CHAPTER IV

FEELING IN THE SOUTH-1835

TOT stronger than the proceedings of a

NOT

great non-partisan public meeting, or than the action of religious bodies, but going more into detail as to public opinion in the South and the effect upon it of Abolition agitation, is the evidence of a quiet observer, Professor E. A. Andrews, who, in July, 1835, had been sent out as the agent of "The Boston Union for the Relief and Improvement of the Colored Race." His reports from both Northern and Southern States, consisting of letters from various points, constitute a book, "Slavery and the Domestic Slave Trade," Boston, 1836.

July 17, 1835, from Baltimore, Professor Andrews reports that a resident clergyman, who appears to have his entire confidence, says, among other things, "that a disposition to emancipate their slaves is very prevalent among the slave-holders of this State, could they see any way to do so consistently

with the true interest of the slave, but that it is their universal belief that no means of doing this is now presented except that of colonizing them in Africa."

From the same city, July 17, 1835, he writes, p. 53: "In this city there appears to be no strong attachment to slavery and no wish to perpetuate it.”

Again, on p. 95: "There is but one sentiment amongst those with whom I have conversed in this city, respecting the possibility of the white and colored races living peaceably together in freedom, nor during my residence at the South and my subsequent intercourse with the Southern people, did I ever meet with one who believed it possible for the two races to continue together after emancipation... When the slaves of the South are liberated they form an integral part of the population of the country, and must influence its destiny for ages-perhaps forever."

From Fredericksburg, Virginia, Professor Andrews writes:

Since I entered the slave-holding country I have seen but one man who did not deprecate wholly and absolutely the direct interference of Northern

Abolitionists with the institutions of the South. "I was an Abolitionist," has been the language of numbers of those with whom I have conversed; "I was an Abolitionist, and was laboring earnestly to bring about a prospective system of emancipation. I even saw, as I believed, the certain and complete success of the friends of the colored race at no distant period, when these Northern Abolitionists interfered, and by their extravagant and impracticable schemes frustrated all our hopes. Our people have become exasperated, the friends of the slaves alarmed, etc.1 . . . Equally united are they in the opinion that the servitude of the slaves is far more rigorous now than it would have been had there been no interference with them. In proportion to the danger of revolt and insurrection, have been the severity of the enactments for controlling them and the diligence with which the laws have been executed."

.

From a private letter, written at Greenville, Alabama, August 30, 1835, by a distinguished lawyer, John W. Womack, to his brother, we quote:

The anti-slavery societies in the Northern and Middle States are doing all they can to destroy our domestic harmony by sending among us pamphlets, tracts, and newspapers-for the purpose of exciting dissatisfaction and insurrection among our slaves. ... Meetings have been held in Mobile, in Mont"Slavery and the Domestic Slave Trade," Andrews, pp. 156-57.

gomery, in Greensboro, and in Tuscaloosa, and in different parts of all the Southern States. At these meetings resolutions have been adopted, disclaiming (sic) and denying the right of the Northern people to interfere in any manner in our internal domestic . . It is my solemn opinion that this question (to wit, slavery) will ultimately bring about a dissolution of the Union of the States.

concerns.

It should be remembered that in 1832 the massacre in Santo Domingo of all the whites by the blacks was fresh in mind. It had occurred in 1814-after manumission-and had produced, especially in the minds of statesmen and of all observers of the many signs of antagonism between the two races, a profound and lasting impression.

The fear that the races, both free, could not live together was in the mind of Thomas Jefferson, of Henry Clay, and of every other Southern emancipationist. And deportation, its expense, and the want of a home to which to send the negro-here was a stumbling-block in the way of Southern emancipation.

Indeed, the incompatibility of the races was an appalling thought in the minds of Southerners for the whole thirty years of anti-slavery agitation. It was even with

Abraham Lincoln, and weighed upon his mind when, at last, in 1862, military necessity placed upon his shoulders the responsibility of emancipating the Southern slaves. Serious as was the responsibility, the question was not new to him. When Mr. Lincoln said, in his celebrated Springfield speech in 1858, "I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free," and added that he did not expect the government to fail, he certainly expected that emancipation in the South was coming; and, of course, he thought over what the consequences might be.

In that same debate with Douglas, in his speech at Charleston, Illinois, Mr. Lincoln said: "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 his memorial address on Henry Clay, in 1852, he had said: "If, as the friends of colonization hope, the present and coming generations of our countrymen shall by some means succeed in freeing our land from the dangerous presence of slavery, and at