. A great majority of the slaves in
Virginia descended to their owners by the laws of inheritance,
just as the plantations of which they were virtually
part. With the slaves and the lands, came the debts of
the ancestors, or, in the progress of time, new debts were
incurred. In all such instances the debts of creditors
must be provided for before any change could be made in
the status of slaves bound for their payment. All these
considerations convinced fair-minded men that some
substantial measure of compensation must be made the
slaveholders before they could be expected to absolve
their slaves from service. But from what source was
this great fund to be gathered? Despite the widespread
sentiment favorable to emancipation, neither state nor
nation gave sign of willingness to assume the burden.

But beyond the financial difficulties mentioned was the
attitude of that class of slaveholders who cherished no
desire for emancipation and resented every such suggestion
as a wanton invasion of their safety and their rights.
They were satisfied with the status quo; they neither
desired change nor discussion of its supposed advantages.
They met every proposal with a resolute insistence upon
their legal rights under the constitutions, State and Federal,
and manifested an intolerance of thought and speech
with respect to the institution which filled the friends of
moderation and progress with mournful appreciation of
the hindrances which beset their path.

.sp 2
THE WELL-BEING OF THE SLAVES

How far a conscientious regard for the moral and physical
well-being of the slaves entered into the considerations
.pn +1 // 177.png
of the time as a deterrent cause against their emancipation,
cannot be determined. Undoubtedly such sentiments existed
among many earnest men favorable thereto.

From the mass of facts and medley of voices certain
conclusions can be drawn.

Thus it may be affirmed that the slaves in Virginia were
better off as a result of their training and experience in
servitude than they would have been had their ancestors
never set foot upon her soil. It is equally true that theirs
was but a partial development and that freedom was
necessary to the complete man. As the time comes in the
life of a child when the privileges and dangers of self-expression
and self-control must supplant the restraints
of the home and the school-room, so in the life of these
children of larger growth, freedom with its awesome
dangers and soul-inspiring possibilities was essential to any
well-rounded and continuous advance.

Again, freedom was a help in the development of those
who had made a certain measure of progress in their
moral, intellectual and physical being; yet for those who
were not thus prepared, its untimely coming might prove
the dawn of a darker day, unless accompanied by wise
nurture and sympathetic guidance of the feet, trained
only for the paths of dependence.

Mr. Jefferson doubtless expressed the sentiments of a
large class of thinkers when he said: "As far as I can
judge from the experiments which have been made, to
give liberty to, or rather to abandon, persons whose habits
have been formed in slavery, is like abandoning children."[#]

Experience with respect to emancipations made prior to
the Civil War strongly tended to confirm these views.
.pn +1 // 178.png
The conditions, moral, intellectual and physical, of the
free negroes of Virginia contrasted, as a rule, most unfavorably
with that of their brethren still in bonds.

.sp 2
CONDITION OF FREE NEGROES, 1830-1860

The results of emancipation where the slaves had been
carried to free states, were, on the whole, not much more
encouraging.

Professor MacMaster, of the University of Pennsylvania,
referring to the condition of the free negroes in those states
at the time of the Missouri Compromise, writes: "In spite
of their freedom they were a despised, proscribed, and
poverty-stricken class."[#]

Mr. Clay, speaking December 17, 1829, said:

.in +2
"Of all the descriptions of our population and of either
portion of the African race, the free people of color are by
far, as a class, the most corrupt, depraved and abandoned.
There are many honourable exceptions among them, and I
take pleasure in bearing testimony to some I know. It is
not so much their fault as the consequence of their anomalous
condition."[#]
.in

Dr. Leonard Bacon, in a sermon before his congregation
in New Haven, Conn., July 4, 1830, said:

.in +2
"Who are the free people of color in the United States,
and what are they? In this city there are from eight
hundred to one thousand. Of these, a few families are
honest, sober, industrious, pious and in many points of
view, respectable. But what are the remainder? Every
one knows their condition to be a condition of deep
and dreadful degradation, but few have formed any
conception of the reality. The fact is, that as a class,
they are branded with ignominy.... There are in this
country three hundred thousand freedmen, who are free
men only in name, degraded to the dust and forming
.pn +1 // 179.png
hardly anything else than a mass of pauperism and crime."[#]
.in

The biographers of William Lloyd Garrison have recorded
that at the North, prior to the Civil War:

.in +2
"The free colored people were looked upon as an
inferior caste to whom their liberty was a curse, and their
lot worse than that of the slaves, with this difference, that
while the latter were to be kept in bondage 'for their own
good' it would have been very wicked to enslave the
former for their good."[#]
.in

.sp 2
OUTLAY NECESSARY TO EMANCIPATION

We need not pause to consider the causes which reduced
the free negroes of the Northern States to the conditions
here described. That the free negroes of Virginia should
have made little or no progress is easily accounted for by
the abnormal conditions amid which they lived. There
was confessedly scant chance for free negroes in communities
densely populated with negro slaves. Many of
the friends of emancipation, however, observing this same
phenomenon in both slave and free states, came to the
conclusion that freedom under existing conditions was hurtful
rather than helpful. Others concluded that it was not
freedom, but the lack of freedom with all its normal privileges,
which had fettered the feet of these newly manumitted
slaves. Let the state pay the owners and emancipate the
whole body of slaves; let education and training for freedom
go hand in hand with opportunity for achieving, and then
emancipation would be justified of her children. For
this immense outlay Virginia was confessedly not ready,
and so the earnest believer in emancipation looked to
colonization as the only door through which the slave might
enter upon liberty with a man's chance for progress and
self-respecting independence.

.fm
.fn #
<i>Writings of Jefferson</i>, Ford, Vol. X, p. 66.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>History of the United States</i>, McMaster, Vol. III,
p. 558.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>The African Repository and Colonial Journal</i>, Vol.
VI, No. 1, p. 12.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Liberia Bulletin</i>, No. 15, p. 7.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>William Lloyd Garrison</i>, by his children, Vol. I,
pp. 253-254.
.fn-

.sp 4

.h2 pn=+1 // 180.png
XXIV

.nf c
<sc>Some of the Almost Insuperable Difficulties</sc>
<sc>which Embarrassed Every Plan of</sc>
<sc>Emancipation</sc> \ (Continued)
.nf-

.sp 2
Beyond all the difficulties mentioned, there loomed the
more portentous problem of the effect upon the state's
political and social well-being of the introduction into her
free population of a great company of negroes, whether as
citizens or suffragists, or mere tenants at the will of their
white brethren. What should be the outcome of such an
unparalleled experiment as universal emancipation under
the conditions existing in Virginia? The results of emancipation
in the free states furnished no assurance because
there the number of negroes was so small as to constitute
a negligible quantity. What were the voices of history
which came from over-sea? In Spain, after centuries of
conflict, the whites had finally driven the remnant of the
Moors literally into the Mediterranean. In San Domingo,
after the carnival of blood had spent its force, the blacks
had expelled all the surviving whites from the island.

.in +2
"It is futile," said Mr. Jefferson, "to hope to retain
and incorporate the blacks into the state. Deep-rooted
prejudices of the whites, ten thousand recollections of the
blacks, of injuries sustained, new provocations, the real
distinction Nature has made, and many other circumstances
will divide us into parties, and produce convulsions
which will probably never end but in the extermination of
one or the other race."[#]
.in
.pn +1 // 181.png
.sp 2
STATUS OF THE FREE NEGRO IN THE STATE

But casting aside these tragic warnings, the question of
what would be the result of the great experiment, stood
unanswered. What place in the life of the commonwealth
were these people to fill? Should they be trained for the
obligations of freedom and then denied its privileges?
Should they be accorded the right of suffrage? If not, how
would its denial comport with the genius of our institutions
and the aspirations of our people? If entrusted with the
suffrage how was the well-being of communities to be
assured where, having the majority, they would become
political masters? Had negroes ever, in the world's history,
ruled in peace and order a community largely populated
by whites? Was the race to be kept in a state of
quasi-dependence—beholden for their social and economic
privileges to the very people with whom they must come in
competition? What provision for the pauperism, the
vagrancy, the lunacy and the crime which would certainly
follow the removal of the restraints of slavery? What
measure and character of education for the young and by
whom provided? These and many more like them were
the questions, which, from the close of the Revolution, had
confronted the people of Virginia. What should be the
relations, political and social, of the two races after emancipation?
Speaking in September, 1850, in Congress, on the
Wilmot Proviso, Gov. James McDowell, of Virginia, said:

.in +2
"Physical amalgamation? ... ruinous, if it were possible....
Political and civil amalgamation just as impossible....
Emancipation with rights of residence and
property, but exclusion from social, civil and political
equality, would conduce, sooner or later, to a war of
colors."[#]
.in
.pn +1 // 182.png
.sp 2
 VIEWS OF RIVES AND <sc>De</sc> TOCQUEVILLE

Speaking ten years later in the Peace Conference, at
Washington, Ex-Senator William C. Rives, of Virginia,
said: "It has occupied the attention of the wisest men of
our time.... In fact, it is not a question of slavery at all.
It is a question of race."[#]

These two great Virginians were strong anti-slavery men,
yet they stood appalled before the problems of immediate
emancipation without deportation or colonization. That
their views were not the product of their environment,
will appear from expressions of eminent men not so
situated.

M. de Tocqueville, whose work, <i>Democracy in America</i>,
is the subject of the widest appreciation, has given to the
world in his notable book, published in 1838, his conclusions
with respect to this subject. "The most formidable
of all the ills," he writes, "which threaten the future existence
of the Union, arises from the presence of a black
population upon its territory."[#]

Again he writes: "I do not imagine that the white and
black races will ever live in any country upon an equal
footing. But I believe the difficulty to be still greater in
the United States than elsewhere."[#]

In conclusion, he says:

.in +2
"When I contemplate the condition of the South I can
only discover the alternative which may be adopted by the
white inhabitants of those states, namely, either to emancipate
the negroes and to intermingle with them; or, remaining
isolated from them, to keep them in a state of slavery
as long as possible. All intermediate measures seem to me
likely to terminate, and that shortly, in the most horrible of
.pn +1 // 183.png
civil wars, and perhaps in the extirpation of one or the other
of the two races."[#]
.in

.sp 2
VIEWS OF DOUGLAS AND SHERMAN

Stephen A. Douglas, speaking at Ottawa, Ill., August
21st, 1858, said:

.in +2
"For one I am opposed to negro citizenship in any and
every form. I believe this Government was made by white
men, for the benefit of white men and their posterity forever;
and I am in favor of confining citizenship to white
men,—men of European birth and descent, instead of
conferring it upon negroes, Indians and other inferior
races."[#]
.in

General William T. Sherman, writing in July, 1860,
said:

.in +2
"All the Congresses on earth can't make the negro anything
else than what he is; he must be subject to the white
man, or he must amalgamate or be destroyed. Two such
races cannot live in harmony, save as master and slave.
Mexico shows the result of general equality and amalgamation,
and the Indians give a fair illustration of the fate of
negroes if they are released from the control of the whites."[#]
.in

William H. Seward, speaking at Detroit, Michigan,
September 4th, 1860, said:

.in +2
"The great fact is now fully realized that the African
race here is a foreign and feeble element, like the Indians,
incapable of assimilation, ... and that it is a pitiful
exotic, unwisely and unnecessarily transplanted into our
fields, and which it is unprofitable to cultivate at the cost
of the desolation of the native vineyard."[#]
.in

.pn +1 // 184.png
.sp 2
VIEWS OF LINCOLN

Let us turn to the more hopeful and yet halting conclusions
of Abraham Lincoln. In his speech at Quincy,
Illinois, October 15th, 1858, in the Lincoln-Douglas
Debate, he said:

.in +2
"I have no purpose to introduce political and social
equality between the white and black races. There is a
physical difference between the two which, in my judgment,
would probably forever forbid their living together
upon the footing of perfect equality, and inasmuch as it
becomes a necessity that there must be a difference, I,
as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which
I belong having the superior position."[#]
.in

In the same debate at Charleston, Ill., September 18th,
1858, he had said:

.in +2
"I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in
favor of bringing about, in any way, the social and political
equality of the white and black races; that I am not, nor
ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of
negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry
with white people; and I will say in addition to
this that there is a physical difference between the white
and black races which I believe will forever forbid the
two races living together on terms of social and political
equality."[#]
.in

How unsatisfactory would be the status of the two
races in a state where such conditions obtained, Mr.
Lincoln must have appreciated, and so, as we have seen, he
turned to the colonization of the negroes as the real solution
of the problem.
.pn +1 // 185.png
.sp 2
CONDITION OF FREE NEGROES AT THE NORTH

Throughout the North as well as in Virginia there were
thoughtful men who knew that here was the difficulty.
Slavery might be abolished, but the presence of two non-assimilable
races, separated by centuries in their stages
of development, endeavoring to live in peace under a
Republican form of government—these conditions presented
the problem which would tax to the utmost their
resourcefulness and patience.

How strong was the sense of danger among the people
of the free states, which would result from such conditions,
may be read in the provisions of their constitutions
and laws.

Probably in New England the laws were more favorable
to free negroes than in any other part of the North; but,
even there, conditions were far from normal, and certainly
not such as to encourage the immigration of the free blacks
from Maryland and Virginia—where they were most
numerous.

.sp 2
LAWS AGAINST FREE NEGROES

In 1833, the Legislature of Connecticut, endeavoring to
prevent the establishment of schools in that state for non-resident
negroes, enacted a law prohibiting such schools,
except with the consent "of a majority of the civil authority
and also of the selectmen of the town in which such school,
&c.,"[#] is to be located. The preamble of this act justifies
its passage by declaring that the establishment of such
schools "would tend to the great increase of the colored
population of the state, and thereby to the injury of the
people, &c." The negro populations of Vermont and
New Hampshire had actually decreased in the half century
between 1810 and 1860, while that of Massachusetts had
increased less than three thousand.
.pn +1 // 186.png

The biographers of William Lloyd Garrison record the
fact that there existed a—

.in +2
"Spirit which everywhere at the North, either by statute
or custom, denied to a dark skin, civil, social and educational
equality,—which in Boston forbade any merchant
or respectable mechanic to take a colored apprentice;
kept the colored people out of most public conveyances;
and permitted any common carrier by land or sea, on the
objections of a white passenger, to violate his contract
with 'a nigger' however cultivated or refined."[#]
.in

The states of New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania
had by statutes deprived free negroes of many of the
privileges enjoyed in the period immediately succeeding
the Revolution. Thus, New Jersey in 1807, and Pennsylvania
in 1838, deprived them of the right of suffrage, and
New York in 1821 required of them as a prerequisite to
voting a much higher property qualification than was
required of the white citizens.[#] Professor A. B. Hart
declares: "These exclusions branded the negroes as of a
different caste, even in the North, and it was backed up by
other unfriendly legislation."[#]

But it was chiefly in those free states on the same lines
of latitude as Virginia and Maryland, and in which the
free negroes would therefore be most liable to settle, that
the laws obstructing or forbidding their immigration were
most pronounced.

.sp 2
EXCLUDED FROM VARIOUS STATES

Early in the century Ohio enacted laws inhibiting
negroes from settling in that state, unless they produced
certificates of their freedom, from a Court of Record, and
executed bonds, with approved security, not to become
.pn +1 // 187.png
charges upon the counties in which they settled. They
were not permitted to give evidence in court in any cause
where a white man was party to the controversy or prosecution,
nor could they send their children to the public
schools. About the middle of the century many of these
laws were repealed, but, by the constitution adopted as
late as 1851, they were denied the right to vote, and were
excluded from the militia.[#]

Indiana at first permitted free negroes to settle in the
state, provided they gave bonds, with approved security,
not to become charges upon the counties where they lived;
but, in 1851, a new constitution was adopted which
specifically provided (Article XIII, Section 1) that "no
negro or mulatto shall come into or settle in the state after
the adoption of this constitution."[#]

This clause in the constitution was adopted by over
ninety thousand majority of the popular vote.[#]

In Illinois, following a series of laws of like import, an
act was passed in 1853, "to prevent the immigration of
free negroes into this state," the third section of which
declared it a misdemeanor for a negro or mulatto, bond
or free, to come into the state with the intention of residing.[#]
Section four of this act provided that any negro coming
into the state in violation of the act should be fined and sold
for a time to pay the fine and cost.

In 1862, in the Constitutional Convention then in
session, the provisions of this statute were engrafted upon
the organic law of the state. Article XVIII provided:
.pn +1 // 188.png

.in +2
Section 1. "No negro or mulatto shall immigrate or
settle in this state after the adoption of the constitution."
.in

This article of the constitution was submitted to the
popular vote separately from the body of the constitution,
and, though the latter was rejected by over 16,000 majority,
the former was made a part of the organic law of Illinois
by a majority of 100,590. This vote was taken in August,
1862, and thus, barely a month before Mr. Lincoln's first
Proclamation of Emancipation, the people of his own
state, by a vote approaching unanimity, placed in their
constitution this clause preventing free negroes from
coming into their commonwealth.[#]

By the constitution of Oregon, adopted on November
9th, 1857, it was provided that:

.in +2
"No free negro or mulatto, not residing in this state at
the time of the adoption of this constitution, shall come,
reside or be within this state ... and the legislative
assembly shall provide by penal laws for the removal
by public officers of all such negroes and mulattoes, and
for their effectual exclusion from the state, and for the
punishment of persons who shall bring them into the
state or employ or harbor them."[#]
.in

This provision of the constitution was adopted by a
popular vote of 8040 to 1081 against it.

.sp 2
NORTHERN DREAD OF FREE NEGROES

If the people of the North thus regarded their few
negroes as a dangerous and perplexing element, how much
more should the people of Virginia hesitate in face of the
conditions and problems which confronted them? If
Indiana and Illinois, with populations of over three million
.pn +1 // 189.png
whites and less than twenty thousand blacks, felt constrained
to deny free negroes the right to enter their states,
how much more should their sister, Virginia, with only
one million whites and nearly a half million black slaves,
fear to add to her already large free negro population?

.sp 2
LINCOLN'S ESTIMATE OF THE DANGER

This sense of danger to their political and social well-being
arising from the threatened presence of negroes in
large numbers was felt by the whites of the free states
even after two years of civil war had wrought its changes
in sentiment, and Mr. Lincoln's first Proclamation of Emancipation
had been given to the world. In his message
to Congress in December, 1862, the President, in urging
his plan for national aid to facilitate emancipation and
deportation, endeavored to meet and allay these fears.
He said:

.in +2
"But it is dreaded that the freed people will swarm forth
and cover the whole land. Are they not already in the
land? Will liberation make them more numerous?
Equally distributed among the whites of the whole country,
and there would be but one colored to seven whites. Could
the one in any way disturb the seven?...

"But why should emancipation South send the free
people North? People of any color seldom run unless
there be something to run from. Heretofore colored
people to some extent have fled North from bondage and
now perhaps from both bondage and destitution. But if
gradual emancipation and deportation be adopted they
will have neither to flee from.... And in any event
cannot the North decide for itself whether to receive
them?"[#]
.in

These appealing words of Mr. Lincoln show that in the
very hour when the inspiring vision of emancipation was
being held up before the people of the free states, they
.pn +1 // 190.png
were balancing the satisfaction of its achievement with the
dangers to their peace which might follow any substantial
increase in their negro population.

"Cannot the North decide for itself whether to receive
them?" were the reassuring words of Mr. Lincoln. Virginia
had no such alternative.

.fm
.fn #
<i>History of Slavery in Virginia</i>, Ballagh, p. 132.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Congressional Globe</i>, 31st Congress. 1st Session.
App. 1678.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Proceedings of Peace Convention</i>, Crittenden, p.
139.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Democracy in America</i>, de Tocqueville, Vol. II, p.
214.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Idem</i>, p. 238.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Democracy in America</i>, de Tocqueville, Vol. II, p.
245.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>The Negro Problem, Abraham Lincoln's Solution</i>,
Pickett, p. 446.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>General Sherman's Letters Home</i>, Howe, <i>Scribner's
Magazine</i>, April, 1909, p. 400.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>The Negro Problem, Abraham Lincoln's Solution</i>,
Pickett, p. 449.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Abraham Lincoln, Speeches, Letters and State
Papers</i>, N. & H., Vol. I, p. 458.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Idem</i>, p. 457.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>William Lloyd Garrison</i>, by his children, Vol. I,
p. 321.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>William Lloyd Garrison</i>, by his children, Vol. I,
p. 253.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Slavery and Abolition</i>, Hart, p. 83.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Idem</i>, p. 83.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>History of Negro Race in America</i>, Williams, Vol.
II, pp. 111-119.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>History of Negro Race in America</i>, Williams, Vol.
II, pp. 119-122.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America</i>,
Wilson, Vol. II, p. 185.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>History of Negro Race in America</i>, Williams, Vol.
II, p. 123.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Illinois Convention Journal</i>, 1862, p. 1098.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>The Organic and Other General Laws of Oregon</i>,
1843-72, pp. 97-98.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Messages and Papers of the Presidents</i>, Vol. VI,
pp. 140-141.
.fn-

.sp 4
.h2 pn=+1 // 191.png
XXV

.nf c
<sc>Some of the Almost Insuperable Difficulties</sc>
<sc> which Embarrassed Every Plan of Emancipation</sc>
(Concluded)
.nf-
.sp 2

"Men are never so likely to settle a question rightly as
when they discuss it freely." In these words Lord Macaulay
fixes free discussion as a prime requisite to the right
solution of problems, however difficult. It was one of the
baneful features of slavery and the racial problems attending
it that in the period just antedating the Civil War
tolerant discussion was almost banished from the arena.
As a rule, men of moderate views and sane counsels were
driven to the rear, while the Fanatics of the North and the
Fire-eaters of the South held the centre of the stage. Virginia
was not wholly exempt from these conditions which
in her case had their origin and growth in causes arising
both within and beyond her borders.

.sp 2
LACK OF FREE DISCUSSION IN STATE

As we have seen, slavery in Virginia existed in certain
well-defined localities and was confined in ownership to a
small minority of her people. Thus the divergence of
interests between the two classes of her white population
assumed a sectional character which was, in turn, intensified
by reason of an archaic arrangement with respect to representation
in her General Assembly. As heretofore explained,
the representatives in her Legislature were apportioned
among the various cities and counties of the commonwealth
not on the basis of their respective white populations,
but upon what was known as the "mixed basis"—that
.pn +1 // 192.png
is—the quantum of property was taken into account
along with the number of white inhabitants. Slaves were
assessed and taxed as property and so the white people in
the slave-owning sections possessed a representative power
in the State Legislature as against their brethren in the
non-slave-owning sections far beyond that to which their
numbers entitled them. Against this provision of Virginia's
constitution the whites of the growing western section, with
some assistance from the east, waged perpetual war. In
this way slavery in Virginia became involved in a controversy
the heat and conflicts of which served to intensify
the feeling with respect to its continuance or abolition.
In like manner this controversy augmented the power of
the friends of slavery by rallying to their ranks the conservative
opponents of simple manhood suffrage, the
property interests and all those who, like John Randolph
of Roanoke, looked, as of old, to the East for light and
leading. It was not until the Convention of 1850 that this
provision of Virginia's constitution was amended, but as
the change was not to be fully effective until 1865 the
results of this augmentation of power to the people of the
white sections were never made manifest in her laws.

"Slavery is a cancer in your face," declared that master
of epigram, John Randolph of Roanoke. The world saw
it. The victim of the disease knew it was there. Between
the pain of its presence and the dread lest the surgeon's
knife might not work a cure, the patient halted and hesitated
and, by manifold methods, sought to mitigate its
pain or banish the thought of its existence. Thus silence
for to-day and hope for to-morrow was his fatuous policy.

.sp 2
CAUSES IN THE STATE, WHICH HINDERED

Slavery was at war with the ideals upon which Virginians
had founded their commonwealth. It was a burden upon
her advance along every line of normal achievement. It was
.pn +1 // 193.png
repugnant to the sensibilities of thousands of her most
devoted sons and yet, despairing of any present remedy,
they sternly deprecated discussion as a disloyal parading
before the world of this skeleton in her closet.

Slavery made its home among the great plantations
spreading their broad acres far from the centres of population,
their owners living distant one from the other. It
required, therefore, some more persuasive force than bolts
and bars, to protect these isolated whites from the fury of
the blacks if ever roused to a maddened discontent with
their lot, and a consciousness of their power. Thus the
daily precepts of slavery,—obedience, submission and
reverence for the white man,—must not be dissipated by
public discussions in which the rightfulness of slavery was
questioned and the glories of freedom held up before the
eyes of the wondering blacks. San Domingo sent its
warnings, the horrors of the Nat Turner Insurrection were
still fresh in the minds of men, and so the imperilled slave-holders
denounced as the enemies of their race white men
who indulged in academic discussions as to the advantages
of emancipation.

The foregoing were some of the causes arising within the
state which served to discourage public discussions with
respect to the abolition of slavery, and to invest with
unnatural heat and bitterness the sentiments of those who
nevertheless essayed the task.

.sp 2
CAUSES FROM WITHOUT, WHICH HINDERED

From beyond came movements and voices even more
destructive of the spirit of free discussion and which lent
to the reactionary elements in the state an advantage
which they could never have acquired except for this outside
interference.

As far back as 1835 John Quincy Adams noted in his diary:
.pn +1 // 194.png

.in +2
"Anti-slavery associations are formed in this country
and in England and they are already co-operating in concerted
agency together. They have raised funds to support
and circulate inflammatory newspapers and pamphlets
gratuitously, and they send multitudes of them into the
Southern country into the midst of swarms of slaves."[#]
.in

In the same year there assembled in Faneuil Hall what
the biographers of William Lloyd Garrison called "the
social, political, religious and intellectual elite of Boston,"
who, under the leadership of Theodore Lyman, Jr., Abbott
Lawrence, Peleg Sprague, and Harrison Gray Otis adopted
resolutions denouncing the Northern Abolitionists for seeking
by their inflammatory publications "to scatter among
our Southern brethren fire-brands, arrows, and death,"
and pledging the meeting to support all constitutional laws
for the suppression of all publications, "the natural and
direct tendency of which is to incite the slaves of the South
to revolt."[#]

Margaret Mercer, of Maryland, whose devotion to the
cause of negro emancipation was well attested by her act in
manumitting her own slaves, as well as in her life of service
devoted largely to their interests, writing to Gerrit Smith,
laments the incendiary appeals of William Lloyd Garrison
and the direful forebodings which they aroused among the
Southern people especially in the imaginations of the
women. She says:

.in +2
"For while the well-disposed and faithful servants of
kind masters will suffer and die with the whites in a general
insurrection, the lawless and vicious will have in their
power to massacre men, women and children in their sleep.
.pn +1 // 195.png
This is my apology for feeling and expressing the deepest
indignation against the man who dares to throw the fire-brand
into the powder magazine while all are asleep and
stands himself at a distance to see the mangled victims of
his barbarous fury. I pray you, dear sir, in the strength
of your benevolence to conceive the state of families living
remote from assistance in the country. Suppose, as I have
often witnessed, an alarm of insurrection; think of the
mother of a family startled from her sleep by some unusual
noise and seized with a horrid apprehension of the scene
which may await her in a few moments."[#]
.in

.sp 2
VIEWS OF ADAMS

Rev. Nehemiah Adams, of Boston, who visited Virginia
and the South in 1854, published the results of his
observations, from which we take the following extracts.

After describing the activities of the Northern Anti-slavery
Societies in scattering among the Southern negroes
publications and pictures tending to stimulate slave insurrections
and to inculcate ideas of racial equality, Dr.
Adams writes:

.in +2
"When these amalgamation pictures were discovered,
husbands and fathers at the South felt that whatever might
be true of slavery as a system, self-defense, the protection
of their households against servile insurrection, was their
first duty. Who can wonder that they broke into the
post-office and seized and burned abolition papers; indeed
no excesses are surprising in view of the perils to which they
saw themselves exposed."[#]
.in

Again he writes: "They seem to be living in a state of
self-defense, of self-preservation against the North."[#]

.in +2
"As Northern zeal has promulgated bolder sentiments
.pn +1 // 196.png
with regard to the right and duty of slaves to steal, burn,
and kill, in effecting their liberty, the South has intrenched
itself by more vigorous laws and customs.... Nothing
forces itself more constantly upon the thoughts of a Northerner
at the South who looks into the history and present
state of slavery, than the vast injury which has resulted
from Northern interference."[#]
.in

In his message to Congress, December, 1860, President
Buchanan writes:

.in +2
"The incessant and violent agitation of the slavery
question through the North for the last quarter of a century
has at last produced its malign influence on the slaves
and inspired them with vague notions of freedom. Hence
a sense of security no longer exists around the family altar.
The feeling of peace at home has given place to apprehension
of servile insurrection. Many a matron throughout
the South retires at night in dread of what may befall
herself and children before the morning."
.in

.sp 2
VIEWS OF LUNT

Mr. George Lunt, of Boston, in his work, <i>The Origin of
the Late War</i>, writes:

.in +2
"It thus appears that an active and alarming system of
aggression against the South was in operation at the North
thirty years ago, threatening to excite servile insurrection,
to imperil union, to stir up civil war. This fact rests upon
testimony which cannot but be considered impartial and
conclusive."[#]
.in

Again the same author, referring to the attempt of John
Brown and his associates, writes:

.in +2
"Nothing was here wanting to insure a more widespread
scene of horror and desolation than the world perhaps had
ever before witnessed, except a totally different relation
.pn +1 // 197.png
between the masters and their servants in the South than
that falsely imagined by the conspirators and by those in
sympathy with them either before or after the fact."[#]
.in

.sp 2
VIEWS OF BURGESS

Professor John W. Burgess, of Columbia University, in
his work, <i>The Civil War and the Constitution</i>, has portrayed
the disastrous effects upon the sentiment in favor
of emancipation in various parts of the South, occasioned
by the virulence of these agitators and above all by the
attempt of John Brown and his followers to precipitate
servile insurrection.

.in +2
"If the whole thing," writes Professor Burgess, "both as
to time, methods, and results, had been planned by his
Satanic Majesty himself, it could not have succeeded better
in setting the sound conservative movements of the age at
naught, and in creating a state of feeling which offered the
most capital opportunities for the triumph of political insincerity,
radicalism and rascality over their opposites.
No man who is acquainted with the change of feeling
which occurred in the South between the 16th of October
1859 and the 16th day of November of the same year can
regard the Harper's Ferry villainy as any other than one of
the chiefest crimes of our history. It established and re-established
the control of the great radical slaveholders
over the non-slaveholders,—the little slaveholders, and the
more liberal of the large slaveholders, which had already
begun to <i>be</i> loosened."[#]
.in

Professor Burgess then proceeds to show the still more
disastrous effects upon conservative sentiment in Virginia
and the South which resulted from the demonstrations at
the North on the day of John Brown's execution.

.in +2
"Brown and his band," says Professor Burgess, "had
.pn +1 // 198.png
murdered five men and wounded some eight or ten more in
their criminal movement at Harper's Ferry.... Add to
this the consideration that Brown certainly intended the
wholesale massacre of the whites by the blacks in case that
should be found necessary to effect his purposes and it was
certainly natural that the tolling of the church bells, the
holding of prayer-meetings for the soul of John Brown, the
draping of houses, the half-masting of flags, &c., in many
parts of the North should appear to the people of the South
to be evidences of a wickedness which knew no bounds
and which was bent upon the destruction of the South by
any means necessary to accomplish the result.... Especially
did terror and bitterness take possession of the
hearts of the women of the South, who saw in slave insurrection
not only destruction and death, but that which to
feminine virtue is a thousand times worse than the most
terrible death.

"From the Harper's Ferry outrage onward the conviction
grew among all classes that the white men of the
South must stand together and must harmonize all internal
differences in the presence of the mortal peril with which
as a race they believed themselves threatened. Sound
development in thought and feeling was arrested, the
follies and hatreds born of fear and resentment now assumed
the places born of common sense and common
kindliness."[#]
.in

.sp 2
VIRGINIA'S POSITION IN ELECTION OF 1860

But, despite conflicts within and assaults from without,
it must not be concluded that the people of Virginia had
entirely abandoned the right of free discussion in regard
to slavery, nor forfeited their well-earned reputation for
conservatism and self-poise. There were still, as we have
seen, many of her foremost men, who were frank to deplore
the existence of the institution and who had never surrendered
the faith of their fathers, that the day of abolition
would surely dawn. Neither did the outrage at Harper's
.pn +1 // 199.png
Ferry with all its sinister circumstances, nor the triumph
of sectionalism in the National elections of 1860, drive the
state from its position of sanity and conservatism. Virginia
was one of three commonwealths in that momentous election
to cast her electoral vote for the Union candidates,
Bell and Everett, standing on the simple platform—the
preservation of the Union, the supremacy of the constitution
and the enforcement of the laws.

The foregoing recitals will serve to present the almost
insuperable difficulties with which emancipation in Virginia
was invested during the period just antedating the Civil
War. That her people took counsel of their fears, rather
than their hopes, may be admitted. But for this attitude
who shall arraign them?

.sp 2
LINCOLN'S ESTIMATE OF THE DIFFICULTIES

Abraham Lincoln, speaking at Peoria, Ill., October
16th, 1854, said:

.in +2
"When Southern people tell us that they are no more
responsible for the origin of 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 will not blame them for not doing what I should
not know how to do myself. If all earthly power were
given me, I should not know what to do as to the existing
institution. My first impulse would be to free all the
slaves, and send them to Liberia—their native land. But
a moment's reflection would convince me that whatever
of high hope (as I think there is) there may be in this in
the long run, its sudden execution is impossible. If they
were all landed there in a day they would all perish in the
next ten days; and there are not surplus shipping and
surplus money enough in the world to carry them there
in many times ten days. What then? Free them all
and keep them among us as underlings? Is it quite
certain that this betters their condition? I think I would
.pn +1 // 200.png
not hold one in slavery at any rate; yet the point is not
clear enough to me to denounce people upon. What
next? Free them and make them politically and socially
our equals? My own feelings will not admit of this; and
if mine would, we well know that those of the great mass
of white people will not. Whether this feeling accords
with justice and sound judgment is not the sole question,
if indeed, it is any part of it. A universal feeling whether
well or ill founded cannot be safely disregarded. We
cannot then make them equals. It does seem to me that
systems of gradual emancipation might be adopted; but
for their tardiness in this I will not undertake to judge
our brethren of the South."[#]
.in

"If all earthly power were given me, I should not know
what to do as to the existing institution!" Such was the
frank avowal of Mr. Lincoln.

Nearly a half century later, Charles Francis Adams, the
grandson of the "Old Man Eloquent," and himself a veteran
of the Union Army, wrote:

.in +2
"The existence of an uneradicable and insurmountable
race difference is indisputable. The white man and the
black man cannot flourish together, the latter being considerable
in number, under the same system of government....
The negro squats at our hearthstone. We can
neither assimilate nor expel him."[#]
.in

We need not yield completely to Mr. Lincoln's perplexity,
nor to Mr. Adams's despair in acknowledging the
gravity of the situation which confronted the people of
Virginia and the almost insuperable difficulties which
attended its right solution.

.fm
.fn #
<i>Adams's Diary</i>, August 11, 1835. Quoted in <i>Life of
William Lloyd Garrison</i>, by his children, Vol. I, p. 487.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>William Lloyd Garrison</i>, by his children, Vol. I, p.
495.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Memoir of Margaret Mercer</i>, Morris, p. 126.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>A South Side View of Slavery</i>, Adams, p. 108.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Idem</i>, p. 108.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Idem</i>, p. 110.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>The Origin of the Late War</i>, Lunt, p. 104.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Idem</i>, p. 329.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>The Civil War and the Constitution</i>, Burgess, Vol.
I, p. 35.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>The Civil War and the Constitution</i>, Burgess, Vol.
I, pp. 42-44.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Lincoln-Douglass Debates</i>, p. 74. See also <i>Abraham
Lincoln, Letters, Speeches and State Papers</i>, N. & H., Vol. I, p.
187.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Century Magazine</i>, March, 1906, p. 106.
.fn-


.sp 4
.h2 pn=+1 // 201.png
XXVI

.nf c
<sc>The Status of the Controversy Regarding</sc>
<sc>Slavery at the Time Virginia Seceded</sc>
<sc>from the Union</sc>
.nf-
.sp 2

In considering the status of the controversy with
respect to slavery just prior to the Civil War, and whether
Virginia in seceding was actuated by a desire to extend
or perpetuate the institution, it will assist to a clearer
understanding if we present in detail the several phases
over which conflicts had arisen, and the parties to the same.

The right and obligation of the Federal Government to
prevent, by legislation, slaveholders from emigrating into
the territories with their slaves; the duty of the Federal
Government to provide through its officials for the capture
and return to their owners of fugitive slaves; and the
existence or abolition of slavery in the Southern States—these
constituted the three principal subjects of discussion
and points of conflict.

Coupled with this three-fold aspect of the problem,
Virginia was confronted by four factors, more or less
potential in their relation to the subject—the Federal
Government, the Republican Party, certain of the Northern
States, and the Abolitionists.

With respect to the Federal Government, neither Virginia
nor her slaveholders could lodge any complaint.

The compromise measures of 1850 had accorded slaveholders
the right to carry their slaves into the territories
of Utah and New Mexico (which embraced the present
.pn +1 // 202.png
states of Nevada, Utah, a portion of Colorado, and the
present territories of Arizona and New Mexico); while
the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, enacted in 1854, repealed the
restrictions imposed by the Missouri Compromise.

Independent of these measures the Supreme Court of
the United States had, in 1857, in the Dred Scott case,
decided that slaveholders possessed the right under the
constitution, to carry their slaves into the territories, and
that Congress could not deprive them of it. In like
manner, the Federal Government had enacted a fugitive
slave law with most efficient provisions for its enforcement
by Federal officials, and, finally, the continued existence
of slavery in Virginia found a sure defense from illegal
assaults in the Federal Constitution and the power and
obligation of the National Government to maintain its
provisions.

.sp 2
ATTITUDE OF REPUBLICAN PARTY

With respect to the attitude of the Republican Party,
the situation was not so simple. The Republican Party
was organized in 1854 to maintain the tenet that Congress
had the right, as it was its duty, to exclude slave owners
with their slaves from the territories. The Supreme
Court of the United States three years later decided that
Congress possessed no such power, yet in its platform
of 1860 the Republican Party reasserted its position and
hence advanced the more portentous claim that Congress
had a right to legislate upon the subject in disregard of
the mandates of the highest court of the Republic. It
must also be borne in mind that the Republican Party
was sectional in its origin, membership and spirit. Even
its National conventions were composed of representatives
gathered practically from only one of the two great divisions
of the Union. Its nominees for President and Vice-President
in 1856 and 1860 were both taken from the same
.pn +1 // 203.png
section. Electoral tickets bearing the names of its candidates
were presented for the suffrages of the people only
in the Northern and Border States; and, finally, by electoral
votes coming exclusively from the North, its candidates
were elected, though the majority in favor of their opponents
aggregated nearly a million of the popular suffrage.
These conditions may well have aroused the conviction
that the rights and interests of Virginia and the South
would receive scant recognition at the hands of the incoming
administration, yet the fact remains that before
the date of Virginia's secession, the Republican Party
had, by legislative enactments and official pledges, given
proof of its purpose to protect slaveholders in every right
previously established by the laws of Congress and the
decisions of the Federal Courts.

.sp 2
SLAVEHOLDERS' RIGHTS IN TERRITORIES

It is difficult at this distance from the event to appreciate
how the question of the right of slaveholders to introduce
slaves into the territories could have been the subject of
such profound and peace-destroying controversy. That
few slaves would ever be carried into the territories was
a conclusion easily deducible from the character of slave
labor, and the climatic and soil conditions of most of the
Western prairies—especially after Southern California,
which would have furnished them a congenial home, had
been admitted into the Union as part of a free state.

.sp 2
EFFECTS OF DISPERSING SLAVES

In like manner while we may appreciate the position of
slaveholders who insisted upon their constitutional right
to carry slaves into the territories, though they might
never expect to exercise the privilege, yet it is difficult to
realize the reasonableness of objection when coming from
friends of emancipation not themselves citizens of the
locality which was thus to be burdened. The problem of
emancipation was largely a question of the relative numbers
.pn +1 // 204.png
of whites and blacks in any given state. With few blacks
and many whites, there was no problem worthy of the
name. With many blacks and few whites, the problem
assumed its maximum of difficulty and danger. Every
slave, therefore, who went from the congested slave centres
of the South to the Western prairies not only ameliorated
his own condition and enhanced his hopes of emancipation,
but, in like manner, augmented the chances of improvement
and ultimate freedom to those he left behind.
Mr. Jefferson had, as far back as 1820, crystallized the
thought in terms so clear and reasonable that it seems
difficult to controvert.

.in +2
"Of one thing I am certain," wrote Mr. Jefferson, "that
as the passage of slaves from one state to another would
not make a slave of a single human being who would not
be so without it, so their diffusion over a greater surface
would make them individually happier and proportionately
facilitate the accomplishment of their emancipation by
dividing the burden upon a greater number of coadjutors."[#]
.in

The force of these observations will still further appear
when we recall that slavery might be abolished upon the
adoption by a territory of its constitution preliminary to
statehood, or the new state might at any time in the
future so decree—a result most probable because of the
small number of slaves and the ever increasing white
population within its borders.

Mr. Seward in a speech before the United States Senate,
in the winter of 1861, pointed out that in the decade during
which the territories of Utah and New Mexico had been
open to slavery, only twenty-four slaves had been carried
into that vast dominion.[#]
.pn +1 // 205.png

"The whole controversy," says Mr. Blaine, "over the
territories, as remarked by a witty representative from
the South, related to an imaginary negro in an impossible
place."[#]

.sp 2
CONGRESS ORGANIZES TERRITORIES

But despite these considerations, an acrimonious controversy
had continued with growing bitterness for years.
The Republican Party had at length been organized to
maintain the tenet that Congress could and must exclude
slaves from the territories; and, finally, its candidates for
President and Vice-President had been elected to office.
By the withdrawal from Congress of the Senators and
Representatives from the Cotton States, the party found
itself in January, 1861, controlling both branches of the
National Legislature. Despite, however, the history and
platform of the party, statutes were passed organizing
the territories of Colorado, Dakota and Nevada, without
any provision prohibiting slavery therein. Thus months
before the date of Virginia's secession, the Republican
Party gave this unequivocal assurance of its purpose to
accord slaveholders the right to carry slaves into the
territories.

The Hon. James G. Blaine, writing twenty-five years
after the happening, thus characterizes the action of his
party:

.in +2
"When the Missouri Compromise was repealed, and the
territories of the United States north of the line 35 degrees,
30 minutes were left without slavery inhibition or restriction,
the agitation began which ended in the overthrow of the
Democratic Party and the election of Mr. Lincoln to the
Presidency of the United States. It will, therefore, always
remain as one of the singular contradictions in the political
history of the country, that after seven years of almost
.pn +1 // 206.png
exclusive agitation on this question, the Republicans,
the first time they had the power as a distinctive political
organization, to enforce the cardinal article of their political
creed, quietly and unanimously abandoned it. And they
abandoned it without a word of explanation."[#]
.in

Mr. Blaine, in asserting that the Republican Party
"unanimously abandoned" this cardinal article of its
political creed, probably overstates the case. There were
thousands of the party, and many of its foremost
leaders, who had not surrendered their contention. At
all events, the abandonment had not been made in such
an authoritative and formal way as to commend itself to
men yearning for peace and desiring an end of the controversy
over the territories. This action, however, of
the Republican Congress, in organizing the territories of
Colorado, Dakota and Nevada without prohibitions as to
slavery, constituted such a recognition of the constitutional
rights of the slaveholders and a determination to
abide by the decision of the Supreme Court, as to render
baseless the charge that Virginia seceded in order to
establish the right of her citizens to carry their slaves
into the territories. As we shall hereafter see, Virginia
was willing to re-enact the Missouri Compromise; make it
a part of the constitution and thus forever exclude slavery
from all the territory north of the historic line established
by that settlement.

.sp 2
REPUBLICANS AND FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW

The position of the Republican Party, with reference to
the Fugitive Slave Law, presented some striking contradictions.
Thus, in those Northern States where statutes
had been enacted to nullify the law, the dominant political
forces constituted the controlling element in the membership
.pn +1 // 207.png
of the party; yet the party itself, in its national platform,
demanded neither the repeal nor amendment of
the Federal statute. Again, there were men, prominent
in its counsels, who, like Salmon P. Chase, frankly acknowledged
that the provision of the constitution requiring the
return of fugitive slaves, and the statute of the Federal
Government carrying this clause into effect, would not
be respected by one great element of the party and of the
Northern people. On the other hand, Mr. Lincoln, who
defeated him for the nomination to the Presidency, had
counselled compliance with the requirements of the constitution
and the law. Time and again he pointed out
that it was the duty of citizens, and above all of public
officials, to observe the obligations of the constitution
with respect to this matter. "Stand with the Abolitionist
in restoring the Missouri Compromise, and stand against
him when he attempts to repeal the Fugitive Slave Law,"
was his declaration at Peoria, Illinois, October 16th, 1858.[#]

.sp 2
ATTITUDE OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN

While a member of Congress, Mr. Lincoln had, on the
16th of January, 1849, introduced a bill for the abolition
of slavery in the District of Columbia, with the consent of
its voters and with compensation to the slaveholders.
The fifth section of this bill provided:

.in +2
"The municipal authorities of Washington and Georgetown,
within their respective jurisdictional limits, are
hereby empowered and required to provide active and
efficient means to arrest and deliver up to their owners all
fugitive slaves escaping into said district."[#]
.in

It was because of the authorship of this proposed Fugitive
.pn +1 // 208.png
Slave Law, that, upon his nomination to the Presidency,
Wendell Philips denounced him, through the columns
of <i>The Liberator</i>, as "the Slave Hound of Illinois."[#]

In his inaugural address, after alluding to what he terms
"the plainly written" clause of the constitution relating
to fugitive slaves, he declared:

.in +2
"It is scarcely questioned that this provision was intended
by those who made it for the reclaiming of what
we call 'fugitive slaves' and the intention of the law giver
is the law. All members of Congress swear their support
to the whole constitution—to this provision as much as
any other. To the proposition then that slaves whose
cases come within the terms of this clause 'shall be delivered
up' their oaths are unanimous....

"There is some difference of opinion whether this clause
should be enforced by National or by state authority; but
surely that difference is not a very material one. If the
slave is to be surrendered, it can be of little consequence
to him or to others by which authority it is done. And
should any one, in any case, be content that his oath
should go unkept on a merely unsubstantial controversy
as to how it shall be kept?"[#]
.in

.fm
.fn #
<i>Writings of Jefferson</i>, Ford, Vol. VII, p. 159.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Life of W. H. Seward</i>, Lathrop, p. 220.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Twenty Years of Congress</i>, Blaine, Vol. I, p. 272.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Idem</i>, p. 270.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Abraham Lincoln, Speeches, Letters and State
Papers</i>, N. & H., Vol. I, p. 202.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Abraham Lincoln, Speeches, Letters and State
Papers</i>, N. & H., Vol. I, p. 148.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>William Lloyd Garrison</i>, by his children, Vol. III,
p. 503.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Messages and Papers of the Presidents</i>, Vol. VI, p. 6.
.fn-


.sp 4
.h2 pn=+1 // 209.png
XXVII

.nf c
<sc>Status of the Controversy Regarding Slavery,</sc>
<sc>at the Time Virginia Seceded from</sc>
<sc>the Union</sc> (Concluded)
.nf-
.sp 2

With respect to the institution of slavery, itself, in
the Southern States, the position of the Republican Party,
as a party, was even more reassuring. The platform of the
party, upon which Mr. Lincoln was elected President,
gave the most explicit assurance of the purpose of the incoming
Administration to refrain from any interference with
slavery, in the states where it was recognized by law. "The
maintenance inviolate," declared that platform, "of the
rights of the states, and especially of each state, to order
and control its own domestic institutions, according to its
own judgment exclusively, is essential to the balance of
power on which the perfection and endurance of our political
fabric depend."[#]

Mr. Lincoln was nominated chiefly because of his conservative
position with respect to slavery, over his more
conspicuous opponents, Seward and Chase, who were
defeated because of their more radical anti-slavery utterances.

While never concealing his strong antipathy to the institution,
Mr. Lincoln always declared his regard for the
constitutional rights of slaveholders, in the states where
slavery existed. Time and again, he said, "I have no purpose,
.pn +1 // 210.png
directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution
of slavery in the states where it exists. I believe I have no
lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so."[#]

After his election, Mr. Lincoln, under date of December
22, 1860, wrote to Alexander H. Stephens, "Do the people
of the South really entertain fears that a Republican administration
would directly or indirectly interfere with the
slaves, or with them about the slaves? If they do, I wish
to assure you, as once a friend, and I still hope not an
enemy, that there is no cause for such fears."[#]

.sp 2
REPUBLICAN PARTY AND SLAVERY

The charge is often made that, despite the platform of
the Republican Party and the ante-election pledges of its
candidate, the people of the South were convinced that,
with its advent to power, a movement for the abolition of
slavery would be inaugurated; and that, because of this
fear, the Cotton States seceded from the Union. No such
charge can be made with respect to Virginia. Over two
months before her secession, the Republican Party, as we
have seen, acquired control of both branches of Congress,
and immediately proceeded to allay any such apprehensions
by the adoption of resolutions and the enactment of
laws of the most ultra pro-slavery type.

In January, 1861, a series of resolutions was adopted by
the Senate and the House of Representatives, among
which was one declaring that Congress recognized,

.in +2
"Slavery as now existing in fifteen of the United States,
by the usages and laws of those states, and we recognize
no authority, legal or otherwise, outside of a state
where it exists, to interfere with slaves or slavery in
such states."[#]
.in
.pn +1 // 211.png
.sp 2
PRO-SLAVERY ATTITUDE OF CONGRESS

In February, 1861, the House of Representatives adopted
a resolution with but four dissenting votes wherein it was
declared, "that neither the Federal Government, nor the
people, have a purpose or a constitutional right to legislate
upon or interfere with slavery in any of the states of the
Union."

.in +2
"Resolved, That those persons in the North who do not
subscribe to the foregoing propositions are too insignificant
in numbers and influence to excite the serious attention
or alarm of any portion of the people of the Republic."[#]
.in

Following these resolutions both Houses of Congress
adopted by the necessary two-thirds vote, a joint resolution
proposing an amendment to the Federal Constitution,
as follows:

.in +2
Article 13. "No amendment shall be made to the constitution
which shall authorize or give to Congress the
power to abolish, or to interfere within any state, with the
domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held
to labor or service by the laws of said state."
.in

This amendment passed the House of Representatives
February 28, 1861, by a vote of one hundred and thirty-three
to sixty-five, and the Senate on the 2nd of March,
1861, by a vote of twenty-four to twelve. Ohio and Maryland
promptly ratified this proposed amendment to the
constitution, but the outbreak of the Civil War brought
the movement to a close.[#]

In his inaugural address, President Lincoln reiterated
his previous pledges and expressed his approval of the
movement to adopt the amendment to the constitution
.pn +1 // 212.png
above referred to. Alluding to his oft quoted declaration
that he had neither the legal right nor the inclination to
interfere with slavery in the Southern States, he said:

.in +2
"I now reiterate these sentiments, and in doing so I
only press upon the public attention the most conclusive
evidence of which the case is susceptible, that the property,
peace and security of no section are to be any wise endangered
by the now incoming Administration."
.in

.sp 2
PRO-SLAVERY AMENDMENT TO CONSTITUTION

Continuing, he said,

.in +2
"I understand a proposed amendment to the constitution—which
amendment, however, I have not seen—has
passed Congress, to the effect that the Federal Government
shall never interfere with the domestic institutions of
the states, including that of persons held to service. To
avoid misconception of what I have said, I depart from my
purpose not to speak of particular amendments so far as to
say that, holding such a provision to now be implied Constitutional
Law, I have no objection to its being made
expressed and irrevocable."
.in

Even after the conflict of arms had occurred, the position
of the Administration was reiterated in the most solemn
form. On the 22nd of April, 1861, Mr. Seward, as Secretary
of State, in an official communication to Mr. Dayton,
Minister to France, wrote:

.in +2
"The territories will remain in all respects the same,
whether the revolution shall succeed or shall fail. The
condition of slavery in the several states will remain just
the same, whether it succeed or fail.... The rights of
the states and the condition of every being in them will
remain subject to exactly the same laws and forms of
administration, whether the revolution shall succeed or
whether it shall fail. In one case the states would be
federally connected with the new Confederacy; in the other,
.pn +1 // 213.png
they would, as now, be members of the United States; but
their constitutions and laws, customs, habits and institutions,
in either case, will remain the same."[#]
.in

.sp 2
PLEDGE OF CONGRESS AS TO OBJECT OF WAR

On the 22nd of July, 1861, both houses of Congress,
with but few dissenting votes, adopted a joint resolution
which declared:

.in +2
"This war is not waged, on our part, in any spirit of
oppression, nor for any purpose of conquest or subjugation,
nor purpose of overthrowing or interfering with the rights
or established institutions of those states; but to defend
and maintain the supremacy of the constitution, and to
preserve the Union, with all the dignity, equality and
rights of the several states unimpaired; that, as soon as
these objects are accomplished, the war ought to cease."[#]
.in

Such were the attitude of the Republican Party, the
avowals and pledges of President Lincoln and the enactments
of Congress, with respect to slavery, at the time of
Virginia's secession.

It is not, however, to be concluded that the Republican
Party had renounced its hostility to slavery. The pledges
referred to were simply assurances of the purpose of the
Federal administration to respect the constitutional rights
of states where the institution existed, and of their slave-holding
citizens. Nor is it claimed that slavery itself had
acquired, in Virginia, or elsewhere, in the Union, an indefinite
lease of life. The forces which had destroyed
slavery in other lands were ever at work. They were
dynamic, and gathered ever increasing influence from the
economic, political and ethical conditions of the times.

.sp 2
REPUBLICANS AND ABOLITIONISTS

Care must be taken not to confound the formally declared
.pn +1 // 214.png
attitude of the Republican Party with that of the
Abolitionists. The exact position of many of the leading
anti-slavery men of the period is not always easy to determine.
Garrison and Phillips were, of course, Abolitionists.
Sumner and Chase might be classed as belonging to
either or both—Republicans and Abolitionists. "Yet,"
says Professor A. B. Hart, "two such conspicuous
champions of anti-slavery as John Quincy Adams and
Abraham Lincoln always said that they were not
Abolitionists."[#]

Alluding to the extra-constitutional measures advocated
by the Abolitionists, Mr. Lincoln in his speech at Quincy,
Ill., October 13, 1858, said:

.in +2
"If there be any man in the Republican Party who is
impatient over the necessity springing from its (slavery's)
actual presence, and is impatient of the constitutional
guarantees thrown around it, and would act in disregard
of these, he too is misplaced, standing with us. He will
find his place somewhere else; for we have a due regard, so
far as we are capable of understanding them, for all these
things."[#]
.in

So too with respect to armed invasions and the attempt
of John Brown and his abettors to precipitate servile
insurrection.

Mr. Lincoln, in his speech at Cooper Union, New York,
February 27th, 1860, said:

.in +2
"You charge that we stir up insurrections among your
slaves. We deny it; and what is your proof? Harper's
Ferry! John Brown!! John Brown was no Republican;
.pn +1 // 215.png
and you have failed to implicate a single Republican
in his Harper's Ferry enterprise."[#]... Continuing, he
said: "John Brown's effort was peculiar. It was not a
slave insurrection. It was an attempt by white men to
get up a revolt among slaves, in which the slaves refused
to participate. In fact, it was so absurd that the slaves,
with all their ignorance, saw plainly enough it could not
succeed. That affair, in its philosophy, corresponds with
the many attempts, related in history, at the assassination
of kings and emperors."[#]
.in

.sp 2
SLAVERY A DOOMED INSTITUTION

If it be urged that Mr. Lincoln's oft-quoted words
uttered before his nomination for the Presidency, that
"The Government could not endure half slave and half
free," were at war with his assurances and that Virginia
was thus threatened in her "peculiar institution," yet it
must be remembered that Mr. Lincoln, time and again before
his election, disclaimed any such purpose and denied
that his words were susceptible of any such construction.

Morse, in his <i>Biography of Lincoln</i>, says: "Again and
again Mr. Lincoln called attention to the fact that he
had expressed neither 'a doctrine' nor an 'invitation';
nor any 'purpose,' nor 'policy' whatsoever."[#]

To quote the language of Mr. Lincoln himself in meeting
the charge in his debate with Stephen A. Douglas:

.in +2
"In the passage I indicated no wish or purpose of my
own. I simply expressed my expectations. Cannot the
Judge perceive a distinction between a purpose and an
expectation? I have often expressed an expectation to
die, but I have never expressed a wish to die."[#]
.in
.pn +1 // 216.png

Thomas Jefferson and other Virginia opponents of
slavery had often made similar predictions. Even as a
prophecy of emancipation, it involved no other suggestion
than that slavery was an antiquated institution at war
with the genius of our government and the spirit of the age
and was doomed by forces world wide in their potency to
ultimate extinction.

.fm
.fn #
From Platform of National Republican Party, Chicago
Convention, May, 1860.
.fn-

.fn #
From President Lincoln's Inaugural Address, March 4,
1861.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Causes of the Civil War</i>, Chadwick, p. 143.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Lincoln and Slavery</i>, Arnold, p. 695.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Idem</i>, p. 695.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Story on the Constitution</i>, Story, Vol. II, p. 670,
Note 2.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government</i>, Davis,
Vol. I, p. 262.
.fn-

.fn #
Joint Resolutions adopted by Congress, July 22,
1861.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Slavery and Abolition</i>, Hart, p. 175.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Abraham Lincoln, Speeches, Letters and State
Papers</i>, N. & H., Vol. I., p. 463.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Abraham Lincoln, Speeches, Letters and State
Papers</i>, N. & H., Vol. I., p. 607.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Idem</i>, p. 609.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Abraham Lincoln</i>, Morse, p. 123.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Lincoln-Douglas Debates</i>, p. 59.
.fn-


.sp 4
.h2 pn=+1 // 217.png
XXVIII

.ce
<sc>The Attitude of Certain Northern States</sc>

.sp 2
The constitution of the United States provides:
"2. A person charged in any state with treason, felony,
or other crime, who shall flee from justice and be found
in another state, shall, on demand of the executive authority
of the state from which he fled, be delivered up, to be
removed to the state having jurisdiction of the crime.

No person held to service or labor in one state, under
the laws thereof, escaping into another state, shall, in
consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged
from such service or labor, but shall be delivered
up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor
may be due."[#]

.sp 2
ORIGIN OF THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW

The first of the foregoing clauses provides for the return
of fugitives from justice, and the second, of fugitive slaves.

The attitude of certain Northern States with reference
to these two provisions of the constitution was a subject
of profound importance in the years immediately preceding
the Civil War, and constituted one of the greatest grievances
of the people of the slaveholding states.

At the time the constitution was adopted, slavery
existed in every one of the thirteen states except Massachusetts,
though in some others acts had been passed
providing for its gradual abolition. It was deemed
essential, therefore, to the peaceful relations of the several
.pn +1 // 218.png
states as well as the legal rights of slaveholders that some
provision should be inserted in the Federal Constitution
dealing with the return of fugitive slaves as well as fugitives
from justice. If a slave could, by passing from New
York into Massachusetts, absolve himself from slavery
with no remedy for the master except the grace of the
latter state, in which the institution was not recognized,
then not only were the rights of the slaveholding citizens
of New York dependent upon the laws of Massachusetts,
but such conditions would doubtless engender strife and
reprisals between the different states of the Union.

The necessity, as well as the justice, of fugitive slave
laws was recognized almost contemporaneously with the
introduction of slavery into this country. Thus, in the
Article of Confederation adopted in 1643, between the
colonies of Plymouth, Massachusetts, Connecticut and
New Haven, it was provided,

.in +2
"If any servant runn away from his master into any
other of these Confederated Jurisdiccons, that in such case
upon the Certyficate of one Magistrate in the Jurisdiccon
out of which the said servant fled, or upon other due
proofe, the said servant shall be delivered either to his
master or any other that pursues and brings such certyficate
or proofe."[#]
.in

Provisions of like character were incorporated in many
of the treaties between the various colonies and the Indian
tribes, and later between the United States Government
and the Indians.

The Ordinance of 1784, as adopted by Congress, contained
no provision for the return of fugitive slaves escaping
into the territory northwest of the Ohio River, and as
.pn +1 // 219.png
we have seen, the provision prohibiting slavery therein
had been stricken out before its adoption.

On the 16th of March, 1785, Rufus King of Massachusetts
presented a resolution amending the Ordinance of
1784, so as to prohibit slavery in the northwest territory,
which resolution was referred to a committee consisting
of King, William Howell and William Ellery; the last two
members being from Rhode Island.

On the 6th of April, 1785, a report was presented from
this committee to Congress, providing for an amendment
of the existing ordinance, so as to exclude slavery from
the northwest territory after the year 1800, "the resolution
to be an article of compact" between the thirteen
original states and those created out of the territory.
The amendment so reported also made provision for the
return to their masters of fugitive slaves escaping into the
territory from any of the thirteen original states.[#]

No action was taken upon this report, but at the time
the Ordinance of 1787 was under consideration, July
13th, 1787, a provision was inserted prohibiting slavery
in the northwest territory along with a fugitive slave
clause, by the unanimous vote of all the states present.[#]

.sp 2
FUGITIVE SLAVES AND THE CONSTITUTION

The same year, the Constitutional Convention, in session
at Philadelphia, inserted a like fugitive slave clause in the
Federal Constitution.

On the 12th of February, 1793, Congress passed an act
providing the method for carrying into effect the section
of the constitution relating to fugitives from justice and
fugitive slaves. Both subjects are treated and provided
for in the same act. It passed both houses of Congress
.pn +1 // 220.png
by practically unanimous votes—Washington approving
the bill with his signature.

.sp 2
RETURN OF FUGITIVE SLAVES

By this statute, the authorities of the several states
were charged with the duty of executing the law with
reference to the return of fugitives from justice.

With respect, however, to fugitive slaves, the authority
and burden of dealing with their return was placed upon
officers of the Federal Government as well as upon certain
state officials. Despite the somewhat cumbrous character
of the law, the return of fugitives from justice and of
fugitive slaves was assured, and little controversy arose
until some forty years after its enactment. But with the
rise of the Abolitionists at the North difficulties in executing
the law began to appear—especially as to fugitive
slaves.

.sp 2
THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD

William Lloyd Garrison began the publication of <i>The
Liberator</i> in 1831. The American Anti-Slavery Society
was organized in 1833 and soon thereafter the Underground
Railroad commenced its operations. Under the
influence of these forces, not only was the execution of the
law with reference to fugitive slaves in many of the Northern
States greatly hindered but the slaves enticed or escaping
from their masters became much more numerous. The
irritating effects of these conditions upon Southern slaveholders
were intensified by the suggestion that the law
was fairly enforced as long as there were slaves in the
so-called free states. In time, however, the Legislatures
of many of the Northern States adopted state laws which
were undoubtedly designed to defeat the execution of the
Federal statute, and thus was added the sanction of states
through their law-making bodies to the illegal attitude
and acts of their citizens. This political action of these
states not only aroused the indignation of slaveholders,
.pn +1 // 221.png
but enlisted in their behalf the sympathies of their non-slaveholding
fellow citizens. The attitude of the Abolitionists
and the action of the Northern States above
referred to were regarded by the people of Virginia as
a violation of the constitutional rights of their state, as
well as a wanton injury to the property interests of her
slaveholding citizens. The Abolitionists, by every form
of suggestion and appeal, incited and assisted slaves to
desert their masters, while the Underground Railroad
provided increasing facilities for accomplishing the result.

Professor A. B. Hart, of Harvard University, says:

.in +2
"The Underground Railroad was not a route but a network;
not an organization, but a conspiracy of thousands
of people banded together for the deliberate purpose
of depriving their Southern neighbors of their property
and of defying the Fugitive Slave Laws of the United
States."[#]
.in

With such a system in active operation, it only became
necessary, in order to invest the whole movement with
the dignity of state usurpation and wrong, for states to
enact the so-called Personal Liberty Laws.

.fm
.fn #
Constitution of the United States, Article IV,
Sub-section 2.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Plymouth Colony Records</i>, IX, p. 5, and <i>Fugitive
Slaves</i>, Boston, 1891, McDougall, p. 7.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>History of the Ordinance of 1787</i>, American
Antiquarian Society, new series, Vol. V, p. 315.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Idem</i>, p. 335.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Slavery and Abolition</i>, Hart, p. 228.
.fn-


.sp 4
.h2 pn=+1 // 222.png
XXIX

.nf c
<sc>The Attitude of Certain Northern States</sc>
(Concluded)
.nf-

.sp 2
THE PERSONAL LIBERTY LAWS

Beginning in 1837, Massachusetts adopted the first of
the so-called Personal Liberty Laws, which were followed
by others of like import enacted by Vermont, New York and
Connecticut. The ostensible object of these statutes was
to protect free negroes, but as no such laws were necessary
until the rise of the Abolitionists and the operations of
the Underground Railroad, they were generally accepted
as efforts on the part of these states to assist these agencies
and defeat the clause of the constitution of the United
States which provided for the return of fugitive slaves.

In 1842, the Supreme Court of the United States decided
that so much of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1793 as authorized
or required state officials to assist in executing the law
was unconstitutional, and that upon Federal authorities
must rest the whole burden.[#] This decision was followed
by a new series of statutes in Massachusetts, Vermont,
Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island.[#]

On the 18th of September, 1850, Congress passed another
Fugitive Slave Law amending the act of 1793 so as to
charge Federal officials with the whole duty of carrying
into effect the clause in the constitution providing for the
return of fugitive slaves, and to remedy the difficulties resulting
from the action of the Abolitionists and the acts
.pn +1 // 223.png
passed by certain states as above referred to. This aroused
fresh antagonism to the constitution and the efforts of
the Federal Government to carry the same into effect.
The constitutionality of the new law was denied and though
affirmed by the Supreme Court, its execution in the foregoing
states was much embarrassed by a new series of
state statutes. Laws of like import, with like results, were
also enacted by Wisconsin, Michigan, Connecticut and
Maine.

In some instances, the decision of the Supreme Court of
the United States affirming the constitutionality of the
statute was challenged by the legislative department of
state governments, and the right of the former tribunal to
fix the obligations of states and citizens with respect to the
law strenuously denied.

Thus, in Wisconsin one Sherman M. Booth had been
indicted in the Federal Court for a violation of the Fugitive
Slave Law enacted by Congress, and, after trial and conviction,
was sentenced for the offense. An application for
a writ of habeas corpus was presented by Booth to the
Supreme Court of Wisconsin and his release prayed for
on the ground that the Federal statute was unconstitutional.
The Supreme Court of Wisconsin took cognizance of the
case and discharged the prisoner from the custody of the
Federal authorities.[#]

An appeal was taken to the Supreme Court of the United
States where the constitutionality of the Federal statute
was affirmed, the judgment of the Supreme Court of Wisconsin
reversed and Booth remanded to custody.[#] Thereupon,
the General Assembly of Wisconsin on the 16th of
.pn +1 // 224.png
March, 1859, adopted a series of resolutions in which, after
denying the right of the United States Supreme Court
to take cognizance of the above mentioned case, they
declared:

.in +2
"That the government, formed by the constitution of
the United States, was not made the exclusive or final
judge of the powers delegated to itself: but that as in all
other cases of compact among parties having no common
judge, each party has an equal right to judge for itself
as well of infractions as of the mode and measure of
redress.

"That the principle and construction contended for by
the party which now rules in the councils of the nation,
that the General Government is the exclusive judge of the
extent of the powers delegated to it, stop nothing short of
despotism; since the discretion of those who administer
the government, and not the constitution, would be the
measure of their powers; that the several states which
formed that instrument being sovereign and independent
have the unquestionable right to judge of its infraction
and that a positive defiance by those sovereignties of all
unauthorized acts done or attempted to be done under color
of that instrument is the right remedy."[#]
.in

.sp 2
STATE DEFIANCE OF FUGITIVE SLAVE LAWS

These outspoken and persistent attempts of great states
to repudiate their obligations to the constitution and to
nullify the laws of Congress had a most reactionary influence
upon slaveholders and their sympathizers in Virginia
and the South and filled the minds of thoughtful men
with the gravest forebodings for the peace and preservation
of the Union.

President Buchanan in his message to Congress, December,
1860, refers to the action of the states in nullifying the
.pn +1 // 225.png
Fugitive Slave Law enacted by Congress, as "the most
palpable violation of constitutional duty which has yet
been committed."

Governor Banks in his address before the Legislature of
Massachusetts which assembled on the first Wednesday
in January, 1861, referring to the statute enacted in that
state antagonistic to the act of Congress for the return of
fugitive slaves, and the consequent imputation which it
brought upon the loyalty of Massachusetts to the Union
and its constitution, said:

.in +2
"It is because in the face of her just claims to high
honor I do not love to hear unjust reproaches passed upon
her fame—that I say as I do, in the presence of God and with
a heart filled with responsibilities that must rest upon
every American citizen in these distempered times, I cannot
but regard the maintenance of a statute, although it
may be within the extremest limits of constitutional
power, which is so unnecessary to the public weal and so
detrimental to the public peace as an inexcusable public
wrong. I hope by common consent it may be removed
from the statute book and such guarantees as individual
freedom demands be sought in new legislation."[#]
.in

.sp 2
CONGRESS ON STATE INTERFERENCE

Congress, in February, 1861, adopted the report of the
Committee of Thirty-three of which Thomas Corwin of Ohio
was chairman, which after reciting "that all attempts on
the part of the Legislatures of any of the states to obstruct
or hinder the recovery," of fugitive slaves, "are in derogation
of the constitution ... and dangerous to the
peace of the Union," resolved

.in +2
"That the several states be respectfully requested to
cause their statutes to be revised, with a view to ascertain
.pn +1 // 226.png
if any of them are in conflict with or tend to embarrass or
hinder the execution of the laws of the United States ...
for the delivery up of persons held to labour by the laws of
any state and escaping therefrom; and the Senate and
House of Representatives earnestly request that all enactments
having such tendency be forthwith repealed as
required by a just sense of constitutional obligations and by
a due regard for the peace of the Republic."[#]
.in

President Lincoln in his inaugural address, referring to
the clause of the constitution providing for the return of
fugitive slaves, and the contention as to whether the same
should be executed by Federal or state officials, said: "If
the slave is to be surrendered, it can be of little consequence
to him or to others by which authority it is done. And
should any one in any case be content that his oath should
go unkept on a merely unsubstantial controversy as to how
it shall be kept?"

.sp 2
RHODE ISLAND ALONE ACCEDES

Despite these considerations, Rhode Island alone repealed
the obnoxious statutes, and great leaders of the Republican
Party frankly confessed that the constitution and the law
would not be respected in certain of the Northern States.
Salmon P. Chase, speaking in the Peace Conference at
Washington, in February, 1861, alluding to the provision
of the constitution for the return of fugitive slaves, said:
"The people of the free states, however, who believe that
slave-holding is wrong cannot and will not aid in the
reclamation, and the stipulation becomes therefore a dead
letter."[#]

Of the Personal Liberty Laws Mr. George Lunt of Boston
in his work, <i>Origin of the Late War</i>, says: "They constitute
.pn +1 // 227.png
an extreme exemplification of the broadest claim
to state sovereignty, and put the states which authorized
them in direct hostility to the United States. They were
not one whit more defensible than the Rebellion itself to
which they had such a principal part in preparing the minds
of the seceding states."[#]

.sp 2
FUGITIVES FROM JUSTICE

Closely associated with the controversies growing out of
the return of fugitive slaves and the action of certain
Northern States, in defeating the provision of the constitution
in regard thereto, was the attitude of many of the
same states with respect to the provision for the return of
the fugitives from justice. A few notable instances will
suffice to illustrate the subject and its profound influence
in arraying Southern States, as states, against certain of
their Northern sisters.

.sp 2
NON-COMPLIANCE WITH CONSTITUTION

In 1837 the Governor of Georgia made requisition upon
the Governor of Maine for the return to the former state of
the captain of a ship charged with aiding and abetting a
slave to desert his master. The Governor of Maine refused
to comply with the requisition, alleging that the laws of that
state did not recognize slavery or the offense complained
of as an indictable one. Thereupon the Legislature of
Georgia petitioned Congress to enact some law to compel
state authorities to comply with this provision of the
Federal Constitution. No action, however, was taken by
Congress, nor was the slave or his abductor ever carried
back to Georgia.[#]

In 1841 the Governor of Virginia made requisition upon
the Governor of New York for the return of two men
indicted in the former state for aiding and enticing slaves
to leave their masters. William H. Seward was at that
.pn +1 // 228.png
time Governor of New York. He refused to honor the
requisition, alleging that the offense for which the parties
were indicted was not one deemed criminal by the laws of
New York or the nations of the world. A long and peace-destroying
controversy in which the Legislatures of the two
states became involved followed; but the fugitives were
never returned, and the people of Virginia felt that the
highest law officer of a sister state had been recreant to his
obligations to the Federal Constitution and reckless of the
rights of their state.

In 1860, the Governor of Kentucky made requisition
upon the Governor of Ohio for the return to the former
state of a fugitive from justice indicted for the violation
of a statute imposing penalties upon persons aiding slaves
to escape from their masters. The Governor of Ohio refused
to honor the requisition; thereupon the State of
Kentucky instituted a suit in the Supreme Court of the
United States against the Governor of Ohio, to compel him
to comply with the provision of the Federal Constitution
above referred to and deliver up the fugitive from justice.

The Governor of Ohio interposed as a defense the same
reasons advanced by Governor Seward. But the Supreme
Court of the United States held that the defense was
insufficient, and that it was the constitutional duty of the
Governor of Ohio to deliver up the fugitive. The court
declared: "The objection made to the validity of the
indictment is altogether untenable."[#] The court also
decided that the suit was properly instituted, in the right
forum, and that the Governor of Ohio was under constitutional
obligations to deliver up the fugitive to the
authorities of Kentucky, but that no judgment could be
.pn +1 // 229.png
entered by the court granting the relief prayed for. Chief
Justice Taney, speaking for the court, after alluding to
the fact that the framers of the constitution confidently
believed that "A sense of justice and of mutual interest
would insure a faithful execution of the provision," declared:
"If the Governor of Ohio refuses to discharge this
duty there is no power delegated to the General Government,
either through the judicial department or any other
department, to use any coercive means to compel him."[#]

.sp 2
EFFECTS IN VIRGINIA OF NULLIFICATION

This decision brought home to the people of Virginia
the fact that the authorities of certain of the Northern
States were violating their obligations under the Federal
Constitution, and yet the Federal Government was unable
to remedy the wrong and maintain the rights of the injured
commonwealths.

These conditions and the attitude of the Northern States
which thus nullified the provisions of the Federal Constitution
undoubtedly moved thousands of Virginians and
other citizens of the South to secession. They refused
to remain members of a Union in which the rights of
their states were thus violated by their sister commonwealths.

But the claim that Virginia seceded in order to avert
pecuniary loss resulting from the non-return of fugitive
slaves is negatived by the fact that by such action she
surrendered all the benefits from the Federal Constitution
and statute. In the Union, some protection was secured
to the state with respect to the rights thus menaced.
Outside of the Union, every such benefit was lost, and the
state stood absolutely without redress.

.fm
.fn #
See Decision in Case of Prigg <i>vs.</i> Pennsylvania, 16
Pet. 539.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Fugitive Slaves</i>, McDougall, p. 66.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>In re Sherman M. Booth</i>, 3rd Wisconsin Rep., p. 13.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Ableman</i> vs. <i>Booth</i> and <i>United States</i> vs.
<i>Booth</i>, 21st Howard, p. 506.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Journal of the General Assembly of Wisconsin</i>,
Session 1859, pp. 463 and 865.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>History of Massachusetts in the Civil War</i>,
Schouler, Vol. I, p. 6.
.fn-

.fn #
See <i>Reports of Thirty-second Congress, and Twenty
Years of Congress</i>, Blaine, pp. 258-265.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Debates in Peace Conference Convention</i>, Crittenden,
p. 430.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Origin of the Late War</i>, Lunt, p. 217.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Fugitive Slaves</i>, Boston, 1891, McDougall, p. 41.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Kentucky against Dennison</i>, 24th Howard, p. 107.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Kentucky against Dennison</i>, 24th Howard, p. 109.
.fn-

.sp 4
.h2 pn=+1 // 230.png
XXX

.ce
<sc>The Abolitionists</sc>

.sp 2
We come now to consider the fourth force or factor with
which Virginia had to reckon, namely, the Abolitionists.
These constituted a body of earnest, tireless agitators—men
and women who had devoted mind and heart to the
work of destroying slavery. No consideration of the
maintenance of law, the national peace, nor the preservation
of the Union availed to moderate their zeal or circumscribe
their efforts. Slavery was a sin against God—and
to the King of kings they owed their first allegiance.
To counsels of moderation, to suggestions of expediency,
to appeals for law, they returned the oft reiterated answer—<i>Delenda
est Cathargo!</i> The orderly processes of time—the
force of public opinion exerted through law, rather
than against law, were to them but the suggestions of
cowardice and a means for prolonging the life of an institution,
the measure of whose sin cried unto Heaven.
Fight Slavery!—now and always—wherever found and
by every weapon known to the wit of man, was the burden
of their message. Keep it out of the territories? Yes!
and for the contest depend not alone upon the laws of
Congress; but send armed men to the prairies of Kansas
and hold the land against the slaveholders and their slaves
by fire and the sword. Opposed to a Fugitive Slave
Statute? Yes!—contest its enactment by Congress and
defeat its execution when it becomes a law. Let the free
states nullify this Federal statute by state laws; let mobs
.pn +1 // 231.png
rescue from Federal officials the fugitives in their custody;
and then cover the land with the conspiracy of the "Underground
Railroad" by means of which the slave might
pass to the freedom which awaited him beyond the Canadian
border.

But it was slavery in its citadel—the existence of the
institution in the slave states—that aroused their fiercest
antagonism and rallied their forces to a battle which
should never end but with its complete destruction.
From this body of militant agitators and reformers, the
slaveholders of Virginia could expect no quarter, and the
commonwealth no surcease from the agitations so destructive
of her peace.

.sp 2
GARRISON AND PHILLIPS

William Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips were the
foremost leaders of this great fellowship, and in no year
of grace were their demands more insistent and their
assaults more aggressive than in the troublous days immediately
preceding the Civil War. Amid all appeals
for the maintenance of law and the preservation of peace
might be heard their voices like fire-bells at night, denouncing
the Union and the constitution and demanding the
immediate abolition of slavery. But by none of these
things was Virginia moved to secession. As declared by
Henderson, the English military critic, "The wildest
threats of the 'Black Republicans,' their loudly expressed
determination in defiance of the constitution, to abolish
slavery, if necessary, by the bullet and the sabre, shook
in no degree whatever her loyalty to the Union."[#]

.sp 2
SECESSION NO PROTECTION

For none of Virginia's grievances nor those of her slaveholders
against the Abolitionists was secession a cure.
Within the Union and under the <i>Ægis</i> of the constitution
.pn +1 // 232.png
was to be found her surest defense against all their assaults.
By secession she would surrender her interest in
the territories and all claim of right to introduce slaves
therein. By secession she would forfeit all the benefits of
the Fugitive Slave Law. By secession she would lose the
strong arm of the National Government to defend her
against assaults, whether by lawless bands or the legislative
enactments of hostile states. Even with respect to
servile insurrections her withdrawal from the Union would
in no way abate the danger but only lessen her power to
cope with the problem. John Brown and his band were
captured by United States soldiers and the flag of the
Union carried protection to the inmates of every lonely
manor house and cabin throughout her borders, whether
menaced by the slaves themselves or the emissaries of
those who plotted against her peace. Of all these facts
the Abolitionists had the profoundest appreciation. Hence
for years they advocated disunion as a condition precedent
to the attainment of their great end—the abolition of
slavery.

.fm
.fn #
<i>Stonewall Jackson</i>, Henderson, Vol. I, p. 122.
.fn-

.sp 4
.h2 pn=+1 // 233.png
XXXI

.ce
<sc>The Abolitionists and Disunion</sc>
.sp 2

The disunion sentiments and efforts of the Abolitionists
may be traced through the declarations of their leaders
and the platforms of their societies, enunciated from time
to time, during a long series of years antedating the Civil
War. Thus in January, 1843, the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery
Society adopted the following resolution:

.in +2
"That the compact which exists between the North and
the South is a covenant with Death and an agreement with
Hell—involving both parties in atrocious criminality, and
should be immediately annulled."[#]
.in

These sentiments were affirmed and reiterated by the
American Anti-Slavery Society at its tenth anniversary
meeting in New York City, May, 1844, where among
other declarations the Federal Constitution was denounced
as "a covenant with Death and an agreement with Hell,"
and the motto adopted "No Union with Slaveholders."[#]

In 1854, William Lloyd Garrison declared, "There is
but one honest, straightforward course to pursue if we
would see the slave power overthrown—the Union must
be dissolved."[#] And Wendell Phillips re-echoed the
sentiment in the no less explicit declaration, "As to disunion,
it must and will come. Calhoun wants it at one
.pn +1 // 234.png
end of the Union, Garrison wants it at the other. It is
written in the counsel of God."[#]

Mr. Schouler, referring to the foregoing declaration of
Mr. Garrison and the occasion, says: "And such was the
general tenor of anniversary speeches and resolutions
through the next six years, whenever and wherever
meetings were held of our Anti-Slavery Societies."[#]

.sp 2
WORCESTER DISUNION CONVENTION, 1857

These disunion sentiments continued with growing
insistence in the declarations of leading Abolitionists and
in the platform of their societies. On the 15th of January,
1857, there assembled at Worcester, Mass., the "Disunion
Convention." This body adopted, among other resolutions,
one demanding the immediate dissolution of the
Union, and declaring that "The sooner the separation
takes place, the more peaceful it will be; but that peace
or war is a secondary consideration in view of our present
perils. Slavery must be conquered, peaceably if we can,
forcibly if we must."[#] This convention appointed a
State Committee of seven, of which the Rev. Thomas
Wentworth Higginson was made chairman, to direct the
propaganda of the new movement and a general convention
composed of delegates from all the free states
was recommended. A call for the latter convention was
accordingly issued in July, 1857, signed by Mr. Higginson,
Wendell Phillips, William Lloyd Garrison, and other
leading Abolitionists. Cleveland, Ohio, was selected as
the place for the convention, because a majority of the
signers to the call, some seven hundred in number, were
citizens of that state. The 28th of October was fixed as
the date for the meeting of the convention. This body,
.pn +1 // 235.png
however, failed to assemble because of the terrible financial
panic which began in September of that year,—the leaders
deciding to postpone the "projected Northern Convention
until a more auspicious period."[#]

.sp 2
GARRISON URGES DISUNION

In his speech before the "Disunion Convention" at
Worcester, Mass., above referred to, William Lloyd Garrison
said:

.in +2
"Again, I am for the speedy overthrow of the Union
because, while it exists, I see no end to the extension of
slavery. I see everything in the hands of the Slave Power
now—all the resources of the country,—every dollar in the
Treasury, the Navy, the Judiciary, everything in its grasp;
and I know that with all these means and facilities and the
disposition to use them, nothing can successfully contend
against it.

"I am sure of another thing—that when the North shall
withdraw from the Union, there will be an end to Southern
filibustering and schemes of annexation. Then the tables
will be turned and we shall have the slaveholders at our
doors crying for mercy. Rely upon it, there is not an
intelligent slaveholder at the South who is for a dissolution
of the Union. I do not care what the folly or insanity of the
Southern Nullifiers may be; ... not one of them is willing
to have the cord cut and the South permitted to try the
experiment. If it be otherwise, God grant that she may
soon take this step and see whether she will be able to hold
a single slave one hour after the deed is done."[#]
.in

No opportunity was neglected to inculcate sentiments
of disloyalty to the Union, hatred of the constitution,
and disregard of the statutes enacted by the Federal
Government bearing upon slavery. Sometimes the Abolitionists
would emphasize their position and lend a touch of
.pn +1 // 236.png
realism to their sentiments by burning before the multitudes
copies of the constitution and obnoxious laws
passed by Congress.

.sp 2
ABOLITIONISTS' ASSAULTS ON EMINENT MEN

Thus at Framingham, Mass., on the fourth of July, 1854,
at the open-air celebration of the day by the Abolitionists,
William Lloyd Garrison burned copies of the constitution,
the Fugitive Slave Law, and the opinions of several Judges
of the Federal Courts in Massachusetts. <i>The Liberator</i>
records that Mr. Garrison, "holding up the United States
constitution branded it as the source and parent of all the
other atrocities—a covenant with Death and an agreement
with Hell—and consumed it to ashes on the spot, exclaiming,
'So perish all compromises with Tyranny,' and 'Let
all the people say Amen,' and a tremendous shout of
'Amen' went up to Heaven in ratification of the deed."[#]

No eminence of public station nor personal worth
availed to shield from the assaults of these Abolition leaders.
William Lloyd Garrison alluding to Webster's eulogies upon
the constitution declared, "Let Daniel Webster, the
greatest and meanest of his countrymen, exhaust his
powers of eulogy upon it if he will; the effort will but render
his character base and contemptible with posterity."[#]

Wendell Phillips, referring to the "Defender of the Constitution,"
said: "God gives us great scoundrels for texts
to anti-slavery sermons. See to it, when nature has provided
you a monster like Webster, that you exhibit him—himself
a whole menagerie—throughout the country."[#]
Subsequently in an article in <i>The Liberator</i> on Mr. Lincoln—then
but recently nominated for the Presidency, headed
.pn +1 // 237.png
"Abraham Lincoln, the Slave Hound of Illinois," Wendell
Phillips wrote: "We gibbet a Northern hound to-day side
by side with the infamous Mason of Virginia."[#]

.sp 2
ABOLITIONISTS AND SLAVE INSURRECTIONS

Theodore Parker alluding to the Federal judges and
officials in Boston who bore a part in the execution of the
Fugitive Slave Law, addressing the "Spirits of Tyrants"
and apostrophising Cain, Herod, Nero, and Torquemada,
proceeds as follows: "Come up, thou heap of wickedness,
George Jeffreys! Thy hands deep purple with the blood
of thy murdered fellow men!... What! Dost thou
shudder? Thou turn back? These not thy kindred? It
is true, George Jeffreys. And these are not thy kin....
Thou wouldst not send a man into bondage for two pounds.
I will not rank thee with men who in Boston for ten dollars
would enslave a negro now."[#]

Even the patriotic enthusiasm of Longfellow in his "Ode
to the Union," aroused Garrison's ire, who denounced it as
"a eulogy dripping with the blood of imbruted humanity,"
and for the poet's conception of the "Ship of State" he
substituted:

.in 4
.nf l
... "'Perfidious bark!
Built i' th' eclipse and rigged with curses dark.'...
.nf-
.in 2
Destined to go down full many a fathom deep, to the joy
and exultation of all who are yearning for the deliverance
of a groaning world."[#](<i>a</i>)
.in 0

.fs 80%
.in +4
(<i>a</i>): Note: The author has not cited any examples of the terms
employed by the leaders of the Abolitionists in referring to the
Southern people. If Webster were denounced as a "monster"
and Lincoln as a "slave-hound" because, in their devotion to the
Union and their respect for law, they would protect the constitutional
rights of slaveholders, the reader may readily imagine
.pn +1 // 238.png
the denunciations poured upon the citizens of the slaveholding
states. For twenty-five years the people of the South, their
civilization and morality were arraigned by orators and editors,
preachers and poets, dramatists and novelists, in terms without
parallel in polemic literature.
.in
.fs 100%

.sp 2
ABOLITIONISTS APPLAUDED JOHN BROWN

But the Abolitionists did not confine their efforts to
denunciations of the constitution and its defenders, or in
devising schemes for the overthrow of the Union. They
actually secured the enactment by many Northern Legislatures
of so-called Personal Liberty Laws, designed to
nullify the Fugitive Slave Law passed by Congress. In
like manner many of them were the apologists, if not the
instigators, of servile insurrections, of which John Brown's
venture was at once the fell offspring, and the dread sign
of more to follow. William Lloyd Garrison declared that
Brown deserved "to be held in grateful and honorable
remembrance, to the latest posterity, by all those who glory
in the deeds of a Wallace or a Tell, a Washington or a
Warren."[#] Theodore Parker said: "No American has
died in this century whose chance of earthly immortality is
worth half so much as John Brown's."[#] Wendell Phillips
speaking in Plymouth Church declared: "John Brown
violated the law. Yes. On yonder desk lie the inspired
words of men who died violent deaths for breaking the laws
of Rome. Why do you listen to them so reverently?
Huss and Wycliffe violated laws. Why honor them?
George Washington, had he been caught before 1783, would
have died on the gibbet for breaking the laws of his
sovereign."[#]

William Lloyd Garrison, while insisting that he himself
.pn +1 // 239.png
was a "peace man" and opposed to the use of "carnal
weapons," proclaimed: "I am prepared to say, success to
every slave insurrection at the South and in every slave
country,"[#] and Theodore Parker re-affirmed the sentiment
in the declaration: "I should like, of all things, to see
an insurrection of slaves. It must be tried many times
before it succeeds, as at last it must."[#]

.sp 2
ABOLITIONISTS AIDED JOHN BROWN

Wendell Phillips speaking at the grave of John Brown
said: "Insurrection was a harsh, horrid word to millions
a month ago. John Brown went a whole generation beyond
it, claiming the right for white men to help the slave to
freedom by arms. And now men run up and down not disputing
his principles."[#]

Admiral Chadwick in his recent work, <i>The Causes of
the Civil War</i>, thus presents the position of prominent
Abolitionists with respect to servile insurrections and
especially the efforts to precipitate one at Harper's Ferry:

.in +2
"Parker was also one who could say, 'I should like of all
things to see an insurrection of slaves. It must be tried
many times before it succeeds, as at last it must,' an
expression which was the outcome of his own full knowledge
of what was brewing. Of this the others of the Boston
Secret Committee, Stearns, Higginson, Howe, and Sanborn,
as already shown on the authority of the last, also had full
information, as had Gerrit Smith, with the exception, perhaps,
of the exact place at which Brown was to strike.
Brown's funds were supplied by these men, who were
accessories before the fact in the fullest meaning of the
phrase. It is impossible to justify such actions.

"Stearns and his fellows were not martyrs; they did not
.pn +1 // 240.png
risk their lives; they were not in open warfare; they were
simply in secret conspiracy to carry by bolder instruments
throughout the South the horrors of Hayti, still vivid in
the recollection of many then yet living."[#]
.in

.sp 2
THE UNION PROTECTS SLAVEHOLDERS

But the Abolitionists appreciated that it was the Union
and its power that stood as the strongest barrier against
the success of their instigations to servile insurrection, and
held in leash the giant form, Slavery, with its pike and
brand. Long ago Mr. Garrison had said:

.in +2
"What protects the South from instant destruction?
Our physical force. Break the chain which binds her to
the Union and the scenes of St. Domingo would be witnessed
throughout her borders. She may affect to laugh
at this prophecy but she knows her security lies in Northern
bayonets. Nay, she has repeatedly taunted the free
states with being pledged to protect her."[#]
.in

.fm
.fn #
<i>William Lloyd Garrison</i>, by his children, Vol. III,
p. 88.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Idem</i>, p. 100.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Idem</i>, p. 414.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Wendell Phillips</i>, Martin, p. 207.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>History of United States</i>, Schouler, Vol. V, p.
319.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>William Lloyd Garrison</i>, by his children, Vol. III,
p. 457.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Idem</i>, p. 463.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Idem</i>, pp. 456-7.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Idem</i>, p. 412.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Idem</i>, p. 184.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Speeches, Lectures and Letters</i>, Wendell Phillips,
Lee & Shepard, 1892, p. 48.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>William Lloyd Garrison</i>, by his children, Vol. III,
p. 503.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Theodore Parker, A Biography</i>, Frothingham, p.
431.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>William Lloyd Garrison</i>, by his children, Vol. III,
p. 280.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Idem</i>, Vol. III, pp. 489-491.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Theodore Parker, A Biography</i>, Frothingham, p.
463.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Speeches, Lectures and Letters</i>, Wendell Phillips,
Lee & Shepard, 1892, p. 279.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>William Lloyd Garrison</i>, by his children, Vol. III,
p. 489-491.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Theodore Parker, A Biography</i>, Frothingham, p.
475.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Speeches, Lectures and Letters</i>, Wendell Phillips,
Lee & Shepard, 1892, p. 291.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Causes of the Civil War</i>, Chadwick, p. 84.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>William Lloyd Garrison</i>, by his children, Vol. I,
p. 309.
.fn-



.sp 4
.h2 pn=+1 // 241.png
XXXII

.ce
<sc>The Abolitionists and Disunion</sc> (Concluded)

.sp 2
These citations from the deliverances of the great
leaders of the Abolitionists will give some idea of the
motives and methods which pervaded that fellowship.
With tireless insistence they went forward with their labors
for the abolition of slavery and the dissolution of the
Union, the latter being deemed a condition precedent
to the complete accomplishment of the former. Only
the action of South Carolina, which brought the nation
face to face with a practical attempt at disunion, served
to suspend the efforts of the Abolitionists to effect a like
result. This momentous step on the part of South Carolina
was received with exultant satisfaction—William Lloyd
Garrison declaring, "All Union-saving efforts are simply
idiotic. At last 'the covenant with Death' is annulled,
and the 'agreement with Hell' broken, at least by the
action of South Carolina, and ere long by all the slaveholding
states, for their doom is one."[#] And Wendell
Phillips re-echoed the sentiment: "Let the South march
off with flags and trumpets, and we will speed the parting
guest. Let her not stand upon the order of her going,
but go at once: Give her jewels of silver and gold, and
rejoice that she has departed. All hail, Disunion!"[#]

.sp 2
THE UNION THWARTS EFFORTS OF ABOLITIONISTS

Such was the condition of affairs with respect to the
controversy over slavery in Virginia in the fateful winter
.pn +1 // 242.png
of 1860-61. For the maintenance of the institution stood
the constitution and laws of the Union and the pledges
of the Republican Party dominant in their administration.
For the destruction of the institution stood the Abolitionists,
a great fellowship, earnest and aggressive, but
without official power in the National Government and
relying upon disunion or a condition of civil war as the
essential prerequisite to the accomplishment of their
plans.

James G. Blaine wrote:

.in +2
"But for the constant presence of National power and its
constant exercise under the provisions of the constitution,
the South would have no protection against anti-slavery
assaults of the civilized world. Abolitionists from the
very beginning of their energetic crusade against slavery
had seen the constitution standing in their way, and with
the unsparing severity of their logic had denounced it as
'a league with Hell and a covenant with Death.'"[#]
.in

.sp 2
VIEWS OF PROMINENT VIRGINIANS

The people of Virginia in like manner appreciated the
situation. "What madness," wrote Madison, "in the
South to look for greater safety in disunion! It would be
worse than jumping out of the frying pan into the fire.
It would be jumping into the fire from fear of the frying
pan, i.e., Northern meddling with slavery."[#]

Governor McDowell, referring to slavery and disunion,
said:

.in +2
"If gentlemen do not see or feel the evil of slavery
whilst the Federal Union lasts, they will see and feel it
when it is gone; they will see and suffer it then in a magnitude
.pn +1 // 243.png
of desolating power to which 'the pestilence that
walketh in darkness' would be a blessing."
.in

Referring to the protection afforded slavery by the
Federal Constitution, he said:

.in +2
"Withdraw but the protecting energies of that instrument
and be the associations into which we shall be thrown
what they may—whether directed by judgment or caprice—our
distinct character as a slaveholding people will
still be left—we shall still hold a separate and adversary
interest but hold it under circumstances of aggravated
evil, as the existence of it will disqualify us for defense
in the very degree in which it will expose us to foreign
hostility and wrong."[#]
.in

Robert E. Lee, referring to the same subject, wrote,

.in +2
"The South, in my opinion, has been aggrieved by the
acts of the North, as you say. I feel the aggression and
am willing to take every proper step for redress....
But I can anticipate no greater calamity than a dissolution
of the Union. It would be an accumulation of all
the evils we complain of, and I am willing to sacrifice
everything, but honor, for its preservation."[#]
.in

George W. Summers, speaking in the Virginia Convention
of 1861, said:

.in +2
"What has Virginia to gain by secession and separate
action? Nothing on the territorial question but lose
everything. On the fugitive slave question, she could
make no treaties with the North or with England. In
relation to the institution of slavery, which I consider
morally, socially and politically right, she will lose the
.pn +1 // 244.png
present protection and be exposed to border incursions
from a foreign government."[#]
.in

John S. Carlile, speaking in the same convention, said:

.in +2
"I have been a slaveholder from the time I've been able
to buy a slave. I have been a slaveholder not by inheritance
but by purchase; and I believe that slavery is
a social, political and religious blessing.... How long,
if you were to dissolve this Union—if you were to separate
the slaveholding from the non-slaveholding states,
would African slavery have a foothold in this portion of
the land? I venture the assertion that it would not exist
in Virginia five years after the separation; and nowhere
in the Southern States twenty years after. How could
it maintain itself, with the whole civilized world, backed
by what they call their international law, arrayed for
its ultimate extinction with this North, which is now
bound to stand by us and to protect slavery, opposed to
us?... And now, Mr. President! in the name of our
illustrious dead, in the name of all the living, in the name
of millions yet unborn, I protest against this wicked effort
to destroy the fairest and freest government on the earth."[#]
.in

.sp 2
CIVIL WAR WOULD AID EMANCIPATION

It was under the reign of law and with the forces of the
Union as its allies that the institution of slavery could
meet with success, all assaults coming from beyond the
states where it existed. Amid the clash of arms and with
the Federal Government no longer protecting their rights,
slaveholders were most open to successful attack and
slavery most likely to receive its mortal blow.

Wendell Phillips expressed the idea when he declared:

.in +2
"The storm which rocked the vessel of state almost to
foundering snapped forever the chain of the French slave.
.pn +1 // 245.png
Look, too, at the history of the Mexican and South America
emancipation and you will find that it was in every instance,
I think, the child of convulsion. The hour will
come—God hasten it!—when the American people shall
so stand on the deck of their Union—'built i' th' eclipse,
and rigged with curses dark.' If I live to see the hour I
shall say to every slave, 'Strike now for Freedom.'"[#]
.in

.sp 2
SECESSION NOT LOGICAL DEFENSE

It would seem most unreasonable and illogical to suppose
that the people of Virginia turned to secession and civil
war from a selfish desire to safeguard slavery from the
attacks of the Abolitionists. Such a course augmented
rather than lessened the dangers which beset the institution.

If, however, worn out with the assaults upon their
constitutional rights and wounded in their pride by the
fierce arraignments of their character and civilization,
they turned to separation as a means of preserving their
self-respect and as showing a determination to live no
longer in political association with their enemies, then
their action becomes intelligible—whatever may be the
judgment as to the just proportion between the wrongs
complained of and the remedy proposed.

.fm
.fn #
<i>William Lloyd Garrison</i>, by his children, Vol. III,
p. 508.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Thurlow Weed</i>, Barnes, Vol. II, p. 305.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Twenty Years of Congress</i>, Blaine, Vol. I, 176.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Madison to Clay, Private Correspondence of Henry
Clay</i>, Colton, p. 365.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Virginia Slavery Debate</i>, 1832, Speech of James
McDowell, pp. 23-24.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Memoirs of Robert E. Lee</i>, Long, p. 88.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Richmond Dispatch</i>, March 13, 1861.
.fn-

.fn #
See <i>Richmond Enquirer</i>, March 11th, 1861.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Speeches, Lectures and Letters</i>, Wendell Phillips,
Lee & Shepard, 1892, p. 85.
.fn-


.sp 4
.h2 pn=+1 // 246.png
XXXIII

.nf c
<sc>The Emancipation Proclamations and the</sc>
<sc>Virginia People</sc>
.nf-
.sp 2

Our review of the record of the Federal Government
with respect to slavery and the attitude of the Republican
Party, which had just assumed control of its Executive and
Legislative Departments, in regard thereto, is sufficient to
demonstrate that, at the time Virginia seceded, she could
not have been actuated by a selfish desire to defend the
institution against the hostile power of the Nation. There
was no rallying of the people of Virginia to resist a threatened
edict of emancipation because no such proclamation
had ever been suggested. As we shall see, the proclamation
which aroused them to arms was the call of President Lincoln
for seventy-five thousand men to re-establish the
authority of the National Government in the Southern
Confederacy and the demand that Virginia should furnish
her quota of soldiers for the momentous undertaking.
Virginia, denying the right of the Federal Government
to enter upon this policy of armed coercion, withdrew from
the Union along with North Carolina, Tennessee and
Arkansas. On this great issue the battle was joined and
men by the thousands gave their lives to the rival claims
of Home Rule versus National Supremacy. The war thus
precipitated went onward with its terrible fruitage of death
and destruction for nearly a year and a half when President
Lincoln issued his first Proclamation of Emancipation.
Could any change or attempted change, by the Federal
.pn +1 // 247.png
Government, of the motives for the struggle on the part of
the Northern people change the motives which actuated the
people of Virginia and shift for them the gage of battle?
That the proclamations did not in fact convert the contest
on the part of the Southern States from a war waged for
their independence into one for the maintenance of slavery
is manifest from the terms of the proclamations themselves
and the unchanged attitude of the Southern people. The
first proclamation threatened the emancipation of the
slaves in states, or portions of states, which might still be
found in arms against the Union one hundred days thereafter,
and exempted from emancipation slaves in states
and portions of states which would surrender their battle
for independence. Had the Federal Government offered
to accord the Southern States their independence provided
they would abolish slavery then their rejection of
such an offer and their continuance to do battle might have
rendered them liable to the charge of fighting to maintain
the institution. But the offer and threat presented just
the other alternative and were alike unavailing to stop the
struggle on the part of the Southern people. To quote
the language of Mr. Lincoln:

.in +2
"After the commencement of hostilities, I struggled
nearly a year and a half to get along without touching the
institution, and when finally I conditionally determined
to touch it, I gave a hundred days fair notice of my purpose
to all the states and people within which time they could
have turned it wholly aside by simply again becoming good
citizens of the United States."[#]
.in

.sp 2
EFFECTS OF PROCLAMATIONS

In neither portion of Virginia—that in which emancipation
.pn +1 // 248.png
was decreed nor that in which slavery was to remain
unaffected(<i>a</i>) did President Lincoln's proclamations produce
any change in the attitude of her people and this was
so because, as they protested, slavery was neither the
interest nor the issue which had impelled them to draw the
sword.

.fs 80%
.in +4
(<i>a</i>) Note: The reader will recall that the proclamation did not
emancipate the slaves in "the Counties of Berkeley, Accomac,
Northampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Anne and Norfolk,
including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth," nor those in the
States of Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri,
Tennessee and portions of Louisiana.
.in
.fs 100%

.sp 2
CONDITIONS WHICH PRECIPITATED WAR

We would not, however, be understood as maintaining
that slavery did not constitute the most potential factor
in developing the conditions which finally precipitated the
Civil War. The acrimonious discussions of thirty years,
the conflicts over legislation, state and Federal, the criminations
and recriminations from pulpit, press and platform,
found at length their baneful fruit in the destruction of
tolerance, confidence and fraternity between the people
of the two great sections. With hearts dissevered, the
bonds of union were strained to the utmost, and when at
length a sectional propaganda inaugurated by one great
element of the Northern people scored a triumph at the
polls, the people of the Cotton States sought in secession
release from a political association which they regarded as
repugnant to their feelings and subversive of their rights.
But upon the issues thus made up Virginia refused to
secede. It was after the secession of the Cotton States that
the people of Virginia at their election February 4th, 1861,
by a great majority still declared for union. Other and
more fundamental causes for secession and conflict had to
arise before Virginia could be driven to abandon the Union.
.pn +1 // 249.png

Nor would we seek to maintain that an unconstitutional
assault by the Federal Government or the Northern States
upon the institution of slavery in Virginia would not have
provoked and justified resistance. Such resistance, however,
could not fairly be imputed to a sordid and selfish
desire to protect the institution. To repel invasion of
constitutional rights is the highest duty of a free people.
It is the right and principle involved, and not the incident
or interest which occasioned the invasion, that determines
the motive and character of the resistance.

John Hampden and his compatriots resisted with arms
what they regarded as the unconstitutional effort of their
Sovereign to collect the "Ship Money" and yet it would be a
most superficial and untruthful conception of their position
to declare that they fought for the sum involved in the
King's attempt. In the language of Edmund Burke in his
great speech on taxing the American Colonies, "Would
twenty shillings have ruined Mr. Hampden's fortune?
No! But the payment of half twenty shillings on the
principle it was demanded would have made him a slave."

.fm
.fn #
Letter of Lincoln to General McClernand, January
8<i>th</i>, 1863. <i>Abraham Lincoln, Speeches, Letters and State
Papers</i>, N. & H., Vol. II, p. 296.
.fn-

.pb

.sp 4
.h2
<i>PART III</i>
.sp 2

.nf c
VIRGINIA DID NOT SECEDE FROM A WANTON
DESIRE TO DESTROY THE UNION OR
FROM HOSTILITY TO THE IDEALS
OF ITS FOUNDERS
.nf-

.pb

.sp 4

.h2 pn=+4 // 253.png
XXXIV

.ce
<sc>Virginia's Part in the Revolution</sc>

.sp 2
In considering the question whether Virginia, in transferring
her allegiance to the Southern Confederacy, was
animated by a wanton desire to destroy the Union and
defeat the ideals of its founders, it will assist to a more
accurate conclusion if we review her part in the making of
the Republic and the spirit which moved her people in the
day of separation. If she had been conspicuous in the
work of establishing the Union and in promoting its growth
and glory, then it were more reasonable to ascribe her
desire to terminate the association to convictions of duty
than to motives capricious or selfish in their origin. If in
the day of sectional strife, she pleaded for union and
reconciliation, then her presence in the battle which followed
was more justly attributed to the inexorable logic
of events than to causes of her own initiation.

It is well within the bounds of historic truth to say that
Virginia had been pre-eminent among her sister states in
fixing the ideals and founding the Republic; that, with
unsurpassed devotion, she had contributed of men and
treasure to promote its growth and enhance its glory; and
that amid the strife and conflicts which preceded the Civil
War, she stood a mediator between the hostile sections and
an unwearied advocate of reconciliation and peace.

.sp 2
RESISTANCE TO STAMP TAX

In 1764, when the liberties of the American people were
menaced by a Stamp Tax, Virginia was among the first of
the colonies to memorialize the King in opposition, and the
.pn +1 // 254.png
only one to address to the House of Commons a remonstrance
against the right of that body to enact such legislation.[#]

The Stamp Act caused great opposition throughout
America. "But," says John Fiske, "formal defiance came
first from Virginia."[#] "The Assembly of Virginia," says
J. R. Green, "was the first to formally deny the right of the
British Parliament to meddle with internal taxation and to
demand the repeal of the act."[#]

In 1765, her House of Burgesses, under the leadership
of Patrick Henry, adopted her celebrated resolutions
against the Stamp Tax. Only less important than the
resolutions themselves was the thrilling arraignment of
British usurpation and assaults upon the liberties of
America with which the great orator aroused his countrymen.
"Thus," says Mr. Bancroft, "Virginia rang the
alarm bell for the continent."

.sp 2
CO-OPERATION BETWEEN THE COLONIES

In 1768, Virginia applauded Massachusetts for her stand;
re-affirmed the position that Parliament had no right to
tax the colonies; and directed that these resolutions of
her House of Burgesses be communicated to all the colonies
with the insistence that they should unite in opposition
to every attempt of Great Britain to levy taxes upon the
American people.

In 1769, her House of Burgesses again asserted its
position in a series of resolutions which Mr. Bancroft
declares were "so calm in manner and so perfect in substance
that time finds no omission to regret, no improvement
to suggest. The menace of arresting patriots lost
its terror and Virginia's declaration and action consolidated
.pn +1 // 255.png
union."[#] Though dissolved by the Royal Governor
because of this action, the members of the body immediately
assembled, and under the leadership of Washington,
an agreement was entered into providing against the
importation of goods from Great Britain until all unconstitutional
acts should be repealed.

Resistance to British tyranny continuing unabated, a
yearning for union sprang up among all the colonies.
"Whether that great idea," says Mr. Bancroft, "should
become a reality, rested on Virginia."[#] Her House of
Burgesses assembled in March, 1773, when, under the
leadership of Dabney Carr, Richard Henry Lee, and
Patrick Henry, resolutions were adopted providing for a
system of inter-colonial committees of correspondence.
"Carr's plan," says Mr. Bancroft, "included a thorough
union council throughout the land. If it should succeed
and be adopted by the other colonies, America would
stand before the world as a confederacy." Copies of
these resolutions were sent to every colony, with the
request that each would appoint a committee to communicate
from time to time with that of Virginia. "In
this manner," says Mr. Bancroft, "Virginia laid the foundation
of our Union."[#]

In May, 1774, the Virginia House of Burgesses by a
resolution called upon their fellow-citizens to set apart
the day on which the act closing the port of Boston was to
take effect:

.in +2
"As a day of fasting and prayer, devoutly to implore
the divine interposition for averting the dreadful calamity
.pn +1 // 256.png
which threatened destruction to their civil rights and the
evils of a civil war, and to give to the American people
one heart and one mind firmly to oppose, by all just and
proper means, every injury to American rights."
.in

Upon the adoption of this resolution, the Royal Governor
dissolved the Assembly, but the members immediately
met and resolved "that an attack made on one of our
sister colonies to compel submission to arbitrary taxes is
an attack made on all British America, and threatens ruin to
the rights of all unless the united wisdom of the whole be
applied."[#] These sentiments of fraternity and union
were re-echoed in the words of Washington: "I will raise
one thousand men, subsist them at my own expense, and
march at their head for the relief of Boston," a declaration
soon followed by the march of Virginians under Daniel
Morgan to the succor of that besieged city.

.sp 2
THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS

Largely as a result of the committees of correspondence
created under the Virginia resolutions, the Continental
Congress assembled in Philadelphia in September, 1774.
Virginia gave to that body its first president, in the person
of Peyton Randolph, while Patrick Henry fired the hearts
of its members with the spirit of nationalism by the declaration:
"British oppression has effaced the boundaries of
the several colonies. The distinctions between Virginians,
Pennsylvanians, New Yorkers and New Englanders are
no more. I am not a Virginian, but an American."

Thus was launched the Revolution—a movement in
which, Mr. Bancroft declares: "Virginia rose with as much
unanimity as Connecticut or Massachusetts, and with
more commanding resolution."[#]

It was Virginia that first, by formal resolution of her
.pn +1 // 257.png
Constitutional Convention, called on the Continental
Congress to declare the colonies "free and independent
states," absolved from all allegiance to the British crown.
Richard Henry Lee submitted the motion to the Congress,
and following its adoption, Thomas Jefferson wrote the
Declaration of Independence. In the war which followed,
Washington commanded the armies of the Revolution
and by his incomparable qualities of leadership brought
success to the cause.

.sp 2
VIRGINIA AND THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY

While bearing her part in maintaining the cause of
the colonies in their struggle with the Mother Country,
Virginia commissioned and equipped the expedition
which under the leadership of her son, George Rogers
Clark, conquered the empire of the northwest, an achievement
the very romance of daring and valor. Even more
important to the cause of union than the conquest was
Virginia's action in dedicating the territory to the new
confederation, thus cementing the ties and interests of
the separate colonies in a vast domain, the common
property of the whole.

.fm
.fn #
<i>History of the United States</i>, Bancroft, Vol. III,
p. 93.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>The American Revolution</i>, Fiske, Vol. I, p. 18.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>A Short History of the English People</i>, J. R. Green,
1883, p. 35.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>History of United States</i>, Bancroft, Vol. III, p.
347.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>History of United States</i>, Bancroft, Vol. III, p.
436.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Idem</i>, p. 437.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Idem</i>, Vol. IV, p. 17.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>History of United States</i>, Bancroft, Vol. IV, p.
413.
.fn-


.sp 4
.h2 pn=+1 // 258.png
XXXV

.nf c
<sc>Virginia's Part in Making the Union under the</sc>
<sc>Constitution</sc>
.nf-
.sp 2

When the Revolution had finally triumphed in the battle
fought out on her soil, Virginia statesmen were the first to
realize the infirmities of the existing government and the
need of a system more National in its ideals and powers.

.sp 2
EFFORTS TO STRENGTHEN UNION

In 1786, her General Assembly adopted resolutions calling
for a meeting of representatives from all the states
to prepare such amendments to the Articles of Confederation
as would enlarge the powers of Congress over commerce,—foreign
and domestic. A delegation, with James
Madison at its head, was appointed and the first Monday
in September, 1786, fixed as the time, and Annapolis as
the place, for the assembling of the convention. Representatives
from only five states responded to Virginia's
appeal, but they issued an address calling for a convention
to assemble in Philadelphia on the second Monday in
May, 1787, to devise such provisions as would "render the
constitution of the Federal Government adequate to the
exigencies of the Union." Despite the imminence of the
dangers which threatened the country, and the manifest
need of a stronger union, the Continental Congress at
first refused its sanction to the movement; the Governor
of New York denied the need of any action; and the
Legislature of Massachusetts formally declined to appoint
delegates to the convention.[#]
.pn +1 // 259.png

.in +2
"From this state of despair," says Mr. Bancroft, "the
country was lifted by Madison and Virginia. The recommendation
of a plenipotentiary convention was well
received by the Assembly of Virginia.... On the
motion of Madison the Assembly gave its unanimous
sanction to the recommendation from Annapolis."[#]
.in

Continuing, Mr. Bancroft says: "We come now upon the
week glorious for Virginia beyond any event in its annals
or in the history of any former republic."[#] Without a
dissenting voice, the General Assembly adopted a memorial
approving the plan for the Philadelphia Convention, the
spirit and purpose of which will appear from the following
extract:

.in +2
"The General Assembly of this commonwealth, taking
into view the situation of the confederacy as well as
reflecting on the alarming representations made from
time to time by the United States in Congress, particularly
in their act of the 15th day of February last, can no longer
doubt that the crisis is arrived at which the people of
America are to decide the solemn question whether they
will by wise and magnanimous efforts reap the fruits of
independence and of union, or whether by giving way to
unmanly jealousies and prejudices or to partial and transitory
interests they will renounce the blessings prepared
for them by the Revolution. The same noble and extended
policy, and the same fraternal and affectionate
sentiments which originally determined the citizens of
this commonwealth to unite with their brethren of the
other states in establishing a Federal Government cannot
but be felt with equal force now as motives to lay aside
every inferior consideration, and to concur in such further
concessions and provisions as may be necessary to secure
the objects for which that Government was instituted,
.pn +1 // 260.png
and render the United States as happy in peace as they
have been glorious in war."[#]
.in

.sp 2
WORK OF PHILADELPHIA CONVENTION

Following the adoption of the foregoing resolution,
Virginia commissioned a delegation of her foremost men
to represent her at Philadelphia; among them, George
Washington, James Madison, George Mason, George
Wythe, and Edmund Randolph. Under such inspiring
leadership, opposition was allayed, and in the convention
which followed, representatives finally gathered from every
state except Rhode Island.

Over this convention, George Washington was called to
preside. Hesitancy and weakness were banished by his
words:

.in +2
"It is too probable that no plan we propose will be
adopted. Perhaps another dreadful conflict is to be sustained.
If, to please the people, we are for what we ourselves
disapprove, how can we afterward defend our
work? Let us raise a standard to which the wise and
honest can repair; the event is in the hand of God."[#]
.in

To the convention, Edmund Randolph, then Governor
of the commonwealth, presented the "Virginia Plan,"
which, though amended in many important particulars,
was the basis of our present constitution. The scheme
of government offered by Governor Randolph was the
work of James Madison, and because of his authorship
and his great labors in connection with its final preparation
and adoption by the several states, he earned the
high appellation of "Father of the Constitution."

.in +2
"The great mind of Madison," says John Fiske, "was
one of the first to entertain distinctly the noble conception
.pn +1 // 261.png
of two kinds of government, operating at one and the
same time, upon the same individuals, harmonious with
each other, but each supreme in its own sphere. Such
is the fundamental conception of our partly Federal,
partly National Government, which appears throughout
the Virginia Plan, as well as in the constitution which
grew out of it."[#]
.in

.sp 2
ACHIEVEMENTS UNDER VIRGINIANS

Upon the adoption of the constitution and the creation
of the office of President, George Washington was called
to the discharge of its novel and important duties, and
under his leadership, the Republic successfully met the
difficulties and dangers of its new career.

Only less important to the National life than the administration
of Washington, was that of Jefferson who demonstrated
by his rule that the ideals of liberty were not
incompatible with the reign of law. Under his leadership
the empire of Louisiana extending from the Gulf to the
Canadian line was acquired, and the muniments of our
title established by the explorations of Meriwether Lewis
and William Clark, two more of Virginia's sons.

Under President Madison, the second war with Great
Britain was fought, which established the independence
of America upon the seas. Under President Monroe, the
territory of the Floridas was acquired, and the Doctrine
promulgated under which two continents were dedicated to
democratic development unawed by the governments of
the Old World.

Virginia gave to the Union John Marshall, "second to
none among the most illustrious jurists of the English race,"
according to John Fiske. For thirty-five years, the great
Chief Justice presided over the Supreme Court, and by his
decisions performed a work of incomparable importance in
.pn +1 // 262.png
establishing the position and power of that tribunal, and
in welding in more indissoluble bonds the Union itself.

Under President Tyler, the empire of Texas was brought
into the Union. Scott and Taylor led the armies of the
Republic in the war with Mexico, while associated with
them was a brilliant group of younger Virginians,—Lee,
Jackson, Johnston, Thomas, and others who, by their
bravery and leadership, added fresh lustre to American
arms.

Where shall we look for the ideals of the Republic if not
to the Declaration of Independence, the Ordinance of 1787,
and the Constitution, great canons of liberty and union—with
which the names of Virginia statesmen are pre-eminently
associated? To these may be added Virginia's
epoch-making Statute for Religious Freedom and her Bill
of Rights, which latter is declared by Mr. Bancroft to be,
"the groundwork of American institutions."[#]

.sp 2
VIRGINIA'S DEVOTION TO THE UNION

While many of her sister states had surpassed Virginia
in contributions to art, literature, and science, in commercial
and industrial development, her triumphs had been
in the realm of statecraft and jurisprudence, on the field
of battle, and amid the dangers of the frontier. The
achievements of her statesmen, jurists, soldiers and pioneers
marked the measure of her pride and the summit of her
fame. The making of the Union, maintaining its ideals,
and extending its limits, were the noblest monuments of
their labors. By statues and memorials, by song and
story, by the lawmaker's work and the orator's appeal,
Virginians of every generation were stimulated to revere
the principles and safeguard the achievements of these
illustrious men.
.pn +1 // 263.png

With such a past, and with such a part in making the
Union, will it be supposed that the Virginians of 1861
pressed forward with wanton hands to destroy the fabric
of the Republic and thwart the ideals of its founders?
May we not believe that the true sentiments of the dominant
element of the state were voiced in the words of John
Janney, who, on assuming the Presidency of the Virginia
Convention, in 1861, said:

.in +2
"Causes which have passed, and are daily passing
into history, which will set its seal upon them, but which
I do not mean to review, have brought the constitution
and the Union into imminent peril, and Virginia has come
to the rescue. It is what the whole country expected of
her—her pride as well as her patriotism, her interest as
well as her honor, called upon her with an emphasis she
could not disregard to save the monuments of her own
glory."[#]
.in

.fm
.fn #
<i>History of United States</i>, Bancroft, Vol. VI, p.
196.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Idem</i>, p. 197.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>History of United States</i>, Bancroft, Vol. IV, p.
197.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Idem</i>, p. 198.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>History of United States</i>, Bancroft, Vol. IV, p.
210.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Critical Period of American History</i>, Fiske, p.
239.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>History of United States</i>, Bancroft, Vol. IV, p.
416.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Journal of Virginia Convention of 1861</i>, p. 8.
.fn-


.sp 4
.h2 pn=+1 // 264.png
XXXVI

.ce
<sc>Efforts to Promote Reconciliation and Union</sc>

.sp 2

As Virginia had borne a conspicuous part in founding
the Union, so, when civil dissensions arose and its integrity
was threatened, she was foremost in mediation. At no
time were her efforts more earnest than in the troublous
days of 1860-61. James Ford Rhodes says: "Virginia,
whose share in forming the Union had been greater than
that of any other one state, was loath to see that great work
shattered, and now made a supreme effort to save it."[#]

Following the announcement of Mr. Lincoln's election,
South Carolina seceded and in all the other Cotton States
the manifestations of popular sentiment foreshadowed like
action. The people of Virginia, though profoundly moved
by the considerations which influenced their brethren of
the far South, were yet opposed to secession, and proceeded
to put forth every effort to avert war, and bring back the
Cotton States to their former allegiance.

.sp 2
GOVERNOR LETCHER'S MESSAGE, 1861

On the 7th of January, 1861, her General Assembly was
called in extra session. Governor Letcher's message set
forth the dangers and problems which confronted the state
and nation. "The condition of our country at this time,"
he declared, "excites the most serious fears for the perpetuation
of the Union.... Surely no people have been
blessed as we have been, and it is melancholy to think that
all is now about to be sacrificed on the Altar of Passion.
If the judgments of men were consulted, if the admonitions
.pn +1 // 265.png
of their consciences were respected, the Union would yet
be saved from overthrow."

While thus expressing devotion to the Union, he yet proclaimed
his belief in the legal right of secession. He
deplored the precipitate action of South Carolina, declaring
that in a movement "involving consequences so serious to
all the slaveholding states, no one state should have ventured
to move without first having given timely notice to
the others of her purpose." He reviewed at length the
action of that great element of the Northern people, which,
for years, had been unceasing in their assaults upon the
constitutional rights of the South on the questions growing
out of the existence of slavery. He alluded to the recent
messages of the Governors of South Carolina and Mississippi
in which the Border States were referred to in no over-friendly
terms, and with suggestions of legislative enactments
hostile to their interests. "While disavowing," he
declared, "any unkind feeling toward South Carolina and
Mississippi, I must still say that I will resist the coercion of
Virginia in the adoption of a line of policy whenever the
attempt is made by Northern or Southern States." He
expressed his opposition to the plan for calling a state convention
at that time, suggesting that instead the General
Assembly should appoint commissioners to visit the Legislatures
of such Northern States as had passed laws repugnant
to the Federal Constitution, and respectfully urge their
immediate repeal; and that in like manner commissioners
be sent to the Legislatures of the slaveholding states to
ascertain the extent and character of their demands and
the action deemed necessary for the protection of their
rights and interests.[#]

.sp 2
.pn +1 // 266.png

ACTION OF VIRGINIA LEGISLATURE, 1861

The General Assembly thereupon adopted a series of
resolutions inviting all such states of the Union "as are
willing to unite with Virginia in an earnest effort to adjust
the present unhappy controversies ... to appoint commissioners
to meet on the fourth day of February next, in
the City of Washington, similar commissioners appointed
by Virginia." The resolutions also provided for the
immediate appointment of Ex-President John Tyler as a
Commissioner to the President of the United States, and
Judge John Robertson as a Commissioner to the State of
South Carolina and to any other state that had seceded or
might secede, to urge upon them to abstain from any and
all acts calculated to produce a collision of arms between
such states and the government of the United States, pending
the proceedings contemplated by the General Assembly
of Virginia.

Ex-President John Tyler, William C. Rives, Judge John
W. Brokenbrough, George W. Summers and James A. Seddon
were appointed Commissioners from Virginia to the
Washington Conference—which became known in history as
the Peace Conference.

The sentiments which prompted this movement are
doubtless truly expressed in the preamble to the resolutions
which declares:

.in +2
"Whereas, it is the deliberate opinion of the General
Assembly of Virginia that unless the unhappy controversy
which now divides the states of this Confederacy shall be
satisfactorily adjusted, a permanent dissolution of the
Union is inevitable, and the General Assembly is desirous
of employing every reasonable means to avert so dire a
calamity," etc.
.in

Both Houses of the General Assembly, however, adopted
by practically unanimous votes resolutions declaring that
.pn +1 // 267.png
the Union, having been formed by the consent of the states,
it was repugnant to Republican institutions to maintain it
by force; that the government of the Union had no right
to make war upon "any of the states which had been its
constituent members"; and that with respect to states
which have withdrawn or may withdraw from the Union,
"we are unalterably opposed to any attempt on the part
of the Federal Government to coerce the same into reunion
or submission and that we will resist the same by all
means in our power."[#]

.sp 2
THE PEACE CONFERENCE AT WASHINGTON

To the call of Virginia, twenty states responded; and
their representatives met on the 4th day of February,
1861, in the City of Washington. It was a notable gathering.
Among the prominent members were William P.
Fessenden and Lot M. Morrill, of Maine; George S. Boutwell
and Charles Allen, of Massachusetts; David Dudley
Field, Erastus Corning, William E. Dodge and General
John E. Wool, of New York; Robert F. Stockton and
Frederick T. Frelinghuysen, of New Jersey; David Wilmot
and A. W. Loomis of Pennsylvania; Reverdy Johnson, of
Maryland; Thomas Ruffin and J. M. Morehead, of North
Carolina; James Guthrie and Charles A. Wicliffe, of Kentucky;
Salmon P. Chase, William S. Groesbeck and Thomas
Ewing, of Ohio; Caleb B. Smith, of Indiana, and James
Harlan, of Iowa.

Mr. Rhodes says: "The historical significance of the
Peace Convention consists in the evidence it affords of the
attachment of the Border Slave States to the Union."[#]

.sp 2
.pn +1 // 268.png
VIEWS OF TYLER AND RIVES

Some evidence of the spirit which animated the people
of Virginia may be gathered from the speeches of her
delegates. John Tyler, on assuming the Presidency of
the body, spoke in part as follows:

.in +2
"The voice of Virginia has invited her co-states to meet
her in council. In the initiation of this Government
that same voice was heard and complied with, and the
resulting seventy-odd years have fully attested the wisdom
of the decision then adopted. Is the urgency of her call
less great than it was then? Our God-like fathers created!
We have to preserve. They have built up through their
wisdom and patriotism monuments which have eternized
their names. You have before you, gentlemen, a task
equally grand, equally sublime, quite as full of glory and
immortality; you have to snatch from ruin a grand and
glorious Confederation, to preserve the Government and
to renew and invigorate the constitution. If you reach
the height of this great occasion your children's children
will rise up and call you blessed."[#]
.in

In the course of one of his speeches, Ex-Senator Rives
said:

.in +2
"Mr. President, the position of Virginia must be understood
and appreciated. She is just now the neutral
ground between two embattled legions—between two
angry, excited and hostile portions of the Union. Something
must be done to save the country, to allay these
apprehensions, to restore a broken confidence. Virginia
steps in to arrest the progress of the country on its way
to ruin.... Sir, I have had some experience in revolutions
in another hemisphere, in revolutions produced by
the same causes that are now operating among us....
I have seen the pavements of Paris covered and the gutters
running with fraternal blood. God forbid I should see
.pn +1 // 269.png
this horrid picture repeated in my own country—and yet
it will be, sir! if we listen to the counsel urged here."[#]
.in

George W. Summers, another of the Virginia delegates,
opened his speech to the conference in these words:

.in +2
"Mr. President! my heart is full! I cannot approach
the great issues with which we are dealing, with becoming
coolness and deliberation! Sir! I love this Union.
The man does not live who entertains a higher respect for
this government than I do. I know its history—I know
how it was established. There is not an incident in its
history that is not precious to me. I do not wish to survive
its dissolution."[#]
.in

.sp 2
OPPOSITION TO PEACE CONFERENCE

In contrast to these pathetic appeals of Virginia's representatives
were expressions coming from many of her
sister states North and South. None of the seven Cotton
States sent delegates to the convention. South Carolina
declared that "the separation of that state was final and
that she had no further interest in the constitution of the
United States."[#]

The well-known letter of Senator Zachariah Chandler, of
Michigan, written from Washington during the session of
the convention to the Governor of his state, is representative
of the spirit which dominated one element of the
Northern people.

.in +2

.ti 20
Washington, February 11, 1861.

<i>My dear Governor:</i>

Governor Bingham and myself telegraphed you on
Saturday, at the request of Massachusetts and New York,
to send delegates to the Peace, or Compromise Congress.
They admit that we were right and that they were wrong;
.pn +1 // 270.png
that no Republican state should have sent delegates; but
they are here and cannot get away. Ohio, Indiana, Rhode
Island are caving in and there is danger of Illinois; and
now they beg us, for God's sake, to come to their rescue
and save the Republican Party from rupture. The whole
thing was gotten up against my judgment and advice and
will end in thin smoke. Still, I hope as a matter of courtesy
to some of our erring brethren that you will send the
delegates.

.ti 20
Truly your friend,
.rj
<sc>Z. Chandler</sc>.

His Excellency, Austin Blair.

P. S. Some of the manufacturing states think that a
fight would be awful. Without a little blood-letting this
Union will not, in my estimation, be worth a rush."[#]
.in

The fact that the deliberations of the Peace Conference
proved unavailing to arrest the movement towards disunion
and civil war is no indication that the motives
which impelled the people of Virginia to call their countrymen
to council were not those of the highest patriotism.

.fm
.fn #
<i>History of United States</i>, Rhodes, Vol. III, p.
290.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Journal of Virginia House of Delegates</i>, Extra
Session, 1861, Document No. 1.
.fn-

.fn #
These resolutions were adopted in the House of
Delegates by a vote of one hundred and twelve ayes to five noes.
See <i>Journal Virginia House of Delegates</i>, Extra Session, 1861, p.
10. In the Senate only one vote was recorded against their
adoption.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>History of United States</i>, Rhodes, Vol. III, p.
307.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Proceedings of Peace Convention</i>, Crittenden, p.
14.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Proceedings of Peace Convention</i>, Crittenden, p.
135.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Idem</i>, p. 15.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Causes of Civil War</i>, Chadwick, p. 270.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Proceedings of Peace Convention</i>, 1861, p. 468,
Crittenden.
.fn-


.sp 4
.h2 pn=+1 // 271.png
XXXVII

.ce
<sc>The People of Virginia Declare for Union</sc>

.sp 2
The General Assembly which issued the call for the
Peace Conference also adopted a joint resolution providing
for a convention in Virginia to take under consideration
the problems and dangers of the hour. By the terms of
this act, the people of Virginia were to select delegates to
the convention, and were to declare by a separate vote
whether the action of that body should be binding upon
the commonwealth, or whether it should be referred back
to them for ratification or rejection.

.sp 2
UNION VICTORY IN VIRGINIA

Under this call, the people of Virginia repaired to the
polls on the 4th of February, 1861. Seldom, if ever, in
her history had they been summoned to an election so
fraught with importance to the state and the Union.
The seven Cotton States had already seceded, and in not
one where the question had been formally acted upon
had there been a decision against secession. Only two
days before, February 2d, the great State of Texas had
withdrawn from the Union. Had Virginia at that critical
moment declared for a like policy, it is almost certain
that the remaining Southern States would have followed
her example. In such an event, President Lincoln would
on the day of his inauguration have found the Capital of
the Union encompassed by the States of Virginia and
Maryland, both members of the new Confederation.

With results so important and far reaching to the Union
dependent upon her action, the election in Virginia was
.pn +1 // 272.png
held. Opposing candidates presented themselves for the
suffrages of the people in each of the one hundred and
fifty-two districts; unconditional Secessionists, unconditional
Union men and men opposed to secession and favorable
to the Union, provided the authorities of the latter
did not resort to force to bring back the states which had
seceded. From the Ohio River to the sea, from North
Carolina to the Pennsylvania line, the people of the commonwealth
were stirred by the fervor of the campaign
and the magnitude of the issues upon which they were
called to pass.

The returns from the ballot box showed that a large
majority of the delegates elected were opposed to Virginia's
secession, and by a vote of 100,536 to 45,161, the people
commanded that the findings of the Convention should
be submitted to them for ratification or rejection.

.sp 2
EFFECTS OF UNION VICTORY IN VIRGINIA

The result of this election was not only of the greatest
importance to the Union, but it was a formal declaration
to the world that Virginia, on the issues as then made up,
refused to secede.

.in +2
"Thus be it always remembered," says Charles Francis
Adams, "Virginia did not take its place in the secession
movement because of the election of an anti-slavery
President. It did not raise its hand against the National
Government from mere love of any peculiar institution,
or a wish to protect or perpetuate it. It refused to be
precipitated into a civil convulsion; and its refusal was
of vital moment. The ground of Virginia's final action
was of wholly another nature, and of a nature far more
creditable."[#]
.in

The importance of Virginia's position was well appreciated,
both by the friends of the Union and by the
.pn +1 // 273.png
advocates of secession. On the day before the election,
William H. Seward wrote from Washington: "The election
to-morrow probably determines whether all the slave
states will take the attitude of disunion. Everybody
around me thinks that that will make the separation
irretrievable and involve us in a flagrant civil war. Practically
everybody will despair." A day or two later, he
wrote that the result of the Virginia election had come
"like a gleam of sunshine in a storm," and that "at least
the danger of conflict, here or elsewhere, before the 4th
of March has been averted."[#]

Charles Francis Adams has placed upon record the
impressions of the hour.

.in +2
"Though over forty years ago, I well remember that
day—gray, overcast, wintry—which succeeded the Virginia
election. Then living in Boston, a young man of
twenty-five, I shared—as who did not—in the common
deep depression and intense anxiety."
.in

After describing the first receipt of news from the
election, Mr. Adams adds: "Virginia, speaking against
secession, had emitted no uncertain sound. It was as if
a weight had been taken off the mind of every one. The
tide seemed turned at last."[#]

James Ford Rhodes says:

.in +2
"The election in Virginia for members of her State
Convention had much significance. The one hundred and
fifty-two delegates chosen were, with substantial correctness,
classed as thirty so-called Secessionists, twenty
Douglas men and one hundred and two Whigs, which
proves, asserted the <i>Richmond Whig</i>, a journal which
.pn +1 // 274.png
argued strenuously for delay, that 'the Conservative
victory in Virginia is perfectly overwhelming,' the precipitators
having sustained 'a Waterloo defeat.'"[#]
.in

.sp 2
LEADERS IN VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1861

The Convention assembled the 13th of February, and
the friends of the Union elected to its presidency the
venerable John Janney. The spirit and purpose of this
dominant element may be gathered from a few extracts
in the speech of President Janney, on assuming his position:

.in +2
"It is now seventy-three years since a convention of
the people of Virginia was assembled in this hall to ratify
the constitution of the United States, one of the chief
objects of which was to consolidate—not the government
but the union of the states. Causes which have passed,
and are daily passing, into history which will set its seal
upon them, but which I do not mean to review, have
brought the constitution and the Union into imminent
peril, and Virginia has come to the rescue. It is what the
whole country expected of her. Her pride, as well as her
patriotism; her interest, as well as her honor, called upon
her with an emphasis she could not disregard, to save
the monuments of her own glory....

"Gentlemen, there is a flag which for nearly a century
has been borne in triumph through the battle and the
breeze and which now floats over this Capitol, on which
there is a star representing this ancient commonwealth,
and my earnest prayer, in which I know every member
of this body will cordially unite, is that it may remain
there forever, provided always that its lustre is untarnished....
Is it too much to hope that we, and others
who are engaged in the work of peace and conciliation,
may so solve the problems which now perplex us as to win
back our sisters of the South, who, for what they deem
sufficient cause, have wandered from their old orbits?"[#]
.in
.pn +1 // 275.png

From the day of its opening session down to the 17th of
April, the advocates of secession and union confronted
each other in debate. Prominent among the Secessionists
were Robert L. Montague, Lewis E. Harvie, James P. Holcombe,
John Goode and Jeremiah Morton. To this
number should be added Ex-President John Tyler, who,
upon the failure of the Peace Conference to accomplish
its mission, advocated the secession of Virginia.

Foremost among the Union men were John B. Baldwin,
George W. Summers, Jubal A. Early, Alexander H. H.
Stuart, John S. Carlile, Williams C. Wickham, and the
President, John Janney. Among other prominent members
of the Convention were William Ballard Preston, Henry A.
Wise, Robert Y. Conrad, James C. Bruce, Eppa Hunton,
Robert E. Scott, Allen T. Caperton, John Echols, Waitman
T. Willey, George W. Randolph and William L. Goggin.

.sp 2
QUESTION OF COERCING COTTON STATES

The most potent factor in determining the action of the
Convention would be the policy of the incoming Federal
administration with respect to the states which had
seceded. While a large majority of the Virginia people
at the recent election had declared against the secession
of their state, yet the organization of the Southern Confederacy
had precipitated a problem of extreme delicacy
and danger. What would be the attitude of the Federal
Government towards these states? If negotiations for
their return proved unavailing, would they be permitted
to enjoy in peace their new-found independence, or would
the Federal Government seek to establish its supremacy
over them by force of arms?

Charles Francis Adams alluding to the crisis, says: "So
now the issue shifted. It became a question not of slavery,
or of the wisdom, or even the expediency of secession,
but of the right of the National Government to coerce a
.pn +1 // 276.png
sovereign state. This, at the time, was well understood."[#]

No one acquainted with the historic position of Virginia
could doubt what her action would be if called to decide
for or against coercion. Would the alternative be presented?
President Buchanan, while denying the constitutional
right of secession, had submitted to Congress
the problem of dealing with the states which had seceded
and Congress had taken no action. What would be
President Lincoln's position? To his forthcoming inaugural
address, the country looked for a definite declaration
of his policy and by that declaration the course of
Virginia would be determined.

.fm
.fn #
<i>Lee at Appomattox and other Papers</i>, Adams, p. 403.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Lee at Appomattox and Other Papers</i>, Adams, p. 403.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Idem</i>, p. 402.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>History of United States</i>, Rhodes, Vol. III, p.
309.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Journal of Virginia Convention</i>, 1861, p. 8.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Lee at Appomattox and Other Papers</i>, Adams, p. 404.
.fn-
.pb

.sp 4
.h2
<i>PART IV</i>

.sp 2

.nf c
THE ATTEMPT OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
TO COERCE THE COTTON STATES—THE
PROXIMATE CAUSE OF VIRGINIA'S
SECESSION
.nf-

.pb

.sp 4
.h2 pn=+3 // 279.png
XXXVIII

.nf c
<sc>The Coercion of the Cotton States—Virginia's</sc>
<sc>Position</sc>
.nf-
.sp 2
PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S FIRST INAUGURAL

President Lincoln's first inaugural address may be
safely reckoned among the most notable of American state
papers, both for the purity of diction and the earnest patriotism
which pervade it. With a spirit of fraternalism
appealing and pathetic, he called upon his countrymen to
turn from discord and separation to a new lease of brotherhood
and a revival of devotion to the Republic consecrated
by the sacrifices and labors of their fathers. The address
gave assurance that the Federal Government would respect
the rights of the states and individuals in regard to slavery,
and that no interest or section would be disturbed in any
constitutional right by the incoming administration. Upon
the great point, however, as to the policy of the Federal
Government in regard to coercing the states which had
seceded, the address was held by many to be fairly susceptible
of different constructions. Thus the President
said:

.in +2
"I, therefore, consider that in view of the constitution
and the laws, the Union is unbroken, and to the extent of
my ability I shall take care, as the constitution itself
expressly enjoins upon me, that the laws of the Union be
faithfully executed in all the states. Doing this I deem
to be a simple duty on my part, and I shall perform it so far
as practicable unless my rightful masters, the American
People, shall withhold the requisite means, or in some
authoritative manner direct the contrary."
.in
.pn +1 // 280.png

It must be remembered that at the time these words were
uttered the seven Cotton States had withdrawn from the
Union; had organized the Southern Confederacy, and that
in all the vast region from North Carolina to the Rio
Grande, the Confederacy's authority was recognized, except
at Fort Sumter and three or four like forts where the flag
of the Union still waved. Mr. Lincoln's declaration,
therefore, that these states were still in the Union and
that he intended to enforce the execution of its laws
within their borders was accepted in many quarters as
avowing a purpose to coerce these states and their citizens
into a recognition of its jurisdiction and authority. Against
this construction should be placed other extracts from
the address. Thus he said:

.in +2
"The power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy
and possess the property and places belonging to the
Government and to collect the duties and imposts; but
beyond what may be necessary for these objects there will
be no invasion, no using of force, against or among the
people anywhere. Where hostility to the United States
in any interior locality shall be so great and universal as
to prevent competent resident citizens from holding the
Federal offices, there will be no attempt to force obnoxious
strangers among the people for that object. While the
strict legal right may exist in the Government to enforce
the exercise of these offices, the attempt to do so would
be so irritating and so nearly impracticable withal that I
deem it better to forego for the time the uses of such
offices."
.in

.sp 2
VIEWS OF MEMBERS OF CONVENTION

The declarations of President Lincoln were received
with strongly contrasted feelings by the three elements
which constituted the membership of the Virginia Convention.
The Secessionists hailed his position as fore-shadowing
Federal coercion which in turn would compel
.pn +1 // 281.png
Virginia's withdrawal from the Union. The unconditional
Union men accepted his views as the logical and
necessary avowals of his constitutional duty. The conditional
Union men, while denying in a measure the
correctness of his position, both from a constitutional
and ethical standpoint, were yet gratified by the pacific
spirit of his address. They counselled moderation on the
part of the Convention and clung tenaciously to the hope
that some adjustment might be perfected between the
authorities of the Union and those of the seceded states
and thus the alternative of submitting to coercion or
seceding from the Union might never be presented to the
people of Virginia. This last element held the balance of
power in the Convention. As illustrating their position,
it may be well to insert extracts from the speeches of a few
of their representative men.

James W. Sheffey, speaking five days before President
Lincoln's inauguration, said:

.in +2
"We love the Union, but we cannot see it maintained
by force. They say the Union must be preserved—she
can only be preserved through fraternal affection. We
must take our place—we can't remain neutral. If it comes
to this and they put the question of trying force on the
states which have seceded, we must go out.... We are
waiting to see what will be defined coercion. We wait
to see what action the new President will take."[#]
.in

George Baylor, speaking three days before President
Lincoln's inauguration, said: "Secession is not a constitutional
measure; even if it were, we should delay
before using it. Let us stay in the Union where we have
always been. Yet, I am opposed to coercion."[#]
.pn +1 // 282.png

Thomas Branch, speaking the day after President Lincoln's
inaugural address, said:

.in +2
"My heart has been saddened and every patriotic heart
should be saddened, and every Christian voice raised to
heaven in this time of our trial. After the reception of
Mr. Lincoln's inaugural, I saw some gentlemen rejoicing
in the hotels. Rejoicing for what, sir? For plunging
ourselves and our families, our wives and children in
civil war? I pray that I may never rejoice at such a
state of things. I pray that I may never have to march
to battle to front my enemies. But I came here to defend
the rights of Virginia and I mean to do it at all hazards;
and if we must go to meet our enemies, I wish to go with
the same deliberation, with the same solemnity that I
would bend the knee in prayer before Almighty God."[#]
.in

Jubal A. Early, speaking on the same day, said:

.in +2
"I do not approve of the inaugural of Mr. Lincoln and
I did not expect to be able to endorse his policy and I
did not think there was a member of this Convention
who expected to endorse it; but, sir, I ask the gentleman
from Halifax and the gentleman from Prince Edward,
if it were not for the fact that six or seven states of this
Confederacy have seceded from this Union, if the declarations
of President Lincoln that he would execute the laws
in all the states would not have been hailed throughout
the country as a guarantee that he would perform his
duty, and that we should have peace and protection for
our property and that the Fugitive Slave Law would be
faithfully executed? I ask why is it that we are placed
in this perilous condition? And if it is not solely from
the action of these states that have seceded from the
Union without having consulted our views?"[#]
.in

George W. Brent, speaking on the 8th of March, said:
.pn +1 // 283.png

.in +2
"Abolitionism in the North, trained in the school of
Garrison and Phillips, and affecting to regard the constitution
as 'a league with Hell and a covenant with
Death,' has with a steady and untiring hate sought a
disruption of this Union, as the best and surest means
for the accomplishment of the abolition of slavery in the
Southern States.... South Carolina and those leading
statesmen of the South who have been educated in the
philosophy of free trade have likewise with unwearied and
constant assiduity pursued their schemes of disunion.
Conscious of their inability to effect their schemes within
the Union they have sought a disruption of the states....

"In these two schools of political philosophy, Mr.
President, I trace all the evils and disastrous troubles
which now afflict and disturb our beloved and unhappy
land.... Recognizing as I have always done, the right
of a state to secede, to judge of the violation of its rights
and to appeal to its own mode for redress, I could not uphold
the Federal Government in any attempt to coerce
the seceded states to bring them back in the Union."[#]
.in

.sp 2
VIEWS OF A UNION LEADER

The foregoing extracts give some fairly accurate idea
of the position of those members of the Convention, who,
though looked upon as Union men, yet, when the final
test came after President Lincoln called for troops, voted
for secession. How close in sympathy with this element
were many of the Union men will appear from the following
extract from a speech of George W. Summers, who
upon the final ballot still voted against secession:

.in +2
"Where would be the wisdom of passing an ordinance
of secession in the face of the known sentiment of a Virginia
constituency? The people do not mean to adopt
such an ordinance until every available measure of adjustment
has been exhausted. Come on then with your plans;
and when all fail, the people of the commonwealth will be
.pn +1 // 284.png
united from one end to the other.... No enlightened
statesmanship can compare the secession of states by
conventional authority with insurrectionary movements in
former times. It is a new and unlooked for condition of
things. I am in favor of letting the seceded states alone.
The last news gives encouragement to the hope that the
troops will soon be withdrawn from Fort Sumter, and time
will bring back the states into the common family. It
is the duty of Virginia to stand by the Union until the
performance of that duty becomes impossible."[#]
.in

.fm
.fn #
See <i>Richmond Enquirer</i>, February 28th, 1861.
.fn-

.fn #
See <i>Richmond Enquirer</i>, March 2d, 1861.
.fn-

.fn #
See <i>Richmond Enquirer</i>, March 7th, 1861.
.fn-

.fn #
See <i>Richmond Enquirer</i>, March 7th, 1861.
.fn-

.fn #
See <i>Richmond Enquirer</i>, March 9th, 1861.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Richmond Dispatch</i>, March 13th, 1861.
.fn-


.sp 4
.h3 pn=+1 // 285.png
XXXIX

.nf c
<sc>The Contest in the Virginia Convention for and</sc>
<sc>against Secession</sc>
.nf-
.sp 2
For nearly a month and a half after President Lincoln's
inauguration, the struggle in the Virginia Convention
between the advocates and opponents of secession continued—a
contest in which the champions of opposing
sides living beyond the state sought to make their influence
effective. Mr. Rhodes says: "It is easy to understand
why both Davis and Lincoln were so anxious for
the adhesion of Virginia. Her worth was measured by
the quality as well as the number of her men."[#]

.sp 2
COERCION THE PIVOTAL FACT

Henry Wilson records in his <i>Rise and Fall of the Slave
Power in America</i>:

.in +2
"There was no state concerning whose course there
was greater doubt or more anxious solicitude than Virginia.
Her size, position, traditional influence and past leadership,
with the knowledge that in whichever side of the
scale her great weight should be thrown, the fortunes
of the threatened conflict would be seriously affected
thereby, intensified the anxiety felt."[#]
.in

Commissioners from Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana
appeared before the Convention on different occasions,
and with impassioned eloquence, appealed to Virginia to
stand with her sisters of the South.
.pn +1 // 286.png

Mr. Lincoln's efforts were directed through prominent
Union members of the Convention. His great object was
to secure an adjournment <i>sine die</i> of that body, without
the adoption of an ordinance of secession, and without
the assurance on his part that no attempt would be made
to coerce the Cotton States. John B. Baldwin, a leading
Union man in the Convention, was one of its members
brought into conference with Mr. Lincoln. On the 6th of
April, 1861, Mr. Baldwin went to the White House, where,
in response to the President's inquiries, he presented
the attitude of the dominant element of the Virginia
Convention, and heard the President's appeals and reasonings
why that body should immediately adjourn. Mr.
Baldwin urged upon Mr. Lincoln the wisdom and necessity
of proclaiming to the world that the Federal Government
had no intention of coercing the Cotton States: "Only
give this assurance," said Mr. Baldwin, "to the country
in a proclamation of five lines, and we pledge ourselves
that Virginia will stand by you as though you were our
own Washington."[#]

How pivotal was the position of the Federal Government
with reference to coercion as determining Virginia's action
may be gathered not only from the speeches of the members
of her Convention, but from other utterances made at the
time by her leading men.

Matthew F. Maury, under date of March 4th,
1861, wrote: "Virginia is not at all ready to go
out of this Union; and she is not going out for
anything that is likely to occur, short of coercion—such
is my opinion."[#]
.pn +1 // 287.png

George W. Summers, under date of March 19th, 1861,
wrote from Richmond:

.in +2
"The removal from Fort Sumter (alluding to the report
that it would be evacuated) acted like a charm—it gave
us great strength. A reaction is going on in this state.
The outside pressure here has greatly subsided. We are
masters of our position here, and can maintain it, if left
alone."
.in

The same day he wrote: "What delays the removal of
Major Anderson (the officer in charge of Fort Sumter)?
Is there any truth in the suggestion that the thing is not
to be done after all? This would ruin us."[#]

.sp 2
POSITION OF THE CONVENTION

A fairly accurate estimate of the position of the Virginia
Convention may be gathered from the report of its Committee
on Federal Relations, and the tentative action of
that body with respect to the same. Soon after the
organization of the Convention, this committee, consisting
of twenty-one members, was appointed, and a rule adopted
by which all memorials and proposals relating to the
secession of the state, or any of the many questions involved
in the pending controversies, should be referred to this
committee without debate.

.sp 2
CONVENTION DEFEATS SECESSION

On the 16th of March, the report of the committee was
taken up for consideration in the Committee of the Whole
Convention. The majority report embodied the views
of some two-thirds of the membership of the committee.
There were several individual reports, but the views of the
minority were expressed in the report signed by Messrs.
Montague, Harvie and Williams, which simply recommended
the immediate adoption of an ordinance providing
for the secession of the state.
.pn +1 // 288.png

The report of the majority consisted of fourteen sections,
and with it was submitted an amendment to the constitution
of the United States, which the states of the
Union were requested to endorse and make it a part of
that instrument. The discussion with respect to this
report and the amendment so proposed, continued from
the 16th of March to the 15th of April, when before final
and complete action by the Convention, the secession of
the state was precipitated, under the conditions hereafter
described.

The report of the majority is a lengthy document setting
forth the attitude of Virginia with respect to the character
of the Federal Government—the rights and powers of
the latter in the territories, and over the forts, arsenals,
etc.—in the states which had seceded, and all the many
questions growing out of the contest over slavery.

The maintenance of peace was declared to be the foremost
duty of the hour. "Above all things, at this time,
they esteem it of indispensable necessity to maintain the
peace of the country, and to avoid everything calculated
or tending to produce collision and bloodshed," said the
report.

The sixth section of the report deplored the present
"distracted condition of the country," and expressed the
earnest hope, "That an adjustment may be reached, by
which the Union may be preserved in its integrity; and
peace, prosperity and fraternal feeling be restored throughout
the land."

To this section the report of the minority, providing
for Virginia's immediate secession, was offered as a substitute;
and on the 4th of April the latter was voted down
by a recorded vote of forty-five "Yeas" to eighty-nine
"Nays," and the section as reported by the majority
.pn +1 // 289.png
adopted by a vote of one hundred and four "Yeas" to
thirty-one "Nays."[#]

The eighth section declared:

.in +2
"The people of Virginia recognize the American principle,
that government is founded in the consent of the
governed ... and they will never consent that the Federal
power, which is in part their power, shall be exerted for
the purpose of subjugating the people of such states (the
seceded states) to the Federal authority."
.in

By the eleventh section appeal is made to the states
to make response to the position assumed in the resolutions
and the proposed amendment to the constitution
of the United States, and the warning given that unless
satisfactory assurances were forthcoming, Virginia would
feel compelled to resume the powers granted by her under
the constitution. Time and again the report declares
that "any action of the Federal Government tending to
produce collision of forces," or any such action on the part
of the seceded or confederated states, would be deemed
offensive to the state, and greatly to be deplored.

.sp 2
AMENDMENT PROPOSED TO CONSTITUTION

Accompanying this report, as above indicated, was
an amendment to the constitution of the United States,
the most important features of which dealt with the
matter of slavery in the territories, and the institution in
the states where it was established by law.

.sp 2
PURPORT OF PROPOSED AMENDMENT

With respect to the first, the amendment provided that
in all the territories north of 36 degrees and 30 minutes,
slavery should be forever prohibited, and in all the territory
south of that line, slavery was to be permitted; any
territory, however, south of that line to have the privilege
.pn +1 // 290.png
to permit or deny slavery by its constitution adopted preliminary
to its admission as a state into the Union.

The amendment also provided that no territory should
thereafter be acquired by the United States except for
naval and other like depots, without the concurrence of a
majority of the Senators from the states which "allowed
involuntary servitude and a majority of the Senators from
the states which prohibited that relation."

The amendment further provided that Congress should
never have the power to abolish slavery in the states
where it existed, nor in the District of Columbia without
the consent of Maryland and Virginia. The slave trade
in the District of Columbia and the foreign slave trade
were forever prohibited, as was also the custom of bringing
slaves into the District of Columbia for the purpose of
their sale or distribution to other parts of the country.
Congress should provide for the payment to the owner
for any fugitive slave whose return was prevented by
mobs or intimidation, after his arrest; and the elective
franchise and the right to hold office were not to be accorded
persons of the African race.[#]

While no final action had been taken upon this report,
with the accompanying amendment, by the Convention
at the time of Virginia's secession, yet the votes taken
in the Committee of the Whole on the various paragraphs
of the report indicated that had not Virginia's secession
been precipitated, the report would have been adopted
by the body in substantially the form in which it came
from the Committee on Federal Relations.

.sp 2
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT AND COERCION

What would have been the attitude of the other states
.pn +1 // 291.png
to the amendment to the constitution so proposed, must,
of course, be a matter of conjecture, but the adoption by
Congress, though controlled by the Republican Party, of
the joint resolution providing for an amendment which
should forever prohibit Congress from interfering with
slavery in the states where it existed, and the enactment
of the statute organizing the territories of Dakota, Colorado
and Nevada without prohibition as to slavery, would seem
to indicate that the principal provisions of the amendment
proposed by Virginia would have met the approval of the
requisite number of the states.

.sp 2
FORT SUMTER AND ITS OCCUPATION

As above indicated, the crucial point, with the group
holding the balance of power in the Convention, was the
position of the Federal Government upon the question of
coercing the Cotton States. The employment of force
to compel three millions of people to submit to a government
not of their own choice, was at war with the Declaration
of Independence and repugnant to thousands of the
American people North as well as South. That the
Federal Government would have been sustained in a bald
invasion of the Southern States, may well be questioned.
The situation, however, was not quite so embarrassing
for the Government. Many of these states had formally
ceded to the Union jurisdiction over parcels of land within
their respective limits, upon which had been erected
forts, post offices or custom houses. These constituted
coigns of vantage, where the rights of the Federal Government
were of a dignity higher, or at least more manifest,
to the popular mind, than those rights which obtained
over the whole area of the states or their citizens. Thus
in the great drama of diplomacy and play for position
which preceded the Civil War, the rights of the nation
and of the states in these forts and buildings became
.pn +1 // 292.png
matters of imminent moment. When South Carolina
seceded, Fort Moultrie was occupied by Federal soldiers.
She appointed commissioners to negotiate with the authorities
at Washington for the withdrawal of the troops, and
the settlement of all questions with respect to the fort
and other like properties in the state. Later these troops
were transferred by the Federal authorities to Fort Sumter.
Upon the organization of the Southern Confederacy, commissioners
from it were substituted for those appointed
by South Carolina. President Lincoln refused to recognize
the Southern Confederacy, or to treat with its representatives.
Negotiations, however, semi-official in character,
were instituted, and upon the reports which went
out from these conferences men gauged the chances of
peace or war. If Fort Sumter were evacuated, the prospects
of peace would be enhanced. If the Federal Government
should decide to hold the fort, and provision and
strengthen its garrison, then war would be imminent.
Upon these contingencies, stocks rose and fell, and the
friends of peace took hope or lost heart.

.fm
.fn #
<i>History of United States</i>, Rhodes, Vol. III, p.
462.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>The Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America</i>,
Wilson, Vol. III, p. 138.
.fn-

.fn #
Colonel Baldwin's Interview with Mr. Lincoln, Dabney.
<i>Southern Historical Papers</i>, Vol. 1, p. 449.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Life of Matthew F. Maury</i>, Corbin, p. 186.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>History of United States</i>, Rhodes, Vol. III, p.
345.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Journal of the Committee of the Whole</i>, Virginia
Convention, 1861, pp. 31-43.
.fn-

.fn #
See Report of the Committee on Federal Relations,
with accompanying exhibits in the Appendix of the <i>Journal of the
Virginia Convention</i>, 1861.
.fn-


.sp 4

.h2 pn=+1 // 293.png
XL

.nf c
<sc>The Contest in the Virginia Convention for and</sc>
<sc>against Secession</sc> (Concluded)
.nf-

.sp 2
On the 8th of April, the Virginia Convention adopted
the following resolution:

.in +2
"WHEREAS, in the opinion of this Convention the
uncertainty which prevails in the public mind as to the
policy which the Federal Executive intends to pursue
towards the seceded states is extremely injurious to the
industrial and commercial interests of the country, tends
to keep up an excitement which is unfavorable to the
adjustment of pending difficulties, and threatens a disturbance
of the public peace; therefore,

"RESOLVED, That a committee of three delegates be
appointed by this Convention to wait upon the President
of the United States and present to him this Preamble
and Resolution, and respectfully ask him to communicate
to this Convention the policy which the Federal Executive
intends to pursue in regard to the Confederate States."[#]
.in

William Ballard Preston, Alexander H. H. Stuart and
George W. Randolph were unanimously elected members
of the committee thus created.

That this action of the Virginia Convention was not
hypercritical, that grave doubts actually existed as to the
position of the Federal Government, is a fact of contemporary
history. Writing from Washington, March 16,
1861, to Ex-President Buchanan, Edwin M. Stanton said:
.pn +1 // 294.png

.in +2
"Every day affords proof of the absence of any settled
policy or harmonious concert of action in the Administration.
Seward, Bates and Cameron form one wing; Chase,
Welles, Blair, the opposite wing; Smith is on both sides
and Lincoln sometimes on one, sometimes on the other.
There has been agreement in nothing."[#]
.in

W. H. Russell, the well-known correspondent of the
<i>London Times</i>, notes in his diary under date of March
23d: "The Government (of the United States) appears to
be helplessly drifting with the current of events, having
neither bow nor stern, neither keel nor deck, neither
rudder, compass, sails nor steam."[#]

On the 1st of April, Secretary Seward presented to the
President his now famous memorandum, "Some thoughts
for the President's consideration," the opening paragraph
of which recited: "First. We are at the end of a month's
administration, and yet without a policy either foreign
or domestic."[#]

On the 15th of April, the Committee of the Virginia
Convention appointed to wait on the President submitted
its report. It recited that because of violent and protracted
storms they had not reached Washington until
the 12th; that agreeable to the wishes of the President
they appeared before him on the 13th and presented
the resolution; and that the President thereupon read to
them a paper which embodied his response to the
Convention.

.sp 2
LINCOLN'S REPLY TO CONVENTION

In his reply, Mr. Lincoln stated that having, in his
inaugural address, defined his intended policy, it was
.pn +1 // 295.png
with deep regret and some mortification that he now
learned that there was great and injurious uncertainty
as to what that policy was; he commended a careful consideration
of the document as the best expression he could
give of his purpose. Continuing, he said:

.in +2
"As I then and therein said, I now repeat, 'The power
confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess
the property and places belonging to the Government
and to collect the duties and imposts; but beyond what
is necessary for these objects there will be no invasion, no
using of force against or among the people anywhere.'"
.in

.sp 2
THE PRESIDENT'S CALL FOR TROOPS

Continuing, the President said:

.in +2
"But if, as now appears to be true, in pursuance of a
purpose to drive the United States authority from these
places an unprovoked assault has been made upon Fort
Sumter, I shall hold myself at liberty to repossess if I can
like places which had been seized before the Government
was devolved upon me.

"And, in any event, I shall to the extent of my ability
repel force by force.

"In case it proves true that Fort Sumter has been
assaulted as reported, I shall perhaps cause the United
States mails to be withdrawn from all the states which
claim to have seceded, believing that the commencement
of actual war against the Government justifies and possibly
demands it."[#]
.in

What effect this reply of the President would have had
upon the Virginia Convention it is impossible to say, for
on the day of its presentation to that body came the news
of his proclamation calling for an army of seventy-five
thousand men.

The proclamation recited that the laws of the United
.pn +1 // 296.png
States were opposed and their execution obstructed in
the states of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida,
Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas, "by combinations"
too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of
judicial proceedings.

The militia thus called for was apportioned among the
several states (except the seven forming the Southern
Confederacy) and their governors were requested to furnish
forthwith their respective quotas. Despite the somewhat
ambiguous character of this proclamation, men
everywhere believed that the attempt was now to be made
to re-establish by force of arms the supremacy of the
National Government over the states of the Southern
Confederacy, and that to every commonwealth was presented
the solemn alternative of bearing a part for or
against this movement.

.sp 2
THE CONFLICT AT FORT SUMTER

President Lincoln justified the immediate issuance of his
proclamation because of what he termed the unprovoked
attack on Fort Sumter and the wanton insult thus offered
the honor and dignity of the nation. On the other hand,
it was insisted that his action in breaking off the negotiations,
having for their object the peaceful adjustment of
all questions relating to Fort Sumter, his notice to the
Governor of South Carolina that its garrison would be
provisioned, and the arrival off the harbor of Charleston
of the Relief Squadron charged with that mission, not only
precipitated the conflict, but justified the inauguration
by the Southern Confederacy of what would have been,
under other circumstances, offensive measures. Had the
authorities of the Confederacy been more thoughtful of
their interests than their rights, or taken counsel of their
caution rather than of their courage, they might have
permitted the naval expedition to provision Fort Sumter
.pn +1 // 297.png
and reinforce its garrison with men and munitions of war.
Such, however, was not the temper and fibre of that
people. They met what they deemed a second invasion
of their country just as they did four months before, when
they fired upon the "Star of the West" in the first attempt
to relieve the Fort.

Alexander H. Stephens, Vice-President of the Confederacy,
in his work <i>The War Between the States</i>, presents
the position of his Government with respect to the matter
as follows:

.in +2
"I maintain that it (the war) was inaugurated and begun
though no blow had been struck, when the hostile fleet,
styled the 'Relief Squadron,' with eleven ships carrying
two hundred and eighty-five guns and two thousand four
hundred men, was sent out from New York and Norfolk,
with orders from the authorities at Washington to reinforce
Fort Sumter, peaceably, if permitted, but forcibly,
if they resist."
.in

.sp 2
VIRGINIA'S SECESSION PRECIPITATED

The action of the Virginia Convention was quick and
decisive. On the 17th of April, an ordinance was adopted
providing for Virginia's secession from the Union and
submitting this action of the Convention to the people
for ratification or rejection at a special election to be
held on the 23d of May. In the Convention the tentative
ordinance was passed by a vote of eighty-eight ayes to
fifty-five noes (nine not voting), and before the people
a month later it was confirmed by a vote of 128,884 against
32,134. Mr. Rhodes records that, in the concluding
hours of the Convention, strong men spoke for or against
secession, with sorrowful hearts and in voices trembling
with emotion.[#]
.pn +1 // 298.png

This action of the Convention was the logical and
inevitable result of the President's proclamation. There
had never been any doubt as to Virginia's position. With
all her loyalty to the Union, she had repeatedly declared
in the most authoritative manner, her opposition to the
coercion of the Cotton States and her determination to
resist such a policy.

To the requisition upon Virginia for her quota of troops
Governor Letcher made reply to the Secretary of War:

.in +2
"I have only to say that the militia of Virginia will
not be furnished to the powers at Washington for any
such use or purpose as they have in view. Your object
is to subjugate the Southern States and the requisition
made upon me for such an object—an object in my judgment
not within the purview of the constitution or the
act of 1795, will not be complied with. You have chosen
to inaugurate civil war; and having done so we will meet
you in a spirit as determined as the Administration has
exhibited toward the South."[#]
.in

The Governors of Kentucky, Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee
and North Carolina returned like answers to the
requisitions of the Federal authorities for troops.

Mr. Henderson, the English writer, in his work from
which we have heretofore quoted, says with reference to
Virginia's position:

.in +2
"So far Virginia had given no overt sign of sympathy
with the revolution. But she was now called upon to
furnish her quota of regiments for the Federal Army. To
have acceded to the demands would have been to abjure
the most cherished principles of her political existence....
Neutrality was impossible. She was bound to furnish
her tale of troops and thus belie her principles; or
.pn +1 // 299.png
secede at once and reject, with a clean conscience, the
President's mandate. If the morality of secession may
be questioned, if South Carolina acted with undue haste
and without sufficient provocation, if certain of the Southern
politicians desired emancipation for themselves, that
they might continue to enslave others, it can hardly be
denied that the action of Virginia was not only fully
justified, but beyond suspicion...."[#]
.in

.fm
.fn #
<i>Journal of Virginia Convention</i>, 1861, p. 143.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Life of James Buchanan</i>, Curtis, Vol. II, p. 534.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>My Diary, North and South</i>, Russell, Vol. I, p. 37.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Speeches, Letters and State Papers of Abraham
Lincoln</i>, N. & H., Vol. II, p. 29.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Journal of Virginia Convention</i>, 1861, Document No.
XVII.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>History of United States</i>, Rhodes, Vol. III, p.
386.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>American Conflict</i>, Greeley, Vol. I, p. 459.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Stonewall Jackson</i>, Henderson, Vol. I, p. 122.
.fn-


.sp 4

.h2 pn=+1 // 300.png
XLI

.nf c
<sc>The Attempted Reinforcement of Fort Sumter</sc>
<sc>and its Significance</sc>
.nf-

.sp 2

The relative responsibility for the collision at Fort
Sumter we are not concerned to consider except in so far
as it may have affected the action of Virginia in withdrawing
from the Union. The charge is often heard, that,
despite Virginia's professed love for the Union, and her
efforts to maintain the peace, she made haste to unite
her fortunes with the Southern Confederacy because of
this assault by its soldiers upon Fort Sumter. It would
seem a most illogical conclusion to all her unquestioned
efforts if she were thus led to espouse the cause of the
Confederacy and to gird herself for battle by reason of the
happening of the very event she had striven so earnestly
to avert. It was not the assault upon Fort Sumter,
however momentous in its potency, which impelled
Virginia, but the proclamation of President Lincoln which
followed. The proclamation was the proximate cause of
her secession, though her action was stimulated by the
previous course of the Federal authorities with respect to
the Fort. The people of Virginia regarded the policy of
the Administration as characterized by a disregard for the
peace of the country, a play for position ill-befitting a
great nation at such a solemn crisis. Much has been
written in defense of that policy. In support of Virginia's
arraignment, the sentiments of Mr. Lincoln's Cabinet
ministers may be quoted. Three weeks previous to the
.pn +1 // 301.png
issuance of the orders for the relief of Fort Sumter, five
of its seven members recorded their opposition and the
considerations of prudence and patriotism which impelled
them to their position.

On the 15th of March, 1861, President Lincoln submitted
the following request in writing to each member
of his Cabinet:

.in +2
"<i>My dear Sir</i>:

"Assuming it to be possible to now provision Fort
Sumter, under all the circumstances is it wise to attempt
it? Please give me your opinion in writing on this question.

.ti 50
Your obedient servant,
.ti 56
A. LINCOLN."[#]
.in

.sp 2
VIEWS OF CABINET

Secretary Seward, in the course of an extended reply,
wrote:

.in +2
"If it were possible to peaceably provision Fort Sumter,
of course, I should answer that it would be both unwise
and inhuman not to attempt it. But the facts of the
case are known to be that the attempt must be made with
the employment of military and marine force which
would provoke combat and probably initiate a civil war
which the Government of the United States would be
committed to maintain, through all changes, to some
definite conclusion."...
.in

Continuing, Mr. Seward said:

.in +2
"Suppose the expedition successful, we have then a
garrison in Fort Sumter that can defy assault for six
months. What is it to do then? Is it to make war by
opening its batteries to demolish the defenses of the
Carolinians? Can it demolish them if it tries? If it cannot,
what is the advantage we shall have gained? If it
can, how will it serve to check or prevent disunion? In
.pn +1 // 302.png
either case, it seems to me, that we will have inaugurated
a civil war by our own act, without an adequate object,
after which reunion will be hopeless, at least under this
Administration or in any other way than by a popular
disavowal both of the war and of the Administration
which unnecessarily commenced it. Fraternity is the element
of union; war the very element of disunion." ...
.in

In conclusion, he said: "If this counsel seems to be impassive
and even unpatriotic, I console myself by the
reflection that it is such as Chatham gave to his country
under circumstances not widely different."[#]

Secretary Cameron wrote he would advise such action
if he "did not believe the attempt to carry it into effect
would initiate a bloody and protracted conflict."[#]

Secretary Welles wrote:

.in +2
"By sending or attempting to send provisions into Fort
Sumter, will not war be precipitated? It may be impossible
to escape it under any course of policy that may be
pursued, but I am not prepared to advise a course that
would provoke hostilities.... I do not, therefore, under
all the circumstances, think it wise to provision Fort
Sumter."[#]
.in

Secretary Smith wrote:

.in +2
"The commencement of civil war would be a calamity
greatly to be deplored and should be avoided if the just
authority of the Government may be maintained without
it. If such a conflict should become inevitable, it is much
better that it should commence by the resistance of the
authorities or the people of South Carolina to the legal
.pn +1 // 303.png
action of the Government in enforcing the laws of the
United States....

"If a conflict should be provoked by the attempt to
reinforce Fort Sumter, a divided sentiment in the North
would paralyze the arm of the Government, while the
treason in the Southern States would be openly encouraged
in the North.... I, therefore, respectfully answer the
inquiry of the President by saying that in my opinion it
would not be wise, under all the circumstances, to attempt
to provision Fort Sumter."[#]
.in

Attorney General Bates wrote:

.in +2
"I am unwilling, under all the circumstances, at this
moment, to do any act which may have the semblance
before the world of beginning a civil war, the terrible
consequence of which would, I think, find no parallel in
modern times.... For these reasons, I am willing to
evacuate Fort Sumter, rather than be an active party in
the beginning of civil war.... Upon the whole I do not
think it wise now to attempt to provision Fort Sumter."[#]
.in

Postmaster General Blair and Secretary Chase united
in the opinion that it would be wise to make the effort to
provision Fort Sumter.

Mr. Blair wrote:

.in +2
"I believe that Fort Sumter may be provisioned and
relieved by Captain Fox with but little risk; and General
Scott's opinion that, with its war complement, there is
no force in South Carolina which can take it, renders it
almost certain that it will not then be attempted. This
would completely demoralize the rebellion.... No expense
nor care should therefore be spared to achieve this
success."[#]
.in
.pn +1 // 304.png

Secretary Chase wrote:

.in +2
"A correct solution must depend, in my judgment, on
the degree of possibility, on the combination of reinforcement
with provisioning and on the probable effects of the
measure on the relations of the disaffected states to the
National Government.

"I shall assume what the statements of the distinguished
officers consulted seem to warrant, that the possibility of
success amounts to a reasonable degree of probability;
and also that the attempt to provision is to include an
attempt to reinforce; for it seems to be generally agreed
that the provisioning without reinforcements notwithstanding
hostile resistance, will accomplish no substantially
beneficial purpose.

"The probable political effects of the measure allow
room for much fair difference of opinion, and I have not
reached my own conclusion without much difficulty."
.in

The Secretary then proceded to declare, that, if such a
step would produce civil war, he could not advise in its
favor, but that, in his opinion, such a result was highly
improbable, especially if accompanied by a proclamation
from the President reiterating the sentiments of his inaugural
address. "I, therefore," concluded Mr. Chase,
"return an affirmative answer to the question submitted
to me."[#]

It will be seen, from the foregoing extracts, that five of
the seven members of the Cabinet concurred in the opinion
that no attempt should be made to provision or reinforce
Fort Sumter, and that such an attempt would in all probability
precipitate civil war. As Mr. Seward expressed it:
"We will have inaugurated a civil war by our own act
without an adequate object"; or in the language of Secretary
.pn +1 // 305.png
Welles, "By sending or attempting to send provisions
into Fort Sumter, will not war be precipitated?... I
am not prepared to advise a course that would provoke
hostilities."

If such were the opinions of leading members of President
Lincoln's Cabinet, expressed in confidential communications
to their chief, as to the character of the proposed
action, can it be deemed unreasonable that the people of
Virginia held similar views?

Fourteen days later, the President made a verbal request
to his Cabinet for an additional expression of their views
upon the same subject. Seward and Smith adhered to
their former opinions. Chase and Blair were joined by
Welles. Bates was noncommittal, and no reply was
made by Cameron, so far as the records show.

.sp 2
RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE COLLISION

In the light of the facts and arguments presented by the
members of the President's Cabinet, men, not a few, will
conclude that, if the explosion occurred at Fort Sumter,
the mine was laid at Washington.

.fm
.fn #
<i>Abraham Lincoln, Speeches, Letters and State
Papers</i>, N. & H., Vol. II, p. 11.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Idem</i>, pp. 11 and 14.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Idem</i>, p. 17.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Abraham Lincoln, Speeches, Letters and State
Papers</i>, N. & H., Vol. II, p. 18.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Idem</i>, pp. 19 and 20.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Idem</i>, p. 22.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Idem</i>, p. 21.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Abraham Lincoln, Speeches, Letters and State
Papers</i>, N. & H., Vol. II, pp. 14 and 15.
.fn-

.sp 4


.h2 pn=+1 // 306.png
XLII

.nf c
<sc>The Attempt to Coerce the Cotton States Impels</sc>
<sc>Virginia's Secession</sc>
.nf-

James Ford Rhodes in his history of the United States,
referring to the eventful year of 1861, says:

.in +2
"There were at this time in the Border States of Virginia,
Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri unconditional Secessionists
and unconditional Union men; but the great body
of the people, although believing that the wrongs of the
South were grievous and cried for redress, deemed secession
inexpedient.... All denied either the right or the
feasibility of coercion."[#]
.in

What was the pith and potency of this anti-coercion
sentiment among the people of Virginia?

.sp 2
ANTI-COERCION SENTIMENT IN VIRGINIA

There were two distinct schools of thought and yet both
denied the right of the Federal Government to coerce the
people of the Cotton States.

One school believed in the constitutional right of a state
to secede: the Union was formed by the constitution—which
was a compact between independent sovereignties;
the powers of the Union were those and only those delegated
to it by the states; the states never surrendered their
sovereignty, nor their right to withdraw from the Union
for what they deemed sufficient cause. This, in brief,
was the position of the school which maintained the constitutional
right of a state to secede.

The other school while denying the constitutionality
.pn +1 // 307.png
of secession, yet held that the Federal Government could
not reduce to submission a people as numerous as those of
the Cotton States, without doing violence to the principles,
ethical and political, upon which the Union was founded.
This in brief was the position of those who maintained
the revolutionary right of the people of the seceded states
to fix their own form of government unawed by any outside
power.

It is not within the purview of our allotted task to vindicate
or even investigate the constitutional right of a
state, or of the Cotton States, to secede from the Union,
or to accomplish the same end through the right of revolution
as inherent in their people. Our discussion is here
limited to a consideration of the strong anti-coercion
sentiments among the Virginia people, and how these convictions
ultimately controlled their action on the question
of the secession of their state. It will suffice to say that
whether regarded as a constitutional or a revolutionary
right, or both combined, the people of Virginia held
that the Cotton States, having deliberately and with
almost unexampled unanimity, decided to dissolve the
political relations which formerly existed between them
and their sister commonwealths, that with respect to the
legal and ethical character of this action there was no
competent court of review this side of the judgment
seat of Heaven. The wisdom of their secession might be
denied, the morality of their action might be questioned,
the disastrous consequences to the Union might be
admitted, but still no right existed in any body of men
to invade their country and defeat their aspirations by the
sword.

Had not a people as numerous and united as those of
the Cotton States the inherent right, in the language of the
.pn +1 // 308.png
Declaration of Independence, "To assume among the
powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which
the laws of Nature and Nature's God entitled them?"
Were the just powers of governments derived from the
consent of the governed? To the Virginians of 1861 it
was a solecism to accord to one body of people a right,
and yet acknowledge in another the equal right to defeat
its exercise. It was an anachronism to talk in America,
after the Declaration of Independence and the war with
Great Britain, about the right of self-government in three
millions of people as being dependent upon force. This
was acknowledged before Samuel Adams and Thomas
Jefferson were born, and before the Patriots had made
good their great avowals by their heroic struggles from
Concord to Yorktown. Force, Virginia insisted, was not
the method of holding great masses of American freemen
in unwilling association with their fellows; nor the implements
of war, the legitimate means for determining
great questions of legal and ethical right.

.sp 2
DAVIS ON RIGHT OF REVOLUTION

Jefferson Davis, in his farewell address to the United
States Senate, expressed the sentiments of Virginia upon
this point when he said:

.in +2
"Now, sir, we are confusing language very much. Men
speak of revolution; and when they say revolution, they
mean blood. Our fathers meant nothing of the sort.
When they spoke of revolution, they meant an inalienable
right. When they declared as an inalienable right, the
power of the people to abrogate and modify their form
of government whenever it did not answer the ends for
which it was established, they did not mean that they
were to sustain that by brute force.... Are we, in this
age of civilization and political progress ... are we to
roll back the whole current of human thought and again
to return to the mere brute force which prevails between
.pn +1 // 309.png
beasts of prey as the only method of settling questions
between men?...

"Is it to be supposed that the men who fought the
battles of the Revolution for community independence,
terminated their great efforts by transmitting posterity
to a condition in which they could only gain those rights
by force? If so, the blood of the Revolution was shed in
vain; no great principles were established; for force was
the law of nature before the battles of the Revolution were
fought."[#]
.in

.sp 2
ANTI-COERCION VIEWS OF VIRGINIANS

Such was the attitude of the great body of the Virginia
people. That no new principle was asserted to meet the
exigencies of the hour, all acquainted with the history
of the state will readily appreciate. Even men who
denied the constitutional right of secession, joined with
those who believed in that right in opposing coercion.

Robert E. Lee, writing on the 23d of January, 1861, said:

.in +2
"Secession is nothing but revolution. The framers of
our constitution never exhausted so much labor, wisdom
and forbearance in its formation and surrounded it with
so many guards and securities if it was intended to be
broken by every member of the Confederacy at will....

"Still a Union that can only be maintained by swords
and bayonets and in which strife and civil war are to take
the place of brotherly love and kindness, has no charm
for me. If the Union is dissolved and the Government
disrupted I shall return to my native state and share the
miseries of my people—and save in defense will draw my
sword on none."[#]
.in

William C. Rives, speaking on the 19th of February,
1861, in the Peace Conference at Washington, as one of
the Commissioners from Virginia, said:
.pn +1 // 310.png

.in +2
"I condemn the secession of states, I am not here to
justify it. I detest it, but the fact is still before us. Seven
states have gone out from among us and a President is
actually inaugurated to govern the new Confederacy....
Force will never bring them together. Coercion is not a
word to be used in this connection."[#]
.in

George Baylor, speaking on the 1st of March 1861, in
the Virginia Convention, said:

.in +2
"I have said, Mr. President, that I did not believe in
the right of secession. But whilst I make that assertion,
I also say that I am opposed to coercion on the part of
the Federal Government with the view of bringing the
seceded states back into the Union.... I am opposed
to it first because I can find no authority in the Constitution
of the United States delegating that power to the
Federal Government, and second because if the Federal
Government had the power it would be wrong to use it."[#]
.in

The foregoing sentiments were not confined to the
Virginia people, either of the Revolutionary or Civil War
periods. A few deliverances by men of international
reputation made during the three decades preceding the
Civil War will serve to illustrate the truth of this suggestion:

M. de Tocqueville, in his work, <i>Democracy in America</i>,
discussing the subject, says:

.in +2
"However strong a government may be, it cannot
easily escape from the consequences of a principle which
it has once admitted as the foundation of its constitution.
The Union was formed by the voluntary agreement of
the states; and in uniting together they have never forfeited
their nationality nor have they been reduced to the
condition of one and the same people. If one of the
.pn +1 // 311.png
states chose to withdraw its name from the contract, it
would be difficult to disprove its right of doing so; and
the Federal Government would have no means of maintaining
its claims directly, either by force or by right."[#]
.in

.sp 2
FOUNDATION OF AMERICAN INSTITUTIONS

Lord Brougham in his <i>Political Philosophy</i>, alluding to
the unique character of the government created by the
constitution of the United States, writes:

.in +2
"There is not, as with us, a government only and its
subjects to be regarded; but a number of governments,
of states, having each a separate and substantive, and even
independent existence, originally thirteen now six and
twenty, and each having a Legislature of its own with laws
differing from those of the other states. It is plainly
impossible to consider the constitution which professes
to govern this whole Union, this federacy of states, as anything
other than a treaty."[#]
.in

John Quincy Adams, speaking before the New York
Historical Society in 1839, on the fiftieth anniversary of
Washington's inauguration as President of the United
States, said:

.in +2
"To the people alone there is reserved as well the dissolving
as the constituent power and that power can be
exercised by them only under the tie of conscience binding
them to the retributive justice of Heaven.

"With these qualifications we may admit the right as
vested in the people of every state of the Union with
reference to the General Government which was exercised
by the people of the United Colonies with reference to the
supreme head of the British Empire of which they formed
a part and under these limitations have the people of each
state of the Union a right to secede from the Confederated
Union itself."[#]
.in
.pn +1 // 312.png
.sp 2
CONSENT NOT FORCE

Mr. Lincoln, speaking on the 12th of January, 1848,
in Congress, said:

.in +2
"Any people anywhere being inclined and having the
power have the right to rise up and shake off the existing
government, and form a new one that suits them better.
This is a most valuable, most sacred right, a right which
we hope and believe is to liberate the world. Nor is this
right confined to cases in which the whole people of an
existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion
of such people that can may revolutionize and make
their own any or so much of the territory as they inhabit."[#]
.in

Probably Mr. Gladstone expressed in the briefest possible
compass the general consensus of the Virginia people, when
on the 24th of April, 1862, in his Manchester speech,
referring to the attitude of the Federal Government and
the Northern people, he said: "We have no faith in the
propagation of free institutions at the point of the sword."[#]

.sp 2
VIEWS OF PROMINENT AMERICANS

Scarcely less pronounced were the sentiments of many
prominent Americans expressed just before the outbreak
of the Civil War with reference to the moral or political
right of the Federal Government or the Northern people
to coerce the Southern States.

Horace Greeley, in the issue of the <i>New York Tribune</i>
of November 9th, 1860, discussing the contemplated
secession of the Cotton States, wrote:

.in +2
"If the Cotton States shall decide that they can do
better out of the Union than in it, we insist on letting
them go in peace. The right to secede may be a revolutionary
one but it exists nevertheless; and we do not see
.pn +1 // 313.png
how one party can have a right to do what another party
has a right to prevent."[#]
.in

Again he wrote:

.in +2
"If it (the Declaration of Independence) justified the
secession from the British Empire of three millions of
colonists in 1776, we do not see why it would not justify
the secession of five millions of Southerners from the
Federal Union in 1861. If we are mistaken on this point
why does not some one attempt to show wherein and
why(?)"[#]
.in

On the 23d of February, 1861, he wrote:

.in +2
"We have repeatedly said and we once more insist that
the great principle embodied by Jefferson in the Declaration
of American Independence that governments derive
their just powers from the consent of the governed is sound
and just; and that if the Slave States, the Cotton States, or
the Gulf States only, choose to form an independent nation
they have a clear moral right to do so."[#]
.in

President Buchanan, in his message to Congress on the
3d of December, 1860, said:

.in +2
"The fact is that our Union rests upon public opinion
and can never be cemented by the blood of its citizens
shed in civil war. If it cannot live in the affections of the
people it must one day perish. Congress possesses many
means of preserving it by conciliation; but the sword
was not placed in their hands to preserve it by force."
.in

Edward Everett, writing on the 2d of February, 1861,
to the Union Meeting called to assemble at Faneuil Hall,
said:
.pn +1 // 314.png

.in +2
"To expect to hold fifteen states in the Union by force
is preposterous. The idea of a civil war, accompanied, as
it would be, by a servile insurrection, is too monstrous
to be entertained for a moment. If our sister states
must leave us, in the name of Heaven, let them go in
peace."[#]
.in

Wendell Phillips, speaking at New Bedford, Mass., on
the 9th of April, 1861, said:

.in +2
"But I am sorry that a gun should be fired at Fort
Sumter or that a gun should be fired from it for this
reason: The administration at Washington does not know
its time. Here are a series of states girding the Gulf who
think that their peculiar institutions require that they should
have a separate government. They have a right to decide
that question without appealing to you or me. A large
body of people, sufficient to make a nation, have come to
the conclusion that they will have a government of a
certain form. Who denies them the right? Standing
with the principles of '76 behind us, who can deny them
the right?"[#]
.in

Abraham Lincoln, speaking on the 15th of November,
1860, said:

.in +2
"My own impression is, leaving myself room to modify
the opinion, if, upon further investigation, I should see fit
to do so, that this Government possesses both the authority
and the power to maintain its own integrity. That,
however, is not the ugly point of this matter. The ugly
point is the necessity of keeping the Government together
by force as ours should be a Government of fraternity."[#]
.in

On the 10th of April, 1861, only five days previous to
the call for seventy-five thousand soldiers, Mr. Seward, as
.pn +1 // 315.png
Secretary of State, in an official communication to the
American Minister to Great Britain, wrote:

.in +2
"For these reasons he (the President) would not be
disposed to reject a cardinal dogma of theirs (the Secessionists),
namely, that the Federal Government could not
reduce the seceding states to obedience by conquest, even
though he were disposed to question that proposition.
But, in fact, the President willingly accepts it as true.
Only an imperial or despotic government could subjugate
thoroughly disaffected and insurrectionary members of the
state. This Federal Republican system of ours of all
forms of government is the very one which is most unfitted
for such labor."[#]
.in

.sp 2
VIRGINIA ADHERES TO HER PRINCIPLES

Such were some of the deliverances of prominent Americans
in the days immediately preceding the Civil War.
They expressed the sentiments of leading Virginians of
the time and explained and vindicated their position in
resisting the policy of coercion adopted by the Federal
Government. Why was it that in the supreme hour
Greeley and Seward and Lincoln, and all their notable
compatriots, parted company with Virginia?

Charles Francis Adams says:

.in +2
"Virginia, as I have said, made state sovereignty an
article—a cardinal article—of its political creed. So
logically and consistently it took the position that though
it might be unwise for a state to secede, a state which
did secede could not and should not be coerced.

"To us now this position seems worse than illogical. It
is impossible. So events proved it then. Yet, after all,
it is based on the fundamental principle of the consent of
the governed; and in the days immediately preceding the
Civil War something very like it was accepted as an article
of correct political faith by men afterwards as strenuous
.pn +1 // 316.png
in support of a Union re-established by force as Charles
Sumner, Abraham Lincoln, William H. Seward, Salmon P.
Chase, and Horace Greeley. The difference was that
confronted by the overwhelming tide of events, Virginia adhered
to it; they, in presence of that tide, tacitly abandoned
it."[#]
.in

.fm
.fn #
<i>History of the United States</i>, Rhodes, Vol. III, p.
214.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government</i>, Vol.
I, p. 617.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Memoirs of Robert E. Lee</i>, Long, p. 88.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Proceedings of Peace Convention</i>, Crittenden, p.
136.
.fn-

.fn #
See <i>Richmond Enquirer</i>, March 2d, 1908.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Democracy in America</i>, de Tocqueville, Vol. II, p.
257.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Political Philosophy</i>, Brougham, 1849, part 3, p.
336.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Buchanan's Administration</i>, Buchanan, p. 98.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Abraham Lincoln, Speeches, Letters and State
Papers</i>, N. & H., Vol. I, p. 105.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>History of the United States</i>, Rhodes, Vol. IV, p.
80.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>History of the United States</i>, Rhodes, Vol. III, p.
140.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Life of James Buchanan</i>, Curtis, Vol. II, p. 430.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Idem.</i>
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Origin of the Late War</i>, Lunt, 1816, p. 431.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>History of Massachusetts in Civil War</i>, Schouler,
Vol. I, p. 45.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Abraham Lincoln, A History</i>, N. & H., Vol. III, p.
247.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Diplomatic Correspondence</i>, 1861, p. 58.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Lee at Appomattox and Other Papers</i>, C. F. Adams,
1902, p. 403-4.
.fn-


.sp 4
.h2 pn=+1 // 317.png
XLIII

.ce
<sc>Conclusion</sc>
.sp 2

The crisis arose and thus was precipitated Virginia's
secession. To many of her people it came as a long hoped
for event. They rejoiced that Virginia was now to enter
upon a more inspiring career untrammelled by associates divergent
in sentiments and hostile in interests. They hailed
the rise of the Southern Confederacy as a new nation born
into the world, and with eager hearts looked forward to
a future which should bring to the people of Virginia and
the South a measure of self-government, peace and prosperity
they had never known before.

To the majority, however, of the Virginia people the
event came as one long dreaded and much to be deplored.
They met it with a firm adherence to the principles so
often declared, but with profound regret that the occasion
had arisen which rendered their assertion imperative.

The pathos no less than the determination which marked
the hour may be read in the contemporary utterances of her
foremost men.

.sp 2
VIRGINIANS DEPLORE DISUNION

Her Governor, John Letcher, in his message to the
General Assembly, January 1861, said:

.in +2
"Surely no people have been blessed as we have been,
and it is melancholy to think that all is now about to be
sacrificed on the Altar of Passion. If the judgments of
men were consulted, if the admonitions of their consciences
were respected, the Union would yet be saved from overthrow."
.in
.pn +1 // 318.png

Three months later, however, in response to the call for
Virginia's quota of troops, he wrote to the authorities at
Washington: "You have chosen to inaugurate civil war;
and, having done so, we will meet you in a spirit as determined
as the Administration has exhibited toward the
South."

Robert E. Lee, anticipating the event, in January, 1861,
wrote:

.in +2
"I shall mourn for my country and for the welfare
and progress of mankind. If the Union is dissolved and
the Government disrupted, I shall return to my native
state and share the miseries of my people, and, save in
defense, will draw my sword on none."[#]
.in

Three months later, in accepting the command of
Virginia's army of defense, he said: "Trusting in Almighty
God, an approving conscience and the aid of my fellow-citizens,
I devote myself to the service of my native state."

Equally significant were the sentiments of the wife of
this great Virginian. Writing to General Winfield Scott,
May 5th, 1861, Mary Custis Lee said: "No honors can
reconcile us to this fratricidal war which we would have
laid down our lives freely to avert ... Oh! that you could
command peace to our distracted country. Yours in
sorrow and sadness."[#]

John Janney, on accepting the Presidency of the Virginia
Convention, February 13th, 1861, said:

.in +2
"Gentlemen, there is a flag ... which now floats over
this Capitol on which there is a star representing this
ancient commonwealth and my earnest prayer, in which
I know every member of this body will cordially unite, is
.pn +1 // 319.png
that it may remain there forever, provided always that
its lustre is untarnished."
.in

On the 23d of April, 1861, in notifying Robert E. Lee
of his appointment as chief in command of Virginia's
militia, he said:

.in +2
"Virginia having taken her position, as far as the power
of this Convention extends, we stand, animated by one
impulse, governed by one desire and one determination—and
that is, that she shall be defended; and that no spot
of her soil shall be polluted by the foot of an invader."[#]
.in

Matthew F. Maury writing on the 11th of May, 1861,
said: "I grant them (certain of his Northern friends)
sincere, but I cannot but lament in the depths of my heart
and in excruciating agony that their delusion is such as
to have already allowed the establishment of a military
despotism."

Again he wrote: "All of us are of one mind, very cool,
very determined, no desire for a conflict. We are on the
defensive."[#]

John B. Baldwin, when asked after President Lincoln's
proclamation what would be the position of the Union
men in Virginia, wrote:

.in +2
"We have no Union men in Virginia now. But those
who were Union men will stand to their guns, and make a
fight that will shine out on the page of history as an example
of what a brave people can do after exhausting every
means of pacification."[#]
.in

.sp 2
RACIAL CHARACTERISTICS OF VIRGINIANS

In addition to all the considerations set forth in the
foregoing pages, the student of history must, if he would
fully appreciate the forces which controlled their action
with respect to secession and the Civil War, take into
.pn +1 // 320.png
account the racial characteristics of the Virginia people.
A full portrayal of these characteristics, strongly marked
and persisting from generation to generation, must be the
work of some other pen. Suffice it here to say that as
a people they exalted honor and courage—both in the
individual and in the clan; they exhibited the strength of
the idealist, combined, on the part of many, with the
limitations of the doctrinaire; they decided questions by
the standards of abstract right rather than in their relation
to the duties and interests of other peoples and other
times; they were self-reliant, content to justify the integrity
of their conduct to their own consciences rather than to
the world; they were tenacious of their rights and regarded a
threatened invasion as not only justifying but compelling resistance
if the ideals and conditions which make men patriots
and freemen were to find an abiding place in their state.

.sp 2
VIRGINIA'S STAND PREDETERMINED

"We are not contending," wrote Washington in 1774,
"against paying the duty of three pence per pound on tea
as burdensome, no, it is the right only that we have all
along disputed."[#]

"It is the principle," wrote Lee in 1861, "I contend
for, not individual or private benefit."[#]

Such were some of the predominant characteristics of
the people whom President Lincoln's proclamation called
to war. In the conflict thus joined between the Federal
Government and the Southern Confederacy, the people of
Virginia took a stand, predetermined by the beliefs and
avowals of successive generations, and impelled by an
unswerving idealism found their supreme incentive to
action in their determination to maintain the integrity of
principle.

.fm
.fn #
<i>Memoirs of Robert E. Lee</i>, Long, p. 88.
.fn-

.fn #
See letter from Mrs. R. E. Lee to General Winfield
Scott, in <i>Life of Robert E. Lee</i>, Fitzhugh Lee, p. 93.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Journal of Virginia Convention</i>, 1861, pp. 9 and
187.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Life of Matthew Fontaine Maury</i>, Corbin, p. 96.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>School History of the United States</i>, Jones, p.
239.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>History of the United States</i>, Bancroft, Vol. 4, p.
29.
.fn-

.fn #
<i>Memoirs of Robert E. Lee</i>, Long, p. 88.
.fn-

.pb
.sp 4

.h2 pn=+1 // 321.png
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.pn +1 // 327.png

<i>Maury, Richard L.</i> Letter to Author, dated June 1st, 1907. Virginia Historical Society.

Orange County Court Records. Will Books Nos. 10 and 12, Clerk's Office.

Pittsylvania County Court Records. Will Book No. 1, Clerk's Office.

Prince Edward County Court Records. Will Book for year 1797, Clerk's Office.

Prince George County Court Records. Will Book No. 1 (New Records), Clerk's Office.

Prince William County Court Records. Will Books M. and Q., Clerk's Office.

Rappahannock County Court Records. Will Book 4, Clerk's Office.

<i>Stuart, Mrs. Flora.</i> Letter to Author, dated March 25th, 1908. Virginia Historical Society.

Sussex County Court Records. Will Book K., Clerk's Office.

<i>Thom, Cameron E.</i> Letter to Author, dated July 15th, 1908.

Westmoreland County Court Records. Deed and Will Book No. 18, Clerk's Office.

Washington County Court Records. Deed Book for year 1793, Clerk's Office.
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INDEX

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Abolitionists, adverse influence of, upon anti-slavery sentiment in Virginia, #43#, #48#, #51#, #59#;
  character of assaults of, upon slavery and Virginians, #48#, #49#;
  views of Thomas Jefferson Randolph upon, #51#;
  views of George Tucker upon, #51#, #52#;
  views of Henry Ruffner upon, #53#;
  views of William Ellery Channing upon, #53#;
  views of Abraham Lincoln upon, #54#, #55#;
  views of Daniel Webster upon, #55#;
  views of Stephen A. Douglas upon, #56#;
  views of Thomas Ewing upon, #56#;
  views of George Lunt upon, #57#;
  views of George Ticknor Curtis upon, #57#;
  views of Theodore Roosevelt upon, #58#;
  views of William Henry Smith upon, #58#;
  attitude of, contrasted with that of Republicans, #194#, #195#;
  efforts of, to defeat fugitive slave law, #200#, #201#;
  purpose and methods of, #210#, #212#;
  disunion sentiments of, #213#;
  contended that Union alone protected slaveholders, #219#;
  see John Brown, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, William Lloyd Garrison, Theodore Parker, Wendell Phillips.

Abolition of Slavery in Virginia, petition for, from citizens of Staunton, #128#, #129#.

Adams, Charles Francis, estimate of Virginians at Gettysburg, #139#, #140#;
  estimate of racial difficulties, #181#;
  his analysis of Virginia's grounds of secession, #249#;
  records effects of Virginia's declaration for union, #253#;
  on coercion as the issue, #255#;
  views as to Virginia's unchanged allegiance to state sovereignty, #294#.

Adams, John Quincy, on action of anti-slavery societies, 1835, #174#;
  not an Abolitionist, #195#;
  views as to right of secession, #290#.

Adams, Reverend Nehemiah, on assaults upon Virginia by Abolitionists, #48#, #49#;
  on feeling in Virginia regarding slave traders, #141#;
  on reactionary effects of Abolitionists, #176#.

African Slave Trade, early opposition to, in Virginia, #16#;
  letter of Colonel William Byrd against, #16#;
  petition of Virginia House of Burgesses against, 1772, #18#;
  arraignment of in original draft of Declaration of Independence, #19#;
  Virginia Colonial Convention 1774, hostile to, #21#;
  declaration against in Continental Congress, 1774, #21#, #22#;
  Virginia's statute abolishing, 1778, #25#;
  George Mason's denunciation of, #30#;
  efforts of Virginians in Congress to suppress, #33#;
  President Jefferson's message, 1806-07 on suppression of, #34#;
  President Madison's message, 1810, recommending more stringent laws against, #35#;
  act of 1819 against, #36#;
  joint resolution of Congress, 1823, against, #36#;
  "Right of Search" in suppression of, advocated by President Monroe, 1824, #37#;
  President Tyler's message against, 1841-42, #38#;
  appeal of Henry A. Wise against, 1845, 38-#39#;
  President Taylor's message against, 1849, #39#.

Agriculture in Virginia, injurious effects of slavery upon, #127#-#137#.

Amalgamation of blacks and whites, Governor James McDowell on, #163#;
  William C. Rives on, #163#-#164#;
  M. de Tocqueville on, #164#;
  Stephen A. Douglas on, #165#;
  General William T. Sherman on, #165#;
  William H. Seward on, #165#;
  Abraham Lincoln on, #165#-#166#.

American Anti-Slavery Society, its organization, 1833, #200#;
  disunion resolutions of, May, 1844, #213#.

American Civil War, character of, #1#-#3#;
  parties to, #2#, #3#;
  causes of, #3#-#5#;
  objects for which it was waged, #5#-#9#.

American Colonization Society, its organization, 1816, #61#;
  establishes colony of Liberia, 1819, #62#, #63#;
  organization of auxiliary societies to, in Virginia, #63#;
  work of, impeded by pro-slavery men and Abolitionists, #65#.

Amendment to constitution, proposed by Congress, 1861, safeguarding slavery, #192#;
  ratified by Ohio and Maryland, #192#.

Annapolis, convention assembles at, 1786, to amend Articles of Confederation, #238#.

Anti-Slavery sentiments, of prominent Virginians, #82#-#101#.

Apportionment, basis of, for representation in Virginia Legislature, #144#, #172#.

Arkansas, secedes because of Lincoln's call for troops, #226#.


Bacon, Reverend Leonard, estimate of condition of free negroes, 1831, #160#.

Baldwin, John B., a Union leader in Virginia Convention, 1861, #255#;
  urges President Lincoln to abandon coercion, #266#;
  on position of Union men in Virginia after her secession, #297#.

Ballagh, J. H., on Virginia's primacy in prohibiting African slave trade, #25#;
  on slavery debate in Virginia's Legislature, 1832, #46#;
  on estimate of number of slaves freed in Virginia, #102#.

Bancroft, George, on Virginia's effort to prohibit importation of slaves, #17#;
  on Virginia's Bill of Rights, #23#;
  on Ordinance of 1787, #27#;
  on injurious effect of slavery on Virginia, #127#;
  estimate of Virginia's action in calling for intercolonial committees of correspondence, #239#;
  estimate of Virginia's action in securing Convention at Philadelphia, 1787, #239#.

Banks, Governor N. P., addresses Legislature of Massachusetts, January, 1861, on "personal liberty laws," #205#.

Barton, D. W., emancipates slaves, #70#.

Barton, Robert T., letter to author regarding above, #70#, #71#.

Bates, Edwin, his reply as Attorney General to President Lincoln's request for opinions on provisioning Fort Sumter, #282# and #284#.

Baylor, George, remarks in Virginia Convention, 1861,
  on secession and coercion, #265#;
  on coercing Cotton States, #289#.

Berry, Henry, anti-slavery sentiments, #93#.

Bill of Rights, Virginia's, on inherent rights of men, #22#-#23#.

"Black Belt" in Virginia, its white and slave population, #125#.

Blackburn, Samuel, will emancipating slaves, #113#.

Blaine, James G., on slavery in the territories, #185#;
  on action of Republicans in Congress, 1861, abandoning their position on the subject, #185#;
  on protection afforded to slavery by the Union, #222#.

Blair, Montgomery, replies, as Postmaster General, to President Lincoln's request for opinions on provisioning Fort Sumter, #282# and #284#.

Bland, Theodoric, efforts in first Congress, to tax importation of slaves, #33#.

Bolling, Philip A., anti-slavery sentiments of, #95#;
  on injurious effects of slavery, #130#.

Bonner, Jesse, will emancipating slaves, #107#.

Booth, Sherman M., convicted by Federal Court, and discharged by State Court of Wisconsin, #203#.

Branch, Thomas, remarks of, in Virginia Convention, 1861, on President Lincoln's First Inaugural, #265#.

Brent, George W., remarks of, in Virginia Convention, 1861, on influence of Abolitionists in North, and Free Traders in South, in precipitating the Civil War, #266#.

Broadnax, William H., views expressed in slavery debate, 1832, #47#;
  anti-slavery sentiments of, #92#.

Brokenbrough, John W., delegate from Virginia to Peace Conference, 1861, #246#.

Brown Co., Ohio, colonization of Samuel Gist's slaves in, #66#.

Brown, John, John W. Burgess's estimate of reactionary influence of his Raid and of Northern sympathy, #178#;
  disastrous influence of his Raid upon sentiment in the South, #178#;
  Lincoln's estimate of his Raid, #195#;
  captured by United States soldiers, #212#;
  sympathy of leading Abolitionists with, #218#;
  prominent Abolitionists, parties to his venture, #219#.

Brougham, Lord, on character of Federal Government, #290#.

Buchanan, James, extract from message, as President, 1860, on influence of Abolitionists, #177#;
  message to Congress, 1860, on "personal liberty laws," #204#.

Burgesses—House of, their petition, 1772, against slave trade, #18#;
  their resolutions against Stamp Act, 1765, #238#;
  pledging support to Massachusetts, 1768, #238#;
  asserting resistance to Great Britain, 1769, #238#;
  providing for intercolonial committees of correspondence, 1773, #239#;
  fixing day for fasting and prayer, 1774, #239#.

Burgess, J. W., on reactionary influence of John Brown's Raid, #178#;
  on effect of sympathy evinced for John Brown in many parts of the North, #178#.

Burke, Edmund, on England's participation in slave trade and Virginia's opposition, #17#;
  on John Hampden's position, #229#.

Byrd, Colonel William, anti-slavery sentiments of, 1736, #16#, Note 3.


Caldwell, E. B., prominent in organizing American Colonization Society, #61#.

Cameron, Simon, his reply, as Secretary of War, to President Lincoln's request for opinion on provisioning Fort Sumter, #281# and #289#.

Carlile, John S., on protection of slavery by the Union, #223#.

Carr, Dabney, author of resolutions providing for intercolonial committees of correspondence, #239#.

Carroll, Charles of Carrolton, President of American Colonization Society, #62#.

Carter, Robert, deeds, emancipating slaves, #105#.

Cass Co., Michigan, colonization in, of Sampson Sanders' slaves, #70#.

Chadwick, F. E., analysis of census showing number of Virginia's slaveholders, #124#;
  estimate of number of Virginians living beyond the State, 1860, #128#;
  on the prominent men, parties to John Brown's Raid, #219#.

Chandler, John A., anti-slavery sentiments, #92#.

Chandler, Zachariah, letter regarding Peace Conference, 1861, #249#.

Channing, William Ellery, on adverse influence of Abolitionists, #53#.

Chase, Salmon P., on impossibility of complete enforcement of fugitive slave law, #187# and #206#;
  replies, as Secretary of the Treasury, to President Lincoln's request for opinion on provisioning Fort Sumter, #283#, #284#.

Clark, General George Rogers, Conqueror of Northwest Territory, #26# and #237#.

Clay, Henry, presides at meeting to organize American Colonization Society, 1816, #61#;
  President of American Colonization Society, #62#;
  on emancipation and colonization of negroes, #76#, #77#;
  on condition of free negroes in 1829, #160#.

Cleveland, Ohio, place of proposed Disunion Convention, October, 1857, #214#.

Cocke, Eliza W., deed emancipating slaves, #122#.

Coercion, controlling factor in determining Virginia's secession, #252#;
  Robert E. Lee denies ethical right of, #288#;
  William C. Rives denies same, #289#;
  George Baylor denies same, #289#;
  M. de Tocqueville denies right of by Federal Government, #289#;
  Lord Brougham denies same, #290#.

Coles, Edward, emancipates his slaves and colonizes them in Illinois, #66#, #67#;
  prosecuted and fined for this act, #67#.

Coles, Roberts, killed at battle of Roanoke Island, #68#.

Colonization of negroes, appropriation by Virginia Legislature in aid of, #59#, #64#;
  origin of the idea of, #60#;
  resolutions of Virginia Legislature favoring, 1800, #60#;
  same, 1805, #60#;
  same, 1816, #61#;
  organization of American Society to promote, #61#;
  by individual slaveholders, #66#-#73#;
  views of Jefferson, Clay and Lincoln on, #75#-#81#.

Colorado, organized as a territory without prohibition as to slavery, 1861, #186#.

Commerce, decline of, in Virginia, #134# and #137#.

Congress, 1789, efforts of Virginians in, to tax importation of slaves, #33#;
  resolutions adopted by, defining attitude regarding slavery, 1861, #187#;
  amendment to constitution proposed by, 1861, #192#;
  resolution of, defining attitude on purpose of War, 1861, #194#;
  Act of, February 12, 1793, regarding return of fugitive slaves, #199#;
  Act of, September 18, 1850, regarding fugitive slaves, #202#;
  resolutions adopted February, 1861, regarding fugitive slave act, #205#.

Congress, Continental of 1774, Virginia's anti-slavery attitude defined in, #21#, #22#.

Congress, Continental of 1784, accepts Virginia's deed ceding Northwest Territory, #26#.

Connecticut, Statute of, 1833, regarding establishment of schools for non-resident negroes, #167#;
  "personal liberty laws," #202#.

Constitution, Virginia's opposition to clause permitting African slave trade, #29#;
  clauses of, regarding fugitives from justice and fugitive slaves, #197#;
  copies burned by Abolitionists at burned by Abolitionists at public meetings, #216#.

Controversy, regarding slavery, status of at time of Virginia's secession, #182#-#201#.

Convention, Virginia's Colonial, 1777, resolves against slave trade, #21#;
  Virginia's, 1861, majority of delegates to, Union men, #252#;
  report of committee from, on reply of President Lincoln, #274#.

Cotton States, effect of withdrawal of representatives of, from Congress, #186#;
  sent no delegates to Peace Conference, 1861, #249#;
  coercion of, by Federal Government, crucial factor in determining Virginia's secession, #266#;
  coercion of, repugnant to many people both North and South, #271#;
  Virginia's attitude regarding their secession, #286#.

Curtis, George Ticknor, on adverse influence of Abolitionists, #57#;
  attests anti-slavery sentiment in Virginia in 1832, #143#.

Custis, G. W. P., furnishes asylum for Liberian colonists, #63#;
  anti-slavery sentiments of, #96#;
  emancipates his slaves, #102#;
  will, emancipating slaves, #121#.


Dakota, organized as a territory, 1861, without prohibition of slavery, #186#.

Davies, Arthur B., will emancipating slaves, #120#.

Davis, Jefferson, on attitude of Southern Confederacy towards the Union and slavery, #6#;
  on the right of revolution, #287#.

Declaration of Independence, clause against slavery and slave trade, stricken out of, #19#, #20#.

Deeds and wills emancipating slaves, specimens of, #103#-#123#.

Dew, Thomas R., on slavery debate of 1832, #47#.

Disunion, Abolitionists advocate, #213#.

Disunion Convention, meets at Worcester, Mass., 1857, #214#;
  fails to assemble at Cleveland, 1857, #214#.

Douglas, Stephen A., on negro problem, #165#.

Du Bois, W. E. B., on Virginia's effort to abolish slave trade, #22#.


Early, Albert, will emancipating slaves, #116#.

Early, Joseph, will emancipating slaves, #118#.

Early, Jubal A., remarks, in Virginia Convention, 1861, on Lincoln's First Inaugural, #266#.

Edlow, Carter H., will emancipating slaves, #114#.

Emancipation, problems, social and political of, in Virginia, #161#;
  Lincoln's estimate of difficulties of, #180#.

Emancipation in Virginia, difficulties attending, #157#-#180#.

Emancipation Proclamations, #226#.

Emigration, of slaveholders from Virginia, #146#.

Eppes, Francis, will emancipating slaves, #117#.

Everett, Edward, on coercing the seceding States, #284#.

Ewell, Charles, will emancipating slaves, #108#.

Ewing, Thomas, on adverse influence of Abolitionists, #56#, #57#.


"Fanatics," Northern, their reactionary influence, #172#.

Faulkner, Charles J., a leader of anti-slavery party in Virginia Legislature 1832, #91#;
  anti-slavery sentiments of, #93#;
  on injurious effects of slavery upon Virginia's prosperity, #130#;
  allusion to anti-slavery sentiment in Virginia, 1832, #143#.

Federal Government, attitude of, regarding all questions arising out of slavery, #182#.

"Fire Eaters," Southern, their reactionary influence, #172#.

Fiske, John, on Virginia's claim upon Northwest Territory, #26#;
  on her part in enacting Ordinance of 1787, #27#;
  on forces which secured enactment of clause in constitution, permitting African slave trade, #29#;
  on anti-slavery party in Virginia, #138#;
  declares that Virginia made first formal defiance to Stamp Act, #238#;
  on Madison's part in framing constitution, #240#;
  his estimate of John Marshall, #241#.

Fitzhugh, William Henry, extract from his will emancipating slaves, #111#.

Floyd, John, joint author, with Mercer, of Act of 1819, in opposition to African slave trade, #36#.

Forts, Federal jurisdiction over, in seceding states, #271#.

Free discussion, lack of, in Virginia, hinders emancipation, #172#;
  causes, which restrained it, in Virginia, #172#-#178#.

Free negroes, number in Virginia at close of Revolution, #42#;
  rapid increase of, under statutes permitting emancipations, #42#;
  compelled to leave state within twelve months after emancipation, #43#;
  their handicap in slave communities, #161#;
  their treatment at the North, prior to 1860, #160#;
  statutes of various Northern States restrict them from becoming residents thereof, #168#-#170#;
  dread of their presence, as residents, on the part of Northern people, #170#, #171#.

Fugitives from justice, provision of constitution referring to, #195#;
  decision of Supreme Court construing same, #208#.

Fugitive slaves, their owners could gain nothing by Virginia's secession, #209#.

Fugitive Slave Law, of 1850, among causes of Civil War, #209#;
  attitude on, of Republican Party, #187#-#189#;
  Lincoln, author of a, #188#;
  provision of constitution referring to, #197#;
  of 1793, history of its enactment, #199#;
  of 1850, history of its enactment, #202#;
  its execution impeded by the Underground Railroad, #200#, #201#;
  declared constitutional by Supreme Court, #203#.


Garrison, William Lloyd, his biographer's estimate of status of free negroes, prior to 1860, #160#, #161#;
  leader of Abolitionists, #211#;
  disunion sentiments of, #213#-#215#;
  denounces Webster, #216#;
  his estimate of Longfellow's Ode to the Union, #217#;
  his eulogy of John Brown, #218#;
  an apologist for slave insurrections, #218#;
  applauds South Carolina's secession, #221#.

Georgia, requisition of Governor of, upon Governor of Maine for return of fugitives from justice, denied, #207#.

Gilmer, Francis W., anti-slavery sentiment of, #88#.

Gist, Samuel, colonization of his ex-slaves in Ohio, #66#.

Gladstone, William E., his estimate of the unjustifiable attitude of the North, #291#.

Goode, John, a leader of the Secessionists in Virginia Convention, 1861, #254#.

Greeley, Horace, declares right of Cotton States to secede, #291#.

Green, J. R., declares Virginia first to formally deny right of Great Britain to tax colonies, #238#.


Harrison, Jesse Burton, his estimate of Virginia's poverty in 1832, induced by slavery, #131#, #132#.

Hart, A. B., on the practice of buying and selling slaves, note 2, #152#;
  on number of slaveholders in the Southern States, #153#;
  his estimate of Underground Railroad, #201#.

Harvie, Lewis E., a leader of the Secessionists, Virginia Convention, 1861, #254#.

Hawes, Aylette, extract from will, emancipating his slaves, #110#.

Henderson, G. F. R., on Virginia's loyalty, #211#;
  on the propriety of Virginia's secession, #278#.

Henry, Patrick, anti-slavery sentiments of, #83#.

Herndon, Thaddeus, sends ex-slaves to Liberia, #71#.

Herndon, Traverse, sends ex-slaves to Liberia, #71#;
  extract from will, emancipating his slaves, #119#.

Higginson, Thomas Wentworth, a leader of Abolitionists, #214#.

Hill, A. P., never owned a slave, #156#.

Hill, Joseph, extract from deed, emancipating his slaves, #104#.

Holcombe, James P., a leader of the Secessionists, Virginia Convention, 1861, #254#.

Howison, R. R., anti-slavery sentiments of, #98#, #99#;
  his estimate of Virginia's poverty, 1848, induced by slavery, #134#.


Illinois, denies free negroes' right to become residents of, 1853, #169#.

Indiana, denies free negroes' right to become residents of, 1851, #169#.


Jackson, Stonewall, owned one slave at time of war, #155#.

Janney, John, extract from his speech in Virginia Convention of 1861, #243#, #254#;
  a leader of the Union men, Virginia Convention, 1861, #255#;
  extract from his speech notifying Lee of his appointment as chief of Virginia's militia, #297#.

Jefferson, Thomas, on arraignment of slave trade in original draft of Declaration of Independence, #19#;
  records reason for omitting clause against slave trade in Declaration of Independence, #20#;
  his lament at defeat of clause restricting slavery in Ordinance of 1784, #27#;
  urges Congress to prohibit importation of slaves, #34#;
  originates idea of negro colonization, #60#;
  efforts, as President, to promote same, #60#;
  on necessity of negro colonization, #75#, #76#;
  anti-slavery sentiments of, #86#;
  on political difficulties of emancipation in Virginia, #162#;
  on beneficial results of diffusing slaves through the territories, #185#.

Jennings, William D., extract from will, emancipating his slaves, #119#.

Johnston, Joseph E., never owned a slave, #156#.


Key, Francis Scott, prominent in organizing American Colonization Society, #61#.


Lee, Fitzhugh, never owned a slave, #156#.

Lee, Mary Custis, extract from her letter deploring the war, #296#.

Lee, Richard Henry, anti-slavery sentiments of, #82#.

Lee, Robert E., anti-slavery sentiments of, #100#, #101#;
  owned no slaves at time of war, #155#;
  declares disunion an aggravation of the ills of the South, #223#;
  denies constitutionality of secession, #288#;
  denies ethical right of coercion, #288#;
  his sorrow at disunion, #296#.

Leigh, Benjamin Watkins, anti-slavery sentiments of, #89#.

Letcher, John, extract from his message as Governor of Virginia, January, 1861, #244#;
  extract from reply to requisition of Secretary of War for Virginia's quota of troops, #278#.

Liberia, circumstances attending its establishment as a negro colony, #62#, #63#.

Lightfoot, Philip, extract from will, emancipating his slaves, #120#.

Lincoln, Abraham, on slavery as defined in first inaugural, #6# and #15#;
  on adverse influence of Abolitionists, #53#-#55#;
  on emancipation and colonization of negroes, #79#-#81#;
  on amalgamation of blacks and whites and on their racial inequality, #166#;
  his reference to the dread of Northern people to receive free negroes, #171#;
  author of bill containing fugitive slave clause, #188#;
  on fugitive slaves as expressed in first inaugural, #189#;
  letter to Alexander H. Stephens regarding interference with slavery, #191#;
  position as to proposed amendment of constitution regarding protection of slavery, 1861, #193#;
  not an Abolitionist, #195#;
  on John Brown's Raid, #195#;
  explanation of his expression "Government cannot endure half slave and half free," #196#;
  on the effect and character of his Emancipation Proclamations, #227#;
  patriotism and literary beauty of first inaugural, #259#;
  regards Union as unbroken by secession, #259#;
  his declaration of policy, #260#;
  reply to Virginia Commissioners, April 13, 1861, #274# and #275#;
  his call for 75,000 troops, April 15, 1861, #275#;
  requests, March 15, 1861, his cabinet officers' opinions, as to propriety of provisioning Fort Sumter, #280#;
  requests their further opinion, March 29, #284#;
  on right of revolution, #290#;
  on legal and ethical rights of coercion, #293#.

Lunt, George, on reactionary influence of Abolitionists upon anti-slavery sentiment in Virginia, #57#;
  on John Brown's Raid, #177#;
  on effect of personal liberty laws, #206#.


Madison, James, opposes clause in constitution, permitting African slave trade, #31#;
  his efforts to impose tariff tax on importation of slaves, #33#;
  messages, as President, opposing African slave trade, #35#;
  third President of American Colonization Society, #62#;
  anti-slavery sentiments of, #90#;
  declares disunion a menace to slavery, #222#;
  heads delegation from Virginia to Annapolis Convention, 1786, #238#;
  his great part in framing constitution, #240#.

Marshall, John, first President of Colonization Society of Virginia, #64#;
  anti-slavery sentiments of, #88#.

Marshall, Thomas, a leader in anti-slavery party in Virginia Legislature, 1832, #46#;
  anti-slavery sentiments of, #92#;
  his estimate of injurious effects of slavery upon prosperity of Virginia, #129#, #130#.

Maryland, ratifies proposed amendment to constitution, 1861, protecting slavery, #192#.

Mason, George, his speech against clause in constitution permitting African slave trade, #30#;
  Virginia's statue to his fame, #31#;
  anti-slavery sentiments of, #84#.

Maury, Matthew F., anti-slavery sentiments of, #99#;
  never owned but one slave, #156#;
  his reference to coercion as cause of Virginia's secession, #266#;
  extract from his letter regarding the approaching war, #297#.

McDowell, James, a leader in anti-slavery party, in Virginia Legislature, 1832, #46#;
  anti-slavery sentiments of, #93#;
  his estimate of injurious effects of slavery, #131#;
  on racial problems, #163#;
  declares disunion a menace to slavery, #222#.

McGuire, Hunter, his estimate of number of slaveholders in the Stonewall Brigade, #155#.

McMaster, J. B., his estimate of condition of free negroes, #160#.

Meade, William, anti-slavery sentiments of, #100#;
  extract from deed, emancipating a slave, #115#;
  his estimate of injury to Virginia's prosperity, induced by slavery, #135#.

Mercer, Charles Fenton, author of law against African slave trade, #36#;
  of resolution denouncing African slave trade as piracy, #36#;
  his remarks in Congress, supporting resolution, #36#, #37#;
  his visits to the Old World, seeking co-operation, #37#;
  prominent in organizing American Colonization Society, #61#;
  anti-slavery sentiments of, #98#.

Mercer, Margaret, her letter to Gerrit Smith regarding Abolitionists, #175#.

Mills, Samuel J., his visit to Africa, regarding establishing Colony of Liberia, #62#.

Missouri Compromise, its enactment and repeal among causes of Civil War, #4#;
  provision of, restricting rights of slaveholders in territories, #180#;
  declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, #183#.

Monroe, James, message to Congress on Right of Search, #37#;
  anti-slavery sentiments of, #89#.

Montague, Robert L., a leader of the Secessionists, Virginia Convention, 1861, #254#.

Moorman, Charles, extract from deed emancipating his slaves, #104#.

Morton, Jeremiah, a leader of the Secessionists, Virginia Convention, 1861, #254#.

Muschett, Louisa, extract from will, emancipating her slaves, #122#.


Negroes, what should be their status under freedom, #162#.

Negro trader, the odium attaching to, in Virginia, #101#, #141#, #142#.

Nevada, organized as a territory, 1861, without prohibition as to slavery, #186#.

New Jersey, deprives negroes of suffrage, 1807, #168#.

New York, requires higher property qualification for suffrage of negroes than for whites, 1821, #168#.

Nicolay and Hay, on reasons for omitting anti-slavery clause in Declaration of Independence, #20#;
  on reasons for Virginia's secession, #138#.

North Carolina, secedes because of President Lincoln's call for troops, #226#.

Northern States, hostile attitude of certain of, regarding fugitive slave law, #197#-#209#;
  reactionary influence of certain of, upon sentiment in Virginia, #207#.


Ohio, denies free negroes right to become residents of, #168#;
  ratifies amendment proposed to constitution, 1861, protecting slavery, #192#;
  Governor of, refuses to honor requisition of Governor of Kentucky for return of fugitives from justice, #208#.

Ordinances, of 1784 and 1787—Virginia's part in their enactment, #26#, #27#.

Ordinance of Secession, adopted by Virginia Convention, April 17, 1861, #277#;
  ratified by the people May 23, 1861, #277#.

Oregon, denies free negroes right to become residents of, #170#.


Parker, Josiah, his efforts to impose tariff tax on importation of slaves, #33#.

Parker, Theodore, his denunciations of Federal judges and officials, #216#;
  eulogizes John Brown, #218#;
  an apologist of slave insurrection, #218#.

Pennsylvania, deprives negroes of suffrage, 1838, #168#.

"Personal Liberty Laws," their enactment by various Northern States, #202#.

Peyton, Martha E., extract from will, emancipating her slaves, #110#.

Phillips, Wendell, leader of Abolitionists, #211#;
  disunion sentiments of, #213#;
  denounces Webster and Lincoln, #216#;
  eulogizes John Brown, #218#;
  an apologist of slave insurrection, #218#;
  hails secession of Southern States, #221#;
  declares emancipation child of civil convulsions, #224# and #225#;
  denies the right of Federal Government to coerce Cotton States, #293#.

Preston, Francis, extract from deed emancipating a slave, #105#.

Preston, William Ballard, a leader of anti-slavery party in Virginia Legislature of 1832, #46#;
  one of Committee from Virginia Convention, to wait upon Lincoln, #273#.

Proclamations, President Lincoln's, for emancipation, #226# and #227#;
  President Lincoln's, calling for troops, #275#.

Pro-slavery, growth of sentiment for, in Virginia, #49#.


Randolph, Edmund, opposes clause in constitution, permitting the African slave trade, #31#.

Randolph, George W., one of Committee from Virginia Convention, to wait upon President Lincoln, #273#.

Randolph, John of Roanoke, colonization of his ex-slaves in Ohio, #68#;
  extract from will, emancipating his slaves, #111#;
  his characterization of slavery, #173#.

Randolph, Richard Jr., extract from will, emancipating his slaves, #106#.

Randolph, Thomas Jefferson, a leader of anti-slavery party in Virginia Legislature, 1832, #46#;
  on reactionary influence of Abolitionists upon anti-slavery sentiment in Virginia, #51#;
  anti-slavery sentiments of, #95#;
  records the growth of anti-slavery sentiment in Virginia since the Revolution, #143#.

Rebellion, characteristics of a, #2#.

Relief Squadron, its expedition to Fort Sumter, #276#.

Representation, basis of, in Virginia, #145#, #172#.

Republic, ideals of, #242#.

Republican Party, attitude of, regarding slavery in the territories, as declared in their platform, #183#, #186#;
  abandons in Congress, 1861, their position, #186#;
  position of, regarding Fugitive Slave Law, #187#, #188#;
  position of, regarding slavery in Southern States, #190#, #193#.

Revolution, characteristics of a, #2#.

Rhodes, James Ford, estimate of Lee and the motives which impelled him to fight with Virginia, #140#;
  on Virginia's effort to save the Union, #244#;
  his estimate of significance of Peace Conference, #247#;
  on result of Virginia election, February, 1861, #253#;
  his estimate of anti-coercion sentiment in Virginia and other Border States, #285#.

Rhode Island, alone repeals "personal liberty law," #206#.

Right of Revolution, held by Virginia people, #286#;
  as defined by Jefferson Davis, #287#;
  as defined by Abraham Lincoln, #290#.

Rives, William C., anti-slavery sentiment of, #97#, #98#;
  on racial problem, #163#;
  a delegate from Virginia to Peace Conference, #246#;
  extract from his speech in Peace Conference, #248#.

Roosevelt, Theodore, on reactionary influence of Abolitionists, upon anti-slavery sentiment in Virginia, #58#;
  estimate of Robert E. Lee and his soldiers, #140#.

Ruffner, Henry, on reactionary influence of Abolitionists upon anti-slavery sentiments in Virginia, #52#;
  anti-slavery sentiments of, #99#;
  his estimate of injurious effect of slavery upon Virginia's prosperity, #132#.

Russell, W. H., his opinion as to lack of settled policy in Federal administration, March, 1861, #274#.


Sanders, Sampson, colonization of his ex-slaves in Michigan, #69#;
  extract from will, emancipating his slaves, #118#.

Schouler, James, on disunion sentiments of Abolitionist leaders, #214#.

Secession, advocates of, in Virginia, #10#;
  status of controversy regarding slavery at time of Virginia's, #190#-#196#;
  no cure for Virginia's grievances against Abolitionists, #211#;
  Virginia's would menace slavery, #227#, #228#;
  contests in Virginia's Convention, for and against, #265#-#274#;
  Virginia's Convention defeats, #268#;
  President Lincoln's call for troops impels Virginia to, #277#;
  Robert E. Lee denies constitutional right of, #288#;
  William C. Rives condemns, of States, #288#;
  how Virginia regarded, #295#.

Seddon, James A., a delegate from Virginia to Peace Conference, #246#.

Seward, William H., on negro problem, #165#;
  on election in Virginia, 1861, #252#;
  his opinion as to lack of settled policy in Federal administration, April, 1861, #274#;
  his replies as Secretary of State to President Lincoln's request for opinions as to provisioning Fort Sumter, #280#-#283#;
  his official communication to American minister to Great Britain, April, 1861, defining position of the President, #293#.

Seys, Rev. John, his account of departure of Herndon's slaves for Liberia, #71#-#73#.

Sherman, William T., on the negro problem, #165#.

Sheffey, James W., extract from speech in Virginia Convention, 1861, on coercion, #266#.

Slaughter, Rev. Philip, his estimate of anti-slavery sentiment in Virginia, 1831, #43# and #143#.

Slaves, their first importation, #16#;
  rate of their importation, #16#;
  their number in Virginia, 1776, #24#;
  efforts of Virginians in First Congress to impose tariff tax on importation of, #33#;
  affection of, for masters, #70#-#73#;
  transferred from Virginia to other states, #147#;
  sale of, by Virginia owners and traders, #147#;
  practice of buying and selling, reviewed by William Henry Smith, #148#;
  injury to certain classes of, by untimely emancipation, #159#.

Slavery, foremost among the causes of the Civil War, #3#;
  Virginia's colonial record regarding, #15#-#24#;
  earliest introduction of, 1619, #16#;
  opposition to, of Colonel William Byrd, 1736, #16#, note 4;
  statutes restraining increase of, defeated by King George, #18#;
  anti-slavery position of Virginia declared, #18#-#24#;
  its exclusion from the Northwest Territory, #26#-#28#;
  statutes ameliorating conditions of, #41#-#44#;
  growth and culmination of sentiment opposing, #43#, #44#;
  movement in General Assembly 1832, to abolish, #45#-#48#;
  growth in sentiment favoring, #49#;
  patriarchal character of, #101#;
  injurious effects of, upon prosperity of Virginia, #127#-#137#;
  unprofitable character of, in Virginia, #127#;
  difficulties of abolishing, #157#-#180#;
  causes militating against free discussion of, in Virginia, #172#-#179#;
  status of controversy regarding, 1860, #182#-#189#;
  promises of President Lincoln to respect the institution of, #190#, #191#;
  its integrity in Southern States pledged by Republican platform, 1861, #190#;
  Virginia's secession not impelled by fear of legislation against, #191#;
  amendment to constitution proposed by Congress, safeguarding the institution of, #192#;
  resolutions of Congress, pledging protection to, 1861, #191#;
  the most potent factor in precipitating the war, #228#;
  an unconstitutional assault upon, would have justified Virginia's resistance, #228#;
  Virginia's attitude towards, in territories, #269#.

Slaveholders, legal rights of, embarrass emancipation, #177#.

Smith, Caleb B., his replies as Secretary of Interior, to President Lincoln's request for opinions as to provisioning Fort Sumter, #281#, #284#.

Smith, John, extract from will, emancipating his slaves, #109#.

Smith, William, extract from will, emancipating his slaves, #121#.

Smith, William Henry, on reactionary influence of Abolitionists upon anti-slavery sentiment in Virginia, #58#;
  his review of the practice of buying and selling slaves, #148#.

Southampton County, servile insurrection in, #45#.

Stanton, Edwin M., his opinion as to lack of settled policy in Federal administration, March, 1861, #273#.

State Sovereignty, the theory of, #285#.

Stephens, Alexander H., his estimate of the significance of the Relief Squadron's expedition to Fort Sumter, #277#.

Stiles, Robert, his estimate of the number of slaveholders among the members of Richmond Howitzers, #154#.

Stuart, Alexander H. H., a leader of the Union men, Virginia Convention, 1861, #255#;
  one of committee from Virginia Convention to wait upon President Lincoln, #273#.

Stuart, J. E. B., owned no slaves at time of war, #156#.

Suffrage, white manhood, first established in Virginia by constitution of, 1850-1851, #145#.

Summers, George W., declares disunion a menace to slavery, #223#;
  a delegate from Virginia to Peace Conference, #246#;
  extract from his speech at same, #248#;
  a leader of the Union men, Virginia Convention, 1861, #255#;
  extract from speech on coercion, Virginia Convention, 1861, #263#;
  extract from letter on effect of suggested evacuation of Fort Sumter, #266#.

Sumter, Fort, strategic importance of its occupancy by Federal troops, #272#.


Taylor, Zachary, urges Congress to suppress African slave trade, #39#.

Tennessee, secedes because of President Lincoln's call for troops, #226#.

Territories, right of slaveholders in, a serious problem, #182#.

Thom, Cameron E., his account of attempt of John Thom to colonize his ex-slaves, #73#, #74#.

Tinsley, Robert, extract from will, emancipating his slaves, #122#.

Tocqueville, Alexis de, on negro problem in America, #164#;
  declares Federal Government, founded on consent of states, cannot be maintained by force, #289#.

Tucker, George, his estimate of reactionary influence of Abolitionists upon anti-slavery sentiment in Virginia, #51#, #52#.

Tucker, St. George, anti-slavery sentiments of, #85#;
  his influence in forming anti-slavery sentiments of Thomas H. Benton, #85#, note 117.

Turner, Nat, leads slave insurrection, 1831, #45#.

Tyler, Sr., John, anti-slavery sentiments of, #84#.

Tyler, John, urges Congress to enact laws suppressing African slave trade, #38#;
  anti-slavery sentiments of, #87#;
  a commissioner from Virginia to the President of the United States, 1861, #246#;
  a delegate from Virginia to the Peace Conference, 1861, #246#;
  an extract from his speech, as President of Peace Conference, #248#.


"Underground Railroad," The, its origin and the character of its operations, #200#, #201#.


Virginia, diversity of sentiment in, #10#;
  attitude of dominant element in, regarding slavery and secession, #10#, #11#;
  her opposition to coercion and grounds therefor, #11#;
  right of self-government, basis of her position, #12#;
  her Colonial record regarding slavery, #15#-#24#;
  her efforts to restrain increase of slavery defeated by Great Britain, #17#, #18#;
  petition of her House of Burgesses, 1772, to King George, against African slave trade, #18#;
  her opposition to African slave trade declared, by Mr. Jefferson, in the original Declaration of Independence, #19#;
  her opposition to African slave trade voiced in county meetings, #21#;
  resolutions of her Colonial Convention against importation of slaves, #21#;
  her anti-slavery position defined, 1774, in Continental Congress, #21#, #22#;
  her efforts to enforce the agreements for the non-importation of slaves, #22#;
  her Constitution and Bill of Rights, 1776, antagonistic to slavery, #22#, #23#;
  Mr. Bancroft's estimate of her Bill of Rights, #23#;
  number of slaves in, at outbreak of the Revolution, #24#;
  her statute abolishing African slave trade, 1778, #25#;
  her cession of Northwest Territory to Federal Government, #26#, #28#;
  her part in adopting Ordinance of 1787, #27#, #28#;
  Mr. Bancroft's estimate of, #27#;
  her General Assembly confirms Deed and Ordinance, 1789, #28#;
  her opposition to clause of constitution permitting foreign slave trade, #29#, #31#;
  her continued efforts to restrain African slave trade, #33#-#40#;
  her statutes—1782,—permitting slaveholders to emancipate their slaves, #41#;
  of 1788—punishing with death for enslavement of child of free blacks, #41#;
  of 1795—according slaves process of law without costs in proceedings affecting their freedom, #42#;
  of 1803—requiring county authorities to keep registers, showing negroes entitled to liberty, #42#;
  number of her free negroes, in 1810, #42#;
  her Act of 1806, requiring emancipated slaves to leave state, #42#;
  growth and culmination, in 1831, of her anti-slavery sentiments, #43#;
  reactionary effect, upon her anti-slavery sentiment of Nat Turner insurrection, the Abolitionists and the failure of her General Assembly, 1832, to abolish slavery or to remove free negroes, #43#, #44#;
  movement in her General Assembly, 1832—to abolish slavery, #45#-#48#;
  her growth in pro-slavery sentiment, #48#-#56#;
  reactionary influence of Abolitionists upon her anti-slavery sentiment, #51#-#59#;
  her efforts in aid of negro colonization, #60#-#65#;
  her attitude towards emancipation, #75#;
  her record regarding slavery, as reviewed by St. George Tucker, #85#;
  public opinion in, ameliorates hardships of slavery, #101#;
  instances of emancipations in, #103#;
  small number of slaveholders in, #124#;
  injurious effects of slavery upon, #127#-#137#;
  her attitude towards custom of buying and selling slaves, #138#-#152#;
  constitutional requirements in, regarding voting and apportionment of representation, #144#, #145#;
  colonists from, to Liberia, #152#;
  small number of slaveholders among her soldiers, #153#-#155#;
  causes militating against free discussion of slavery in, #172#-#180#;
  her electoral vote in 1860, cast for Union candidates, #179#;
  her secession not impelled by fear of adverse slavery legislation, #191#;
  effect of "personal liberty laws" and "Underground Railroad" upon people of, #200#, #201#;
  requisition of Governor of, upon Governor of New York for fugitive from justice denied, #207#;
  her people appreciated the danger to slavery resulting from secession, #222#-#224#;
  attitude of her people unchanged by Emancipation Proclamations, #226#, #227#;
  her part in the Revolution, #233#-#237#;
  her part in making the Union, #238#-#242#;
  her efforts to maintain peace and preserve the Union, #244#;
  her people declare for Union, February 4, 1861, #251#;
  result of election in, for delegates to State Convention, #252#;
  her action on secession determined by President Lincoln's call for troops, #256#;
  her position regarding coercion of Cotton States, #259#, #260#;
  effect of Lincoln's First Inaugural upon members of her Convention, #260#;
  contests in her Convention for and against secession, #265#-#273#;
  report of Committee on Federal Relations, in her Convention, 1861, fairly expressive of sentiments of majority of her people, #267#-#269#;
  her Convention defeats motion to secede April 4, 1861, #268#;
  her attitude regarding slavery in territories, #269#;
  proposes to re-enact inhibition as to slavery, north of 36 degrees 30 minutes by Constitutional Amendment, #269#;
  call of her Convention upon President Lincoln, for definite declaration regarding coercion of Cotton States, #273#;
  reply of President Lincoln to her Convention, #274#;
  President Lincoln's call for troops impels her to secede (April 11, 1861), #275#, #276#;
  response of her Governor to call for troops, #278#;
  sentiments of her people regarding coercion, #285#-#289#;
  her people, threatened with war, still adhere to their position on State Sovereignty, #294#;
  how her people regarded secession, #295#, #296#;
  predominant characteristics of her people, #298#;
  her people's stand predetermined, #298#.


War—Civil, Characteristics of a, #1#.

Ward, Sr., John, extract from will, emancipating his slaves, #109#.

Ward, John, colonization of his ex-slaves in Ohio, #68#.

Warwick, John, colonization of his ex-slaves in Ohio, #69#;
  extract from will, emancipating his slaves, #117#.

Washington, Bushrod, First President of American Colonization Society, #61#.

Washington, George, his anti-slavery sentiments, #83#;
  extract from will, emancipating his slaves, #106#;
  speech as President of Philadelphia Convention, 1787, #240#.

Webb, Thacker V., extract from will, emancipating his slaves, #115#.

Webster, Daniel, on reactionary effect of Abolitionists upon anti-slavery sentiment in Virginia, #55#.

Welles, Gideon E., his replies, as Secretary of the Navy, to President Lincoln's request for opinions as to provisioning Fort Sumter, #281#.

Wickham, Williams C., a leader of Union men, Virginia Convention 1861, #255#.

Williams, George W., views of, regarding first importation of slaves, #16#;
  on forces which secured enactment of clause in constitution, permitting African slave trade, #30#.

Wilson, Henry, estimate of debate in Virginia Legislature, 1832, regarding abolition of slavery, #46#;
  on the effects of Virginia's action regarding secession, #265#.

Wisconsin, Supreme Court of, releases prisoner convicted in Federal Court, #203#;
  resolutions adopted by General Assembly of 1859 asserting sovereignty of state, #203#.

Wise, Henry A., writes, as Consul, from Rio Janeiro, against African slave trade, #39#;
  depicts Virginia's poverty, 1856, #136#, #137#.

Wolseley, Viscount Lord, on cause for which Lee fought, #12#;
  estimate of Robert E. Lee, #140#.
.nf-
.fs 100%

.ce
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:

The Errata following the Preface had already been corrected by the publisher in the source text used.

Only obvious typographical errors were changed, including a few page numbers in the index. Unusual or inconsistent spellings were retained.

Footnotes were consecutively numbered through the entire volume and placed at the ends of chapters.

In the Index of the four note references the two which could be ascribed to footnotes on those pages had those footnote numbers inserted.

// End of DP/PG book Virginia's Attitude toward Slavery and Secession.