THE NORTHERN ABOLITIONISTS AND THEIR REACTIONARY INFLUENCE UPON ANTI-SLAVERY SENTIMENT IN VIRGINIA 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: "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." George Tucker, Professor of Political Economy, in the University of Virginia, in his work, The Progress of the United States in Population and Wealth, published in 1843, referring to the subject, writes: 'See printed pamphlet T. J. Randolph, September 25th, 1870, on file with Virginia Historical Society. 52 VIEWS OF PROMINENT VIRGINIANS "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 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: "But this unfavorable change of sentiment is due chiefly to the fanatical violence of those Northern antislavery 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 'Progress of Population and Wealth, Tucker, p. 108. NoteThe 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." VIEWS OF CHANNING 53 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." 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. Dr. William Ellery Channing, writing in 1835, said: "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 1837, the Legislature of Illinois adopted a series of resolutions of a pro-slavery character reprobating the methods of the Abolitionists. Against the resolutions 'The Ruffner Pamphlet, Lexington, 1847. The Works of William E. Channing, 1889, American Unitarian Society, p. 735. 54 VIEWS OF LINCOLN 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: "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." 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 "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. Representatives from the County of Sangamon. VIEWS OF WEBSTER 55 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: "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." 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. "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, 1Abraham Lincoln, Speeches, Letters and State Papers, N. & H, Vol. I, p. 174. |