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автор Beverley B. Munford

VIRGINIA'S ATTITUDE TOWARD SLAVERY AND SECESSION

VIRGINIA'S ATTITUDE

TOWARD

SLAVERY AND SECESSION

BY

BEVERLEY B. MUNFORD

HUMANITATEM AMOREMQUE PATRIAE COLITE

NEGRO UNIVERSITIES PRESS

NEW YORK

Originally published in 1909

by Longmans, Green, and Co.

Reprinted 1969 by

Negro Universities Press

A Division of Greenwood Publishing Corp.

New York

Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number 69-16579

PRINTED IN UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

TO

MY WIFE

PREFACE

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.

    Richmond, Virginia, June, 1909

ERRATA

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 "Cathargo," read "Carthago."

Page 242, footnote, for "Vol. IV." read "Vol. VI."

CONTENTS

The Author's Preface

 

Part I

  Virginia's Attitude Toward Slavery and Secession Defined  

I.

Introduction

1

II.

Virginia—Slavery and Secession

10  

Part II

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

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  

Part III

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

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  

Part IV

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

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

PART I

VIRGINIA'S ATTITUDE TOWARD SLAVERY

AND SECESSION DEFINED

I

INTRODUCTION

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.

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 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.

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; 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.

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;—

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 continue to make their compelling appeal to the hearts and imaginations of men.

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 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 not now attempt our subjugation by arms." And after three years of desperate war, he declared to the representatives of President Lincoln:—

"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."[1]

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.

STATE RIGHTS vs. FEDERAL RIGHTS

"The South fought for States' Rights—Home Rule; the North, for Federal rights—National Supremacy."

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, 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.

[1]

History of the United States, Rhodes, Vol. IV, p. 515.

II

Virginia: Slavery and Secession

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."

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 modus vivendi to meet the dangers and 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.

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.

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."[2]

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.

[2]

R. E. Lee, Wolseley, p. 51.

PART II

VIRGINIA DID NOT SECEDE IN ORDER TO EXTEND

SLAVERY INTO THE TERRITORIES,

OR TO PREVENT ITS THREATENED

DESTRUCTION WITHIN HER

OWN BORDERS

III

Virginia's Colonial Record with Respect to Slavery

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.

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 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.

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."[3]

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.[4]

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.[5]

EFFORTS TO EXCLUDE SLAVES

With the great increase of this element in the population, the colonists were quick to realize their danger[6] and numerous acts were passed by the Colonial Legislature designed to lessen, if not actually to stop, further importations. Alluding to these efforts of the Virginia people, Mr. Bancroft says:

"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.'"[7]

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,

"Dull as all men are from slavery, must they not a little suspect the offer of freedom from the very nation which 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."[8]

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:

"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."[9]

This petition was reported from a Committee of the House which included Edmund Pendleton, Richard Henry Lee, Benjamin Harrison and others of equal prominence.[10]

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.

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:

"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 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."[11]

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

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 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."[12]

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

"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 New England drew more advantages from the traffic than did the agriculture of the South."[13]

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."[14]

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."[15]

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:

"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. 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."[16]

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."[17]

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."[18]

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."[19]

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 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."[20]

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

"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."[21]

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

"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 life should show a likeness to the highest ideals of right and equal freedom among men."[22]

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.

[3]

History of the Negro Race in America, Williams, Vol. 1, p. 119.

[4]

History of Slavery in Virginia, Ballagh, p. 34.

[5]

History of the Negro Race in America, Williams, Vol. 1, p. 133.

[6]

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.)

[7]

History of United States, Bancroft, Vol. III, p. 410.

[8]

Burke's Works, Little, Brown & Co.'s. Ed., Vol. II, p. 135.

[9]

Journal of House of Burgesses, p. 131, and Tucker's Blackstone, appendix, note H. Vol. II, p. 351.

[10]

Defense of Virginia, Dabney, p. 48.

[11]

History of United States, Bancroft, Vol. IV, p. 445.

[12]

Writings of Thomas Jefferson, P. L. Ford, 1892, p. 28.

[13]

Abraham Lincoln, A History, Nicolay & Hay, Vol. I, p. 314.

[14]

Suppression of the Slave Trade, DuBois, p. 43.

[15]

Idem, p. 43.

[16]

Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Ford, 1892, Vol. I, p. 440.

[17]

Suppression of the Slave Trade, DuBois, p. 45.

[18]

Idem, p. 43.

[19]

Idem, p. 47.

[20]

Hening's Statutes, Vol. IX, pp. 112-113.

[21]

Idem, p. 109.

[22]

History of United States, Bancroft, Vol. IV, p. 419.

IV

Virginia's Statute Abolishing the African Slave

Trade and Her Part in Enacting the

Ordinance of 1787

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."[23] Of this act, Mr. Ballagh, in his History of Slavery in Virginia, says, "Virginia thus had the honor of being the first political community in the civilized modern world to prohibit the pernicious traffic."[24]

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 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.[25] "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."[26] And again he writes, "Virginia gave up a magnificent and princely territory of which she was actually in possession."[27] 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 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:

"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."[28]

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."[29]

Mr. Bancroft says:

"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 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."[30]

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.[31] Mr. Bancroft says:

"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."[32]

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.

[23]

Hening's Statutes, Vol. IX, p. 471.

[24]

History of Slavery in Virginia, Ballagh, p. 23.

[25]

Life of Patrick Henry, W. W. Henry, Vol. I, p. 583.

[26]

Critical Period of American History, Fiske, p. 191.

[27]

Idem, p. 195.

[28]

Writings of Jefferson, Ford, Vol. IV, p. 181.

[29]

Critical Period of American History, Fiske, p. 205.

[30]

History of United States, Bancroft, Vol. VI, p. 290.

[31]

Hening's Statutes, Vol. XII, p. 780.

[32]

History of United States, Bancroft, Vol. VI, p. 291.

V

Foreign Slave Trade and the Constitution:

Virginia's Position

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 regulate commerce by a simple majority of votes."[33]

OPPOSITION TO FOREIGN SLAVE TRADE

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

"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."[34]

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:

"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 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."

"But these prophetic words of George Mason," adds Mr. Fiske, "were powerless against the combination of New England and the far South."[35]

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."[36]

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.

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 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.

[33]

Critical Period of American History, Fiske, p. 264.

[34]

History of Negro Race in America, Williams, Vol. I, p. 426.

[35]

Critical Period of American History, Fiske, p. 264.

[36]

Life and Times of Madison, Rives, Vol. II, p. 446.