VIEWS OF LINCOLN 81 "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 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." 'The Life, Public Services and State Papers of Abraham Lincoln, Raymond, p. 504. 'Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Vol. VI, p. 73. ANTI-SLAVERY SENTIMENTS OF PROMINENT VIRGINIANS 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. Richard Henry Lee, speaking in the Virginia House of Burgesses 1772, in support of a bill prohibiting the slave trade, said: "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." Patrick Henry, writing on the 18th day of January, 1773, said: 'Life of R. H. Lee, Lee, Vol. I, p. 18. ANTI-SLAVERY SENTIMENTS PRIOR TO 1810 83 "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." 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: "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." 'The True Patrick Henry, Morgan, p. 246. 'Life of Patrick Henry, William Wirt Henry, Vol. I, p. 114. 84 ANTI-SLAVERY SENTIMENTS PRIOR TO 1810 Writing in the same year to John F. Mercer, he said: "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." George Mason, speaking in the Virginia Convention of 1788 having the adoption of the Federal Constitution under consideration, said: "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." John Tyler, Sr., speaking in the same Convention in condemnation of the clause permitting the slave trade: "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 'The Writings of Washington, Marshall, Vol. II, p. 159. ANTI-SLAVERY SENTIMENTS PRIOR TO 1810 85 desire was that it should be handed down to posterity that he had opposed this wicked cause." 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: "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." At the conclusion of his carefully prepared article 'Letters and Times of the Tylers, Tyler, Vol. I, p. 154. 'Life of Edmund Randolph, Conway, p. 125. '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." (Thomas H. Benton, Roosevelt, p. 297). 'Tucker's Blackstone, Vol. II, Appendix, note H., p. 31. |