In forming the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson included that the king had "waged cruel war against human nature" by introducing slavery and allowing the slave trade into the colonies:  "He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither.  This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of Infidel powers, is the warfare of a Christian king of Great Britain.  Determined to keep open a market where men should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce."

        For the sake of unanimity, Congress dropped the charge because delegates from Georgia and South Carolina were offended and did not want to include slavery among those as violating "most sacred rights of life and liberty."  Nevertheless, Jefferson did "tremble for his country" in knowing slavery was wrong and that "God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever."

The New Nation's Cry to Abolish the Poison of Slavery

  James Madison Believed America Functioned Best Under Biblical Principles.

He Believed Slavery Was a National Evil

 

 [W]e must deny the fact, that slaves are considered merely as property, and in no respect whatever as persons. The true state of the case is, that they partake of both these qualities: being considered by our laws, in some respects, as persons, and in other respects as property.  In being compelled to labor, not for himself, but for a master; in being vendible by one master to another master; and in being subject at all times to be restrained in his liberty and chastised in his body, by the capricious will of another, the slave may appear to be degraded from the human rank, and classed with those irrational animals which fall under the legal denomination of property.  In being protected, on the other hand, in his life and in his limbs, against the violence of all others, even the master of his labor and his liberty; and in being punishable himself for all violence committed against others, the slave is no less evidently regarded by the law as a member of the society, not as a part of the irrational creation; as a moral person, not as a mere article of property.   Madison, Federalist No. 54

 

American citizens are instrumental in carrying on a traffic in enslaved Africans, equally in violation of the laws of humanity and in defiance of those of their own country.  The same just and benevolent motives which produced interdiction in force against this criminal conduct will doubtless be felt by Congress in devising further means of suppressing the evil.
 Madison, State of the Union,1810
 

It is due to justice; due to humanity; due to truth; due to the sympathies of our nature; in fine, to our character as a people, both abroad and at home, that they should be considered, as much as possible, in the light of human beings, and not as mere property. As such, they are acted on by our laws, and have an interest in our laws. They may be considered as making a part, though a degraded part, of the families to which they belong.
  Madison, Speech in the Virginia State Convention of 1829-30, on the Question of the Ratio of Representation in the two Branches of the Legislature, December 2, 1829.

[I]f slavery, as a national evil, is to be abolished, and it be just that it be done at the national expense, the amount of the expense is not a paramount consideration.
  Madison, Letter to Robert J. Evans

Christianity Raised our Awareness that Slavery is an Evil

        The church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society.   Martin Luther King Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail, April 1963

Christian Influence Upon Slavery     Misgivings over enslaving Africans sprang from study of religious sources.   

        Slavery could be found in ancient Babylon, classical Greece and Rome, China, India, and Africa.

        In Africa, for example, warring black tribes typically enslave their captives, killed some, and sold others into slavery for profit.  The Muslims also ran a lucrative slave trade long before the white man ever reached Africa.  Reverend Jesse Lee Peterson, SCAM, WND Books, Nashville, TN 2003 p.76

        Beginning in the early 16th century, European slave traders started to ship slaves to the Americas.  Spanish, Portuguese, French, Dutch, Danish, and English colonists all brought African slaves to their New World colonies.  They were in competition and needed cheap labor to work their colonial plantation system.  The Portuguese were the first to embark upon the slave trade starting around 1562.  A prime area for slaves was on the west coast of Africa, the Sudan. This area was ruled by three major empires Ghana (790-1240), Mali (1240-1600), and Songhai (670-1591).  Other smaller nations were also canvassed by slavers along the west coast because the peoples inhabiting those African nations were known for their skills in agriculture, farming, and mining.

       The slave trade itself was profitable.  By 1672, the Royal African Company chartered by Charles II of England became the richest shipper of human slaves to the mainland of the Americas.  African tribal wars produced captives which became a bartering resource in the European slave market.  Other slaves were kidnapped by white and black hunters.

      The greatest impact was upon central and western Africa.  West Africa supplied over half of the slaves for exportation between 1701-1810.  Fifty percent of the slaves were exported to South America, 42% to the Caribbean Islands, 7% to British North America, and 2% to Central America.  From "The Economics of the African Slave Trade"  Anika Francis

      Somewhat ignorant and unconscious of the injustice of slavery, colonial settlers in the 17th and early 18th centuries were raised by and had come from stratified societies where their culture of wealth took advantage of those less fortunate.  Until enlightened, most accepted as natural the enslavement of those born into class disadvantage.  By the eighteenth century, slaves could be found in every area colonized by Europeans.

     By the end of the 18th century, farmers in Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia started to free their slaves when their manpower was no longer needed.  However, the invention of the cotton gin brought back the demand for slaves to handle the increased production of cotton.  

Christianity Raised our Awareness that Slavery is an Evil

        Samuel Hopkins a New England clergyman pointed out to his revolutionary compatriots that they were "making a vain parade of being advocates for the liberties of mankind, while...you at the same time are continuing this lawless, cruel, inhuman, and abominable practice of enslaving your fellow creatures."

 

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 [slavery]; 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.

George Washington in Letter to Robert Morris, 1786

 

         Note: Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and George Washington were slaveholders.  So, too, were Benjamin Franklin and the theologian Jonathan Edwards. 

 

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 attempts to effect this by prohibitions . . . [have been prevented by the King].

Thomas Jefferson in Rights of British America, 1774 

Abolition of Slavery is a Christian Duty

Wherever the Quaker goes, he bears silent testimony against slavery.

John D. Long

        British Quakers were the first to completely reject slavery among their membership. They had moved from viewing slavery as a matter of individual conscience to believing the abolition of slavery was a Christian duty. Though they were small in numbers, they lead the abolitionist movement, both in Britain and North America.  Their limited influence was strengthened to become a mass movement with the help of John Wesley.

http://kclibrary.nhmccd.edu/19thcentury1800.htm

 I cannot but wish well to a people whose System imitates the Example of him whose Life was perfect. And believe me, I shall honour the Quakers for their noble Effort to abolish Slavery.  It is equally calculated to promote moral & political Good.
Patrick Henry, 1773

Abolition of Slavery is a Christian Duty

Slavery is the violent deprivation of the rights of nature, and inconsistent with republican government..

John Leland

 

        John Leland, an influential Baptist preacher, believed in the authority of the Bible.  Following is an example of this man's belief system which he concluded from studying the Bible:

    1.  That all men were guilty before God, and that God would be just and clear, if he damned them all.

    2.  That Christ did, before the foundation of the world, predestinate a certain number of the human family for his bride, to bring to grace and glory.

    3.  That Christ died for sinners, and for his elect sheep only.

    4   That those for whom he did not die, had no cause to complain, as the law under which they were placed was altogether reasonable.

    5.  That Christ would always call his elect to him while on earth, before they died.

    6.  That those whom he predestinated, redeemed and called, he would keep by his power, and bring them safe to glory.

    7.  That there would be a general resurrection, both of the just and the unjust.

   8.  That, following the resurrection, judgment would commence, when the righteous sheep would be placed on the right hand of Christ, and admitted into life eternal; and the wicked on the left hand, doomed to everlasting fire.

    "Every man must give account of himself to God, and therefore every man ought to be at liberty to serve God in a way that he can best reconcile to his conscience.  If government can answer for individuals at the day of judgment, let men be controlled by it in religious matters; otherwise, let men be free."  Right of Conscience Inalienable.
 

    "Resolved, that slavery is a violent deprivation of rights of nature and inconsistent with a republican government, and therefore, recommend it to our brethren to make use of every legal measure to extirpate this horrid evil from the land; and pray Almighty God that our honorable legislature may have it in their power to proclaim the great jubilee, consistent with the principles of good policy."  Resolution for the General Committee of Virginia Baptists meeting in Richmond, Virginia, in 1789.
 

       Epitaph upon Leland's tomb:  "Here lies the body of John Leland, who labored 67 years to promote piety and vindicate the civil and religious rights of all men."

Prior to the 1861-1865 War, there were a number of Christian abolitionists who for biblical-based reasons saw the sinfulness of slavery and opposed it.

Below is excerpted from "Thoughts Upon Slavery" John Wesley. 

    May I speak plainly to you? I must. Love constrains me; love to you, as well as to those you are concerned with. Is there a God? You know there is. Is he a just God? Then there must be a state of retribution; a state wherein the just God will reward every man according to his works. Then what reward will he render to you? O think betimes! before you drop into eternity! Think now, "He shall have judgment without mercy that showed no mercy.".............

Be gentle toward all men; and see that you invariably do unto every one as you would he should do unto you.

   7. O thou God of love, thou who art loving to every man, and whose mercy is over all thy works; thou who art the Father of the spirits of all flesh, and who art rich in mercy unto all; thou who hast mingled of one blood all the nations upon earth; have compassion upon these outcasts of men, who are trodden down as dung upon the earth! Arise, and help these that have no helper, whose blood is spilt upon the ground like water! Are not these also the work of thine own hands, the purchase of thy Son's blood? Stir them up to cry unto thee in the land of their captivity; and let their complaint come up before thee; let it enter into thy ears! Make even those that lead them away captive to pity them, and turn their captivity as the rivers in the south. O burst thou all their chains in sunder; more especially the chains of their sins! Thou Saviour of all, make them free, that they may be free indeed!

The servile progeny of Ham
Seize as the purchase of thy blood!
Let all the Heathens know thy name:
From idols to the living God
The dark Americans convert,
And shine in every pagan heart!

     Georgia founder James E. Oglethorpe declared slavery to be "against the gospel and fundamental law of England."

 

 THE SLAVE SINGING AT MIDNIGHT
Loud he sang the psalm of David!
He, a Negro and enslaved,
Sang of Israel's victory,
Sang of Zion, bright and free.

In that hour, when night is calmest,
Sang he from the Hebrew Psalmist,
In a voice so sweet and clear
That I could not choose but hear,

Songs of triumph, and ascriptions,
Such as reached the swart Egyptians,
When upon the Red Sea coast
Perished Pharaoh and his host.

And the voice of his devotion
Filled my soul with strange emotion;
For its tones by turns were glad,
Sweetly solemn, wildly sad.

Paul and Silas, in their prison,
Sang of Christ, the Lord arisen,
And an earthquake's arm of might
Broke their dungeon-gates at night.

But, alas! what holy angel
Brings the Slave this glad evangel?
And what earthquake's arm of might
Breaks his dungeon-gates at night?
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

        John D. Long (1817-1894) wrote effectively against slavery.   Long was a minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church whose book, Pictures of Slavery in Church and State, was influential in abolitionist circles From Wikipedia,

    Below are excerpts from: "PICTURES OF SLAVERY IN CHURCH AND STATE" BY REV. JOHN DIXON LONG, A Superannuated Minister of the Philadelphia Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church."    1857     PHILADELPHIA: PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR.

    INTRODUCTION.        

     I am an ardent lover of Methodism, and consider that man its greatest enemy who strives, directly or indirectly, to fasten to it the dead and putrid body of chattel slavery. I trust I am no bigot; for I love those who love our Lord Jesus Christ, of whatever church, race, or color.......       

 .....     Slavery will be found, on close examination, to be the common foe of church and state; of master and slave; of rich and poor. I have added my mite of facts and observations against it. I believe that all truth is profitable, sooner or later. I have done what I conceive to be my duty to the church and to my country. May the blessing of Christ rest on the antislavery cause!

 

THE NEGRO RACE.          ....  I consider the Negro race inferior in mental endowment only to the great European or white race. The negro is as full of music as an egg is full of meat; and music is allied to poetry and eloquence. No people have the religious element more deeply grounded in their nature. As a race, they are proverbial for kindness and affection, and respect for authority and age. In their religious meetings they exhibit more reverence in their devotion than the whites. We defy any set of atheists to make many converts among them in theory. In drollery they are unequalled and are only inferior to the Irish in wit; even rivaling the French in politeness. If properly trained, they would make first-class orators and musicians. I have seen an exceedingly fine portrait executed by a colored artist of Baltimore. They are great aristocrats; and pay much respect to those above them in intellect and authority. Hence our great Southern aristocracy, by emancipating their negroes, could retain them by affection and their own choice; and thus reap all the benefits of slavery without its crime and consequences. ....

 

CHAPTER II.    METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH AND SLAVERY.

         THE M. E. Church was organized in 1784, in the city of Baltimore. What did the fathers of the church think of slavery at that time?  We will quote their own language, taken from the first Discipline of the church, compared with the Large Minutes. See the History of the Discipline by Rev. Robert Emory, former President of Dickinson College. Published at the Book-room, New York, for the M. E. Church: p. 43.

       .... We view it as contrary to the golden law of God, on which hang all the law and the prophets, and the alienable rights of mankind, as well as every principle of the Revolution.....

.....so many souls that are capable of the image of God. We therefore think it our most bounden duty to take immediately some effective method to extirpate this abomination from among us; and for that purpose we add the following to the rules of our society--viz.

         1st. Every member of our society who has slaves in his possession shall, within twelve months after notice given him by the assistant (which notice the assistants are required immediately, and without any delay, to give in their respective circuits), legally execute and record an instrument, whereby he emancipates and sets free every slave in his possession......

         2d. Every assistant shall keep a journal, in which he shall regularly minute down the names and ages of all the slaves belonging to all the masters in his respective circuit, and also the date of every instrument executed and recorded for the manumission of the slaves, with the name of the court, book, and folio, in which said instrument respectively shall have been recorded; which journal shall be handed down in each circuit to the succeeding assistants.

         3d. In consideration that these rules form a new term of communion, every person concerned who will not comply with them, shall have liberty quietly to withdraw himself from our society within the twelve months succeeding the notice given as aforesaid; otherwise the assistants shall exclude him from the society.

         4th. No person holding slaves shall in future be admitted into society or the Lord's Supper, till he previously complies with these rules concerning slavery.

         N. B. These rules are to affect the members of our society no further than as they are consistent with the laws of the States in which they reside.

         Question 43. What shall be done with those who buy, sell slaves, or give them away? Ans. They are immediately to be expelled; unless they buy them on purpose to free them.

         1. It will be seen, by the above, that our preachers, in 1784, viewed the holding of slaves, or the sustaining voluntarily the relation of master and slave, as contrary to the golden law of God. Hence, not only official members, but private members, were to break that relation by manumission according to the conditions laid down. ....

 

Let us get on the rock of eternal truth and righteousness, and then we shall have the sympathy of the good of all nations. And what is still better, we shall have the sympathy of the man Christ Jesus, who was sold like a slave for thirty pieces of silver. I believe that the blessed Jesus is an antislavery Redeemer. When he forgave me my sins, he whispered to my inmost soul that the holding of slaves was sin.....

....I believe that the only way to remedy any evil is to proclaim the truth, clearly and distinctly, concerning that evil. The man, and especially the Christian minister, who is silent on the subject of slavery, who never whispers to his friend or foe a word of opposition to it, is giving his example and influence in its favor. A prophet of God who can stand by, and see those for whom Christ died held in bondage, deprived of legal claim to wife, child, or to his own body, deprived of freely worshiping Almighty God, and yet give no alarm of danger, nor utter a cry of warning, need not be envied when he stands at the judgment-seat ..... 

....A Methodist slaveholder, who was defending his right to hold slaves, said to me, "I hear that you are an abolitionist." "Sir," I replied, "if you mean by abolitionist one that would persuade a slave to run away from his master, or cut his master's throat, then I am not an abolitionist; but, if you mean one who believes it a sin to hold one's fellow-beings in bondage, then I am an abolitionist."......

 

WASHINGTON AND PATRICK HENRY.  ....The immortal Washington emancipated all his negroes at his death; and if all the great slaveholders of Virginia had followed his example, the Old Dominion would not now be the fourth State in the Union. Virginia is remarkable for having given birth to more Presidents than any other State. She gave the first President to this great Republic. Ex-president Roberts, the first President of the Republic of Liberia, on the west coast of Africa, is also a native of Virginia. Maryland has given birth to but one president, and he is a "Black Republican;" we allude to President Benson, the present chief-magistrate of Liberia.   See below for section regarding Liberia

 

MARTYRS.    It has ever been the practice of the world, and worldly churches, to extol the martyrs of the past, to build tombs and monuments to their memory, and to despise and persecute the martyrs of the present. I have no doubt that those who burned John Rogers at the stake at Smithfield, were great admirers of St. Stephen. It has forcibly struck me, in reading the lives of martyrs, ancient and modern, that they were never put to death by their persecutors for doing good works, or for loving their Creator with all their hearts, and their neighbors as themselves, but for meddling with politics, for violating the laws of the land, or for speaking against the customs and prejudices of their country! Our Divine Saviour was crucified on the charge of treason--of trying to overthrow the government of Cæsar. When Stephen was stoned to death, his enemies did not admit that it was for his goodness, but for speaking against the law of Moses and the custom of the Jews. The Jews despised the Gentiles as much as an American does a negro. And in these last days the test of martyrdom is opposition to slavery.

 

THE BEE-HIVE.   My father took great pleasure in raising bees. He had one swarm that no kindness and attention could tame or conciliate. There was a very self-conceited colored man in his employ, who boasted that he could rob them without being stung. He insisted that it was one's clothes that irritated bees, and that he would rob them for a given price. The bargain was made, and Arnold commenced, with his shirt off, in good earnest. He took the hive down, knocked off the head, and in a moment the bees swarmed on his neck and head, putting hundreds of stings in his black skin. As he had boasted so much of his skill, he endured it for some time, while I--then a boy--was rolling over in the garden, convulsed with laughter. Finally, nature could endure the agony no longer. Arnold gave a groan of despair, dropped his tub, sprang like a deer over the railing of the garden and plunged into the river to drown his tormentors.

         The spirit of slavery, like that hive of bees, cannot be tamed. You may take your hat off to it, and your shirt also; but it will not do. It will sting its best friends as well as its deadliest enemies. It must be drowned in the river of life and in the ocean of righteousness.

 

CEASE AGITATING SLAVERY.  The American nation may be compared to a building or temple on fire. Chattel slavery is the fire consuming the building. The antislavery men are running with engine and hose to arrest the flames, and, if possible, to save the building. Here comes a Southern pro-slavery man, as hoarse as if he had wool in his throat, and exclaims, "What is the matter here? Let the fire alone; it's none of your business! So clear yourselves!" "But it is our business," reply the antislavery men. "The fire will not only consume the southern portion of the building, but will spread to the northern part, and burn us all out of house and home." "No danger of this," says a northern pro-slavery man, choked up with cotton. "Let it alone, and slavery will die out of itself; agitation only makes it worse; the more water you pour on it, the fiercer it burns, because it is like no other kind of fire in the universe." Other kinds of fire may be quenched with water, all other subjects may be agitated, but this must not be disturbed. If you wish to put down swearing, you must preach against it. If you wish to put down drunkenness, you must hold up the evil effects of intoxication. If a merchant wants to sell goods, he must advertise in the newspapers. Every thing must be agitated but slavery. Just let it alone, and it will increase at the rate of 100,000 slaves yearly, or 1,000,000 every ten years, and die out of itself, especially in Texas; and when the slave-trade is reopened in Africa, and the Southern newspapers, books and pulpits are teeming with arguments in its defense, it will die out. O yes, it will die out of itself!

 

SLAVERY AND POPERY.     The modern slave-trade on the western coast of Africa originated in the Roman Catholic Church.

         Slavery on the continent of America is the daughter of Rome.

         "In 1442, Gonzales returned from a second voyage of two years and a half, and brought with him ten slaves and gold-dust.

         "This was the first gold, and these were the first slaves ever taken from the western shore of Africa, and may therefore be regarded as the beginning of that inhuman traffic in men which has continued with scarcely any interruption for more than four centuries. The slaves were presented by Prince Henry to Pope Martin the Fifth, who thereupon conferred upon Portugal the right of possession and sovereignty over all the country that might be discovered between Cape Bojador and the East Indies.

         "In accepting these slaves, the pope gave his sanction to the iniquitous transaction by which they were taken; but it would be difficult to say whether he was guilty of greater injustice in conferring upon Portugal territory over which he had no jurisdiction, and which, as yet, had been but partially discovered, or inhumanity in consigning the whole African race to perpetual servitude."

The Portuguese, who have ever been the most devoted of Romanists, were the first to engage in the bloody traffic, and will be the last to abandon it. The spirit and laws that mercilessly consign men, women, and children to be helpless chattels, are Popery in its blackest form.

         A pro-slavery Protestant, of whatever creed, is just as much opposed to liberty, and will wage as bitter warfare against free discussion, as any Romanist. There is as much liberty in Italy and Austria as in the extreme Southern States of the American Union. ......

 

"UNCLE TOM'S CABIN."     "Uncle Tom's Cabin" is the "Pilgrim's Progress" of American literature. It struck slavery the heaviest blow it ever received from one hand. It was astonishing how extensively it was read in the South. Every one denounced it. Some said it was "all a pack of lies." Still all would read it. An intelligent slaveholder was denouncing it in my presence. Said I, "Have you read it?" "No." "Do you get it, and read it before you condemn it." He promised to do so. Some time afterward I saw him. "Have you read 'Uncle Tom'?" "Yes." "How did you like it?" "Well, I read it to my wife and daughter, and we all cried. What puzzled me most about 'Uncle Tom' was, how a Northern woman could draw negro character to life, and speak negro language to perfection!"

 

THE CONVERSION.    The following is the only instance that ever came under my notice of a clear conversion by the reading of the Word of God alone. A young slave was very ill in the kitchen adjoining the dwelling of his master. He was so much alarmed on account of his sins, and by the prospect of death, that he would hold on to his mother, and would not consent for her to leave his bedside. A good brother informed me of his condition, and requested me to see him; and I asked the brother why he did not go and pray for him. He said that he was afraid of his master, who was violently opposed to religion.

         I immediately felt it my duty to see him. Then came the fear of man. Here was a struggle. The cross was heavy. I went, hoping that the master might be away; but he was at home.

         I entered the kitchen, and lest I might awaken the anger of the master, I did not attempt to sing or pray. I took my Testament, and drawing near the dying man, read a part of the third chapter of St. John's Gospel. When I read the sixteenth verse: "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life," his soul drank it in with an attention and eagerness which I have never witnessed. I read the verse again and again, and left him. Before I reached home he was happy in the Saviour's love. He told his mother that she could leave him; he was ready and willing to die.

         I saw him on the following Sabbath, and love, hope, and joy gleamed from his countenance. He slept in Jesus. Despite the power of the slave-breeder, who labors to reduce the sons and daughters of our heavenly Father to brute beasts, the Christian slave, when dying, can exclaim,
                         "How can it be, thou heavenly King,
                         That thou shouldst me to glory bring;
                         Make a slave a partner of thy throne,
                         Decked with a never-fading crown!"          How different the end of this Christian slave from that of his proud, haughty, and despotic master. It was said that the last word that fell from the lips of the master was a horrid oath, addressed to a body-servant. He was struck speechless, and soon expired. Thousands of slaveholders die awful deaths. And no wonder, when the blood and tears of mothers, infants, orphans, fathers, brothers, and sisters cry to Heaven against them.

        

REV. JOHN NICHOLSON.     Rev. JOHN NICHOLSON was born in Lewes, Delaware, in 1807, and died in October, 1843, in the thirty-seventh year of his age. He was received on trial in the Philadelphia Conference in 1828. We have taken the following extract from the printed Minutes of the Conference for 1844:--

         "Bro. Nicholson was a man of study, of method, and of prayer. His piety was never questioned, and his qualifications for the work of the ministry were beyond dispute. His literary acquirements were respectable, and his talents, though not showy, were real, solid, compact, and available. He was indeed an amiable man, a Christian gentleman, an able minister of the New Testament, a faithful pastor, an affectionate husband, a kind parent, and true friend. He lived to honor his Divine Master, and fell asleep in Jesus, as a Christian warrior, fresh from the battle-field, with his laurels green upon him. Many are the gems of immortal beauty that will deck his unfading crown."

         John Nicholson was a man, in the highest sense of that term. While he did not dictate to others, he dared to think for himself, and had the moral nerve to avow his principles every where, fearless of consequences. In proof of this, I will recall an incident in his life which made a deep and lasting impression upon my mind. I think it was in 1842, or in 1843, during the session of our Conference, that something was said about abolitionism. Mr. Nicholson calmly arose, and in a tone of voice, and with a firmness of manner, that I can never forget, said "I am an abolitionist!" and immediately resumed his seat. It was the sublimest moral scene I ever witnessed. He was the only man who, to my knowledge, ever publicly avowed, upon the floor of the Philadelphia Conference, that he was an abolitionist. A few others may have held the same sentiments privately, but did not see proper to call themselves by that name. If, under the same circumstances, a young man had made the same avowal, he would have been located without his consent.

 

THE MONKEY THEORY.     I was once sitting at the table of a rich, haughty slaveholder, who addressed me thus: "Mr. Long, do you believe that the negroes are a part of the human race?" "Yes, sir," I replied. "Well, I do not," said he. "I believe that they are a species of monkey." "Then, sir," said I, "you do not believe in the Bible." His treatment of his slaves was in accordance with his theory. Yet he was more consistent than those who hold that they are of the same blood as ourselves, and yet treat them like brutes--who hold to their common origin with ourselves from Adam, and their common redemption by Christ, and yet sell them like oxen. Much ado has been made by some divines about the infidel theory that denies the common origin of the races. This theory is supported by Professor Agassiz and others. But the fact is we have, in the slave States, practically affirmed the diverse origin of the African race for one hundred and fifty years. It is the very nature of slavery to produce this result. I believe the Greeks and Romans held their origin to be distinct from that of their slaves. Slavery is doing more to cast discredit on the doctrine of the unity of the races, than the writings of all the infidel philosophers combined. Notwithstanding many pro-slavery men affect to be skeptical with regard to the intellect of the negro, yet, as a general rule, the South secretly and practically believes in the parity of mind of the two races. This is evident from the sleepless vigilance they exercise to keep all knowledge from them; by their forbidding them to learn the letters of the alphabet; and by excluding them from all honorable positions in society. With singular inconsistency, they withhold from the slave the means of mental culture, and then impute his ignorance to inferiority of mind. They not only by positive law interdict him educational advantages, but appeal to the worst prejudices of our nature against him. The governing minds of the South know full well that, if they were to open their schools and colleges to colored people, many of this degraded class would exhibit superior abilities. The very existence of the laws which forbid education to the slaves is positive proof that the lawmakers of the slave States believe in the improvability of the negro's intellect.

........

SLAVERY AND ITS REMEDY--LIBERIA.    The American Colonization Society, and the Colonization Societies of the different States, have, within the last forty years, succeeded in planting a colony of free and liberated colored persons on the west coast of Africa, called Liberia. The men who projected and now sustain the enterprise deserve all the credit they receive. The missionaries of the Cross who have labored and died there, have left the church a precious legacy. As a foundation of missionary operations for the conversion of the native African, and as a refuge for those who otherwise might never have enjoyed their freedom, I have ever given it my cordial support, and ever expect to. But as a remedy for American slavery, I have no confidence whatever in African colonization, and for the following reasons: The present colonial population of Liberia does not exceed 12,000; yet it has had an existence of more than thirty years. The slave population of the United States is now 4,000,000, and more than doubles itself every thirty years. The annual increase of slaves, exclusive of those that are sent to Liberia and those who flee to free States, is 100,000 souls. Now if you could transport 10,000 of these annually to Liberia, you would ruin the colony, and have 90,000 net increase left; for the plantation-slave would not till the soil, and would thus prove a curse to the colony. He would, if he could, get a few pipes and tobacco, and there set up a little shop.

         The North will not send them, for she believes that the colored man has as much right to the soil as the white man. The South will not, for the governing classes of that section proclaim that slavery is the best condition for the African. My opinion is that more slaves are smuggled here from Africa every year than are liberated by the South and sent to Liberia. If any one doubts this, let him read the back numbers of the Maryland Colonization Journal. I have often listened to colonization agents, and have heard them distinctly declare that colonization was not designed as a remedy for slavery, but for the benefit of the free colored people.

         Emancipation on the soil is the only remedy for chattel slavery. Colored people could then go to Liberia, to the West Indies, to the free States, and to the Territories or Canada, just as they pleased. This is no novel theory. The fathers of the Methodist Church, in 1784, believed in this remedy. Gen. Washington believed in it when he set his slaves free at his death.

         The present colored race have a claim on our justice, love, and magnanimity. We have degraded them, and we should labor to elevate them. In the stead of Negro-buyers and overseers, I would have ten thousand Yankee, English, and Irish school-teachers, who have no prejudices against color; and an equal number of schoolhouses. For slave-pens, I would have churches. For handcuffs and thumb-screws, I would have primers and New Testaments. I believe that, if the colored people were set free, they would make the peasantry of the South equal to the peasantry of Europe, or at least equal to some parts of it. It is objected to this plan, or remedy, that none but a few religious persons would ever consent to sacrifice the value of their slaves by emancipation. This does not prove the theory or principle a wrong one; nor does it militate against its justice and honesty. If the Pharaohs of the land will not set the slaves free, the Jehovah will do it by his judgments. I believe drunkenness to be wrong, and that abstinence from intoxicating liquors is its remedy. But thousands will drink on, heedless of the remedy, and perish. Christ will save to the uttermost all that come to him; but millions will continue to reject him and forever die. Yet the Gospel is true and soul-saving. We are to proclaim what we believe to be the truth, whether the multitude believe it or not.

    The greatest moral, religious, and political phenomenon that earth has ever seen is the United States of America, in which are concentrated the virtues, and the vices, and the various civilizations of all nations, ancient or modern. A national body, through whose veins circulates the blood of all races; a nation of "good, bad, and indifferent;" a land of political and religious enigmas, absurdities, contradictions, and inconsistencies; a land where the sublime and the ridiculous perpetually approach each other; a land of books and newspapers, where it is a disgrace for some not to read the Bible, and where it is treason to teach others to read it; a land of free speech and of trammeled speech; a land where the greatest liberty and the deadliest despotism that ever crushed a people prevail side by side; a land where there is no pope, and yet a million of popes; a land in which woman is treated with the utmost respect because she is woman, and where women are unsexed and sold like beasts of burden, and treated as incapable of virtue; a land of trial by jury, and of mob-law; a land where people teach, on every 4th of July, that there are certain self-evident truths--for instance, that the Great Creator has endowed all men, without distinction of color, with such rights as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness-- and where, upon the same day of Independence, the same people teach that, so far as colored persons are concerned, these self-evident truths are self-evident lies; a land of churches, of Bibles, and tracts, and yet a land of darkness and slave-pens; a land where liberty is local, and slavery national; a nation combining within itself the greatest power and the greatest weakness; a people whose national emblems are the steam-engine, the printing-press, and the clipper-ship, while its slave-droves and old sedge fields loom out darkly in the background; a land that has given birth to the greatest and best men that ever lived, and also to the meanest and vilest wretches that ever breathed in any quarter of our globe.  Should old Apollyon call a world's convention, and offer a premium for the worst man in the world, it is probable that some New England advocate of slavery would, uncontested, bear off the prize.

 

THE RICH COLORED MAN.       Mr. RUSKIN was once a slave in one of the counties of the Eastern Shore of Maryland. He succeeded in buying himself from his master; and being a man of superior abilities, and devoting his talent and energy to the accumulation of money, became one of the richest men in the county. I was informed that he was a member of the M. E. Church. He rode in the same style as the richest white men; and I observed, for he lived on a circuit adjoining mine, that when he entered a store, the utmost respect was shown him. The pro-slavery portion of the community held him in high esteem. The colored people despised him heartily; and so did I. He was a slaveholder, and treated his slaves precisely as his neighbors treated theirs. He died in 1846, and I witnessed his funeral cortege. His male slaves brought up the rear, mounted on horses. It was the grandest funeral procession that I saw while in the county. As the procession moved along, I involuntarily asked myself the question, whether his soul had gone to heaven!

         I have observed that, when colored men become wealthy in the South, they take sides, in a majority of cases, with the whites against the oppressed class of their own color. The possession of wealth, by such colored men, goes far, in the South, to mitigate the rigors of color.

         It is painful to reflect that this man, after having tasted the bitter cup of slavery himself, should, in his state of freedom, have become the oppressor of his own brethren. This case, however, proves the necessity of good laws; for some men will do any act, however atrocious, which has the sanction of legal authority. The white man oppresses the Indian and the negro. The Indian enslaves the negro. The negro sometimes owns the negro; and, according to the testimony of slaves themselves, he is the worst of masters, and the most cruel of overseers. The minister of the Gospel who turns slaveholder is the worst of slaveholders.

 

DELAWARE.        There are more free colored persons in Delaware, according to population, (if I mistake not,) than any other State. In Newcastle County there are very few slaves, if any. This result is due to the influence of the Friends or Quakers. Wherever the Quaker goes, he bears silent testimony against slavery. Who ever heard of a Quaker being killed by a negro? If the slaves of the South were emancipated, and there was any danger of an insurrection, one Quaker preacher would do more to suppress it than a hundred soldiers. The city of Wilmington is the only place in the State, so far as I know, that permits freedom of speech. If Delaware would buy all the slaves in the State, and proclaim herself a free State, she would immensely augment her wealth, and, what would be still better, she would elevate the moral tone, and increase the intellectual culture of her citizens. There is something very grating to my ears in the word "slave," as an appendage to a State or nation. How would it sound if applied to European nations? Were we to apply the stigma to England, to Holland, to Switzerland, and to France, with what scorn would the insult be repelled! Yet Southern men sometimes speak of Southern States as slave States, and even glory in the name.

 

THE SUPREME COURT.    The recent decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, in the case of Dred Scott, has sent a thrill of sadness to the hearts of the good and benevolent throughout our country. By this decision nearly 500,000 Native Americans have been outlawed from the protection of the stars and stripes, which, proudly floating in all seas, is unfurled from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Many of these are our brethren in Christ, and ambassadors from the Court of Heaven to sinful men. Those whom Massachusetts, New York, and Ohio claim and protect as citizens of their respective States, are regarded by the National Court as aliens, and unprotected as citizens by the Federal Government. Let no man after this insult Christianity by calling this Republic a Christian Government. Such a decision would not have been given by the Supreme Court from 1794 to 1820. But slavery has poisoned our theology; it has corrupted the vast majority of the pulpits of the land; it now controls many of the great ecclesiastic bodies of the Union, and has full possession of all departments of the National Government, the single distinctive measure of which seems to be to extend slavery, so that it shall henceforth be a national institution. The next step in the program will be the reopening of the foreign slave-trade. The destruction of Liberia is to follow, if she interposes any barrier to the traffic; for our Government has always refused to acknowledge the independence of that republic. I also predict that the slave States will pass laws to enslave the free negroes within their jurisdiction; then to enslave the antislavery men of the free States who may visit them; next, to reduce their own poor whites to chattel slaves by selling them for pretended debts; and, finally, to place the government under a military despotism. To the poor men of the free States, I say: "Arise, and shake yourselves from the dust, for the Philistines are already upon ye!" Henceforward I shall welcome with more joy than ever the thousands of foreign Protestants who shall arrive on our shores. I have noticed that nearly all Englishmen, Protestant Irish, and Germans are opposed to chattel-slavery; and by their assistance alone can the native American freemen successfully combat the slave power, backed up as it is by Romanism and rum. Slavery is as much opposed to Christianity as it is to patriotism--to the laboring white man as to the colored man. The antislavery foreigners should be welcomed as brothers beloved, for the power of slaveholders is more to be feared than that of such foreigners. Slavery is the common enemy of freemen of all nations, tongues, and races; just as Romanism is the common enemy of all Protestant denominations, freemasonry, and odd-fellowship.

 

SLAVERY AND WHITE LABOR.     There are certain professions and avocations in the South, which slaves cannot follow. The labor performed by these chattels--such as fieldwork, house-work, and certain mechanical trades--becomes, in the minds of the whites of the South, associated with the slaves themselves. In other words, such labor is regarded as dishonorable. Now, when the poor white man engages in such labor, he falls to the level of the slave himself in the estimation of the slave's master. Hence the effort of the whites in the South to avoid all labor usually performed by slaves. They will seek to hide themselves in obscure places, and live in idleness; or they will move to free States. But the evil stops not here. When the slaveholder comes North, and observes white men engaged in the same labor performed by his slaves, he regards them with secret contempt. The odium attached to domestic service on the part of poor white women in the North is the result of Southern slavery. Perhaps no nation on earth suffers so much family inconvenience and discord on account of female labor as our own. Slavery insults the free labor of the North. To dishonor labor in itself is one of its infallible results.

         Degrade a man to a chattel, and you degrade labor. Elevate the chattel to a man, and the elevation of labor follows. Hence the free laborer is bound by every principle of self-respect, as well as by his affection for his children, to oppose slavery everywhere and always to the uttermost. Slavery converts a lazy loafer into a gentleman, and degrades an industrious man to a slave. .....

       

EXHORTATION BY A COLORED PREACHER.       In one of our Northern cities, I once attended church among the colored people, knowing no one, and unknown to any one in the congregation. I took my seat at the door, and certainly had no expectation of hearing any thing upon the subject of slavery. What was unexpected by me, the sermon was delivered by a Quaker, who preached with much energy, and made a vigorous onslaught on the institutions of the South. He took his seat, and a colored preacher got up to exhort. I will give the substance of his speech:--

         "My Brethren: I was much pleased with the sermon of my brother. It had truth enough in it to save the whole world. But, brethren, I can be nothing but a Methodist; I am a corn-field preacher. My brethren, I think the abolitionists have done a great deal of good for us colored people; but some of my colored brethren say that the abolitionists have made it worse for them; that they are not so well off as before the abolitionists came about; that the masters are worse on their slaves than they were before! Now, brethren, Moses was an abolitionist. The Master told him to go to Pharaoh, and tell him that the Lord says: 'Let my people go, that they may serve me.' But Pharaoh said: 'Who is the Lord? I will not let his people go.' So Pharaoh oppressed the people more and more; and then they went to Moses and told him that he had made things worse than they were before; and they blamed Moses for stirring up Pharaoh. Now, my brethren, we must make the devil mad before we can do any good. The abolitionists have done good, because they have called the attention of the people to our brethren, who are under their taskmasters."

 

A SOUTHERN MAN WITH NORTHERN PRINCIPLES.    I was defining my views on slavery to a gentleman, who remarked that I was a "Southern man with Northern principles." I replied that I was not; that I was a Southern man with Bible principles. Antislavery principles claim a higher origin than Old or New England. They were written by the finger of God upon the heart of the first man, and they have been transmitted from generation to generation till this hour..........

http://innercity.org/holt/slavechron.html

 

Booker Taliaferro Washington,

One of America's Most Inspiring Heroes

 

    In 1940, Dr. Washington became the first African American to be depicted on a United States postage stamp.

    The first coin to feature an African-American was the Booker T. Washington Memorial Half Dollar, 1946 to 1951.  

    He was the first African-American ever invited to the White House as the guest of a President, Theodore Roosevelt.  

    The house where he was born in Hardy, Virginia, is a United States National Monument. 

    Many schools across the country are named for him.

    Tuskegee Institute was founded by Booker T. Washington in 1881 to provide students with both academic and vocational training. The students built their own buildings, produced their own food, and provided for most of their own basic necessities with the goal of later sharing learned skills with African American communities throughout the South.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Booker_T._Washington    http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/aaohtml/exhibit/aopart6.html

 

Below quotes and anecdotes from Dr. Washington's fabulous autobiography, Up From Slavery, 1901.
 

    The world should not pass judgment upon the Negro, and especially the Negro youth, too quickly or too harshly. The Negro boy has obstacles, discouragements, and temptations to battle with that are little known to those not situated as he is. When a white boy undertakes a task, it is taken for granted that he will succeed. On the other hand, people are usually surprised if the Negro boy does not fail. In a word, the Negro youth starts out with the presumption against him.  

 

     At one time when we were in the greatest distress for money that we ever experienced, I placed the situation frankly before General Armstrong. Without hesitation he gave me his personal check for all the money which he had saved for his own use. This was not the only time that General Armstrong helped Tuskegee in this way. I do not think I have ever made this fact public before.   ....
    This first visit which General Armstrong made to Tuskegee gave me an opportunity to get an insight into his character such as I had not before had. I refer to his interest in the Southern white people. Before this I had had the thought that General Armstrong, having fought the Southern white man, rather cherished a feeling of bitterness toward the white South, and was interested in helping only the coloured man there. But this visit convinced me that I did not know the greatness and the generosity of the man. I soon learned, by his visits to the Southern white people, and from his conversations with them, that he was as anxious about the prosperity and the happiness of the white race as the black. He cherished no bitterness against the South, and was happy when an opportunity offered for manifesting his sympathy. In all my acquaintance with General Armstrong I never heard him speak, in public or in private, a single bitter word against the white man in the South. From his example in this respect I learned the lesson that great men cultivate love, and that only little men cherish a spirit of hatred. I learned that assistance given to the weak makes the one who gives it strong; and that oppression of the unfortunate makes one weak.    ...


    It is now long ago that I learned this lesson from General Armstrong, and resolved that I would permit no man, no matter what his colour might be, to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him. With God's help, I believe that I have completely rid myself of any ill feeling toward the Southern white man for any wrong that he may have inflicted upon my race. I am made to feel just as happy now when I am rendering service to Southern white men as when the service is rendered to a member of my own race. I pity from the bottom of my heart any individual who is so unfortunate as to get into the habit of holding race prejudice.

    When we seemed at the end of our resources, so far as securing money was concerned, something occurred which showed the greatness of General Armstrong--something which proved how far he was above the ordinary individual. When we were in the midst of great anxiety as to where and how we were to get funds for the new building, I received a telegram from General Armstrong asking me if I could spend a month travelling with him through the North, and asking me, if I could do so, to come to Hampton at once. Of course I accepted General Armstrong's invitation, and went to Hampton immediately. On arriving there I found that the General had decided to take a quartette of singers through the North, and hold meetings for a month in important cities, at which meetings he and I were to speak. Imagine my surprise when the General told me, further, that these meetings were to be held, not in the interests of Hampton, but in the interests of Tuskegee, and that the Hampton Institute was to be responsible for all the expenses.
    Although he never told me so in so many words, I found that General Armstrong took this method of introducing me to the people of the North, as well as for the sake of securing some immediate funds to be used in the erection of Alabama Hall. A weak and narrow man would have reasoned that all the money which came to Tuskegee in this way would be just so much taken from the Hampton Institute; but none of these selfish or short-sighted feelings ever entered the breast of General Armstrong. He was too big to be little, too good to be mean. He knew that the people in the North who gave money gave it for the purpose of helping the whole cause of Negro civilization, and not merely for the advancement of any one school. The General knew, too, that the way to strengthen Hampton was to make it a centre of unselfish power in the working out of the whole Southern problem.

    On another occasion, when I was making a trip from Augusta, Georgia, to Atlanta, being rather tired from much travel, I road in a Pullman sleeper. When I went into the car, I found there two ladies from Boston whom I knew well. These good ladies were perfectly ignorant, it seems, of the customs of the South, and in the goodness of their hearts insisted that I take a seat with them in their section. After some hesitation I consented. I had been there but a few minutes when one of them, without my knowledge, ordered supper to be served for the three of us. This embarrassed me still further. The car was full of Southern white men, most of whom had their eyes on our party. When I found that supper had been ordered, I tried to contrive some excuse that would permit me to leave the section, but the ladies insisted that I must eat with them. I finally settled back in my seat with a sigh, and said to myself, "I am in for it now, sure."
    To add further to the embarrassment of the situation, soon after the supper was placed on the table one of the ladies remembered that she had in her satchel a special kind of tea which she wished served, and as she said she felt quite sure the porter did not know how to brew it properly, she insisted upon getting up and preparing and serving it herself. At last the meal was over; and it seemed the longest one that I had ever eaten. When we were through, I decided to get myself out of the embarrassing situation and go to the smoking-room, where most of the men were by that time, to see how the land lay. In the meantime, however, it had become known in some way throughout the car who I was. When I went into the smoking-room I was never more surprised in my life than when each man, nearly every one of them a citizen of Georgia, came up and introduced himself to me and thanked me earnestly for the work that I was trying to do for the whole South. This was not flattery, because each one of these individuals knew that he had nothing to gain by trying to flatter me.


    In order to be successful in any kind of undertaking, I think the main thing is for one to grow to the point where he completely forgets himself; that is, to lose himself in a great cause. In proportion as one loses himself in the way, in the same degree does he get the highest happiness out of his work.

    My experience in getting money for Tuskegee has taught me to have no patience with those people who are always condemning the rich because they are rich, and because they do not give more to objects of charity. In the first place, those who are guilty of such sweeping criticisms do not know how many people would be made poor, and how much suffering would result, if wealthy people were to part all at once with any large proportion of their wealth in a way to disorganize and cripple great business enterprises. Then very few persons have any idea of the large number of applications for help that rich people are constantly being flooded with. I know wealthy people who receive as much as twenty calls a day for help. More than once when I have gone into the offices of rich men, I have found half a dozen persons waiting to see them, and all come for the same purpose, that of securing money. And all these calls in person, to say nothing of the applications received through the mails. Very few people have any idea of the amount of money given away by persons who never permit their names to be known. I have often heard persons condemned for not giving away money, who, to my own knowledge, were giving away thousands of dollars every year so quietly that the world knew nothing about it.

    Although it has been my privilege to be the medium through which a good many hundred thousand dollars have been received for the work at Tuskegee, I have always avoided what the world calls "begging." I often tell people that I have never "begged" any money, and that I am not a "beggar." My experience and observation have convinced me that persistent asking outright for money from the rich does not, as a rule, secure help. I have usually proceeded on the principle that persons who possess sense enough to earn money have sense enough to know how to give it away, and that the mere making known of the facts regarding Tuskegee, and especially the facts regarding the work of the graduates, has been more effective than outright begging. I think that the presentation of facts, on a high, dignified plane, is all the begging that most rich people care for.

    At one time, when I was in Boston, I called at the door of a rather wealthy lady, and was admitted to the vestibule and sent up my card. While I was waiting for an answer, her husband came in, and asked me in the most abrupt manner what I wanted. When I tried to explain the object of my call, he became still more ungentlemanly in his words and manner, and finally grew so excited that I left the house without waiting for a reply from the lady. A few blocks from that house I called to see a gentleman who received me in the most cordial manner. He wrote me his check for a generous sum, and then, before I had had an opportunity to thank him, said: "I am so grateful to you, Mr. Washington, for giving me the opportunity to help a good cause. It is a privilege to have a share in it. We in Boston are constantly indebted to you for doing our work." My experience in securing money convinces me that the first type of man is growing more rare all the time, and that the latter type is increasing; that is, that, more and more, rich people are coming to regard men and women who apply to them for help for worthy objects, not as beggars, but as agents for doing their work.

    I recall that on one occasion I obtained information that led me to believe that a gentleman who lived about two miles out in the country from Stamford, Conn., might become interest in our efforts at Tuskegee if our conditions and needs were presented to him. On an unusually cold and stormy day I walked the two miles to see him. After some difficulty I succeeded in securing an interview with him. He listened with some degree of interest to what I had to say, but did not give me anything. I could not help having the feeling that, in a measure, the three hours that I had spent in seeing him had been thrown away. Still, I had followed my usual rule of doing my duty. If I had not seen him, I should have felt unhappy over neglect of duty.
    Two years after this visit a letter came to Tuskegee from this man, which read like this: "Enclosed I send you a New York draft for ten thousand dollars, to be used in furtherance of your work. I had placed this sum in my will for your school, but deem it wiser to give it to you while I live. I recall with pleasure your visit to me two years ago."

   
At one of our Commencements I was bold enough to invite the Rev. E. Winchester Donald, D.D., rector of Trinity Church, Boston, to preach the Commencement sermon. As we then had no room large enough to accommodate all who would be present, the place of meeting was under a large improvised arbour, built partly of brush and partly of rough boards. Soon after Dr. Donald had begun speaking, the rain came down in torrents, and he had to stop, while someone held an umbrella over him.
    The boldness of what I had done never dawned upon me until I saw the picture made by the rector of Trinity Church standing before that large audience under an old umbrella, waiting for the rain to cease so that he could go on with his address.
    It was not very long before the rain ceased and Dr. Donald finished his sermon; and an excellent sermon it was, too, in spite of the weather. After he had gone to his room, and had gotten the wet threads of his clothes dry, Dr. Donald ventured the remark that a large chapel at Tuskegee would not be out of place. The next day a letter came from two ladies who were then travelling in Italy, saying that they had decided to give us the money for such a chapel as we needed.

    A short time ago we received twenty thousand dollars from Mr. Andrew Carnegie, to be used for the purpose of erecting a new library building. Our first library and reading-room were in a corner of a shanty, and the whole thing occupied a space about five by twelve feet. It required ten years of work before I was able to secure Mr. Carnegie's interest and help. The first time I saw him, ten years ago, he seemed to take but little interest in our school, but I was determined to show him that we were worthy of his help. After ten years of hard work I wrote him a letter reading as follows:

December 15, 1900.  Mr. Andrew Carnegie, 5 W. Fifty-first St., New York. Dear Sir:

Complying with the request which you made of me when I saw you at your residence a few days ago, I now submit in writing an appeal for a library building for our institution.
We have 1100 students, 86 officers and instructors, together with their families, and about 200 coloured people living near the school, all of whom would make use of the library building.
We have over 12,000 books, periodicals, etc., gifts from our friends, but we have no suitable place for them, and we have no suitable reading-room.
Our graduates go to work in every section of the South, and whatever knowledge might be obtained in the library would serve to assist in the elevation of the whole Negro race.
Such a building as we need could be erected for about $20,000. All of the work for the building, such as brickmaking, brick-masonry, carpentry, blacksmithing, etc., would be done by the students. The money which you would give would not only supply the building, but the erection of the building would give a large number of students an opportunity to learn the building trades, and the students would use the money paid to them to keep themselves in school. I do not believe that a similar amount of money often could be made go so far in uplifting a whole race.
If you wish further information, I shall be glad to furnish it.
Yours truly,
Booker T. Washington, Principal.

    The next mail brought back the following reply: "I will be very glad to pay the bills for the library building as they are incurred, to the extent of twenty thousand dollars, and I am glad of this opportunity to show the interest I have in your noble work."

    I have spoken of several large gifts to the school; but by far the greater proportion of the money that has built up the institution has come in the form of small donations from persons of moderate means. It is upon these small gifts, which carry with them the interest of hundreds of donors, that any philanthropic work must depend largely for its support. In my efforts to get money I have often been surprised at the patience and deep interest of the ministers, who are besieged on every hand and at all hours of the day for help. If no other consideration had convinced me of the value of the Christian life, the Christ-like work which the Church of all denominations in America has done during the last thirty-five years for the elevation of the black man would have made me a Christian. In a large degree it has been the pennies, the nickels, and the dimes which have come from the Sunday-schools, the Christian Endeavour societies, and the missionary societies, as well as from the church proper, that have helped to elevate the Negro at so rapid a rate.

    While a great deal of stress is laid upon the industrial side of the work at Tuskegee, we do not neglect or overlook in any degree the religious and spiritual side. The school is strictly undenominational, but it is thoroughly Christian, and the spiritual training or the students is not neglected. Our preaching service, prayer-meetings, Sunday-school, Christian Endeavour Society, Young Men's Christian Association, and various missionary organizations, testify to this.

    In my early life I used to cherish a feeling of ill will toward any one who spoke in bitter terms against the Negro, or who advocated measures that tended to oppress the black man or take from him opportunities for growth in the most complete manner. Now, whenever I hear any one advocating measures that are meant to curtail the development of another, I pity the individual who would do this. I know that the one who makes this mistake does so because of his own lack of opportunity for the highest kind of growth. I pity him because I know that he is trying to stop the progress of the world, and because I know that in time the development and the ceaseless advance of humanity will make him ashamed of his weak and narrow position. One might as well try to stop the progress of a mighty railroad train by throwing his body across the track, as to try to stop the growth of the world in the direction of giving mankind more intelligence, more culture, more skill, more liberty, and in the direction of extending more sympathy and more brotherly kindness.

    While speaking of changes in public sentiment, I recall that about ten years after the school at Tuskegee was established, I had an experience that I shall never forget. Dr. Lyman Abbott, then the pastor of Plymouth Church, and also editor of the Outlook (then the Christian Union), asked me to write a letter for his paper giving my opinion of the exact condition, mental and moral, of the coloured ministers in the South, as based upon my observations. I wrote the letter, giving the exact facts as I conceived them to be. The picture painted was a rather black one--or, since I am black, shall I say "white"? It could not be otherwise with a race but a few years out of slavery, a race which had not had time or opportunity to produce a competent ministry.
    What I said soon reached every Negro minister in the country, I think, and the letters of condemnation which I received from them were not few. I think that for a year after the publication of this article every association and every conference or religious body of any kind, of my race, that met, did not fail before adjourning to pass a resolution condemning me, or calling upon me to retract or modify what I had said. Many of these organizations went so far in their resolutions as to advise parents to cease sending their children to Tuskegee. One association even appointed a "missionary" whose duty it was to warn the people against sending their children to Tuskegee. This missionary had a son in the school, and I noticed that, whatever the "missionary" might have said or done with regard to others, he was careful not to take his son away from the institution. Many of the coloured papers, especially those that were the organs of religious bodies, joined in the general chorus of condemnation or demands for retraction.
    During the whole time of the excitement, and through all the criticism, I did not utter a word of explanation of retraction. I knew that I was right, and that time and the sober second thought of the people would vindicate me. It was not long before the bishops and other church leaders began to make careful investigation of the conditions of the ministry, and they found out that I was right. In fact, the oldest and most influential bishop in one branch of the Methodist Church said that my words were far too mild. Very soon public sentiment began making itself felt, in demanding a purifying of the ministry. While this is not yet complete by any means, I think I may say, without egotism, and I have been told by many of our most influential ministers, that my words had much to do with starting a demand for the placing of a higher type of men in the pulpit. I have had the satisfaction of having many who once condemned me thank me heartily for my frank words.
    The change of the attitude of the Negro ministry, so far as regards myself, is so complete that at the present time I have no warmer friends among any class than I have among the clergymen. The improvement in the character and life of the Negro ministers is one of the most gratifying evidences of the progress of the race. My experience with them, as well as other events in my life, convince me that the thing to do, when one feels sure that he has said or done the right thing, and is condemned, is to stand still and keep quiet. If he is right, time will show it.

 

http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/treatise/bwashington/booker_01.htm.    Up From Slavery: An Autobiography by Booker T. Washington

 

 

Let no man pull you low enough to hate him.
Martin Luther King Jr.
 

 

    Non-Fellowship With Slaveholders The Duty of Christians (1849) is a book by Reverend John G. Fee, a Kentucky clergyman who wrote several anti-slavery books.  He also founded Berea College. 

    His book underscores principles from the Bible and re-enforces writings by other clergymen such as Reverend George Bourne, An Address to the Presbyterian Church, Enforcing the Duty of Excluding All Slaveholders from The "Communion of Saints" (New York: 1833), Reverend Beriah Green, Things for Northern Men to Do (New York: 1836), Reverend Stephen Foster, American Clergy (1843), Reverend Parker Pillsbury, Forlorn Hope (1847), and Reverend Silas McKeen, Withdrawing Fellowship From Churches and Ecclesiastical Bodies Tolerating Slaveholding (1848).   http://medicolegal.tripod.com/feeduty1849.htm

    In 1904 Kentucky passed statute which segregates educational institutions.  Any school having "Negro" and "White" students in the same building was fined an initial $1000 and then another $100 a day for each day the school continues to operate.  Any instructor who taught in such schools was fined similarly.  Even the students were to be fined $50 a day.   Schools can run separate institutions for each race but they had to be more than 25 miles apart.  Berea at the time had 927 students of whom 174 were black.  Because of the new law, Berea paid for the transport of about 100 black students to Fiske College and Hampton Institute. .http://www.qx.net/jeff/afrolex/afrolaw.htm

"Let all professed Christians, who enslave their brethren, know that no honest man can "give them the hand of fellowship," as the disciples of the Saviour. Let them be debarred from the table of the Lord. Let them, if religious teachers they can claim to be, be excluded from the pulpit. Let them see that their sin is no longer to be "winked at;" that if they continue deaf to the voice of Christian reproof, they must be to the whole company of their disgraced and offended brethren, as a "heathen man and publican." They will doubtless be greatly vexed and shocked. They will doubtless remonstrate and complain. They will affirm, and deny, and threaten. But no shift, no turn, no expedient can save them from torturing convictions and stinging remorse. They will find "burning coals" in their bosoms. And the "accursed thing" they will put away."  Reverend Beriah Green, From Things for Northern Men to Do (New York: 1836).

 

 

"If all professed Christians, all ministers and churches, and larger Ecclesiastical Bodies, who believe slaveholding to be wrong, to be a great sin against both God and man, would refuse to have fellowship with all such professed Christians as practice or tolerate it, their influence against it would, beyond all doubt, but far greater and more powerful than it now is. ....
Slaveholding churches, left alone in their iniquity, cut off from all fellowship with other churches, and the Christian world, would be led to serious reflection; they would feel their position to be most undesirable; and such among them as fear God, and regard the honor of his cause, would be induced to unite their energies to deliver themselves from the disgrace and guilt which must ever be involved in the practice of this great iniquity." 
 Reverend Silas McKeen, From Withdrawing Fellowship From Churches and Ecclesiastical Bodies Tolerating Slaveholding (1848).  

 

"In the former part of my letter, I have shown that slavery is an American and not a Southern institution, and that the North and South are leagued together politically in its support.
I have also shown, both by reference to facts, and from the testimony of distinguished men at the South that the slave power could not sustain itself a single hour, without the aid and protection of the general government, but must fall at once before the avenging arm of its outraged victims; and,
consequently, that all who sustain the government in its unconstitutional pro-slavery character, do thereby sustain the slave system, and should be held responsible for all the guilt and misery which it involves.
But while the federal government, that is, the electors of the country, are the direct and visible agents on whose authority and fostering care slavery depends for support and perpetuity, there is, in this case, as in most others of a like nature, "a power behind the throne greater than the throne itself;" for in a country like ours, civil government is of no force, any than it is sustained by popular sentiment.
The will of the people for the time being is the supreme law of the land, the legislative and executive departments of the government being nothing more than a mere echo of the popular will.
Hence the power which controls public opinion does, in fact, give laws to our country, and is, therefore, pre-eminently responsible for the vices which are sanctioned by those laws.
That power in this, is the priesthood, backed up and supported by the church.
They are the manufacturers of our public sentiment; and, consequently, they hold in their hand the key to the great prison-house of Southern despotism, and can "open and no man shut, and shut and no man open."
There are in our country more than twenty thousand of this class of men, scattered over every part of the land, and at the same time so united in national and local associations as to act in perfect harmony, whenever concert is required.
They constitute what may properly be termed a "religious aristocracy."
Among the exclusive privileges which they claim and enjoy, is the right to administer the ordinances of sacraments, and to lead in all our religious services.
The ear of the nation is open to them every seventh day of the week, when they pour into it just such sentiments as they choose. And not only are they in direct and constant contact with the people in their public ministrations, but in their parochial visits, at the sick bed, at weddings, and at funerals, all of which are occasions when the mind is peculiarly tender, and susceptible of deep and lasting impressions.
Amply supported by the contributions of the church, their whole time is devoted to the work of molding and giving character to public sentiment; and with the advantages which they enjoy over all other classes of society, of leisure, the sanctity of their office, and direct and constant contact with the people as their "spiritual guides," their power has become all-controlling.

It is in a finite sense omnipresent in every section of the country and is absolutely irresistible, wherever their claims are allowed.
Hence, what they allow, it will be next to an impossibility to overthrow, at least till their order itself be overthrown; and whatever system of evil they oppose, must melt away like snow beneath the warm rays of an April sun."  Reverend Stephen Foster, From American Clergy (1843),
some modernized English changes)
 

 

 Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people.  

Proverbs 14:34

 

            Is it not amazing that at a time when the rights of humanity are defined and understood with precision, in a country, above all others, fond of liberty--that in such an age and such a country we find men professing a religion the most humane, mild, meek, gentle, and generous, adopting a principle as repugnant to humanity as it is inconsistent with the Bible and destructive to liberty?.....Would any one believe that I am Master of Slaves of my own purchase! I am drawn along by the general inconvenience of living without them. . . .....      I believe a time will come when the opportunity will be offered to abolish this lamentable Evil. Every thing 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, & an abhorrence for Slavery.  If we cannot reduce this wished for Reformation to practice, let us treat the unhappy victims with lenity, & it is the furthest advance we can make toward Justice.    Patrick Henry, 1773 letter to Robert Pleasants

   

 ....Indeed few, very few, are now so insensible of the injustice of holding our fellow men in bondage as to undertake to vindicate it; nor can it be done, in my apprehension, without condemning the present measures in America; for if less injury offered to ourselves from the mother country can justify the expense of so much blood and treasure, how can we impose with propriety absolute slavery on others?  It hath often appeared to me as if this very matter was one, if not the principal cause of our present troubles, and that we ought first to have cleansed our own hands before we could consistently oppose the measures of others tending to the same purpose; and I firmly believe the doing this justice to the injured Africans would be an acceptable offering to him who "rules in the Kingdoms of men," and "giveth wisdom to the wise, and knowledge to those who have understanding," and for a purpose too of His own glory; and happy will it be for us if we apply our talents accordingly; for such it is that are often made a blessing to themselves, to their posterity, and to mankind in general.  But if on the contrary we seek our own glory and present interest by forbidden means, how can we expect peace here, or happiness hereafter?  O may we, therefore, "break off our sins by righteousness, and our iniquities by showing mercy to the poor, if haply it may be a lengthening of our tranquility!"....

    ....It would therefore become the interest, as well as duty, of a wise and virtuous legislature, in forming a government, to establish a general, uniform and constant liberty, as well civil as religious; for this end, I just propose to drop a hint, which hath appeared to me as likely to accomplish the great and wise end of a general freedom, without the dangers and inconveniences which some apprehend from a present total abolition of slavery, as any thing that hath occurred to me, and perhaps might be as generally approved; which is to enact that all children of slaves to be born in future be absolutely free at the usual ages of 18 and 21, and that such who are convinced of the injustice of keeping slaves, and willing to give up the property which the law hath invested them with, may under certain regulations (so as not at an age to become chargable, or from other impediments obnoxious to the community) have free liberty to do it

        By such a law I apprehend the children would be educated with proper notions of freedom, and be better fitted for the enjoyment of it than many now are;.....above all, to do that justice to others which we contend for and claim as the unalterable birthright of every man.  Excerpted from Robert Pleasants's Letter to Patrick Henry, March 1777                                                                         

 

        Samuel Sewall, 1652-1730,  was born in England.  His family came to America in 1661 to settle in Massachusetts where Samuel later graduated from Harvard.  He married into one of the wealthiest families of the colony, and he began a career as a merchant.  From 1691 to 1725, he served on the Governor's Council.

        In 1681, Sewall was appointed by the General Council to run the printing press whereby he was able to publish articles of his own and gain a following. 
         After realizing the horror of the witchcraft trials, Sewall wrote a proclamation for a day of fast and penance and reparation by the government.  As for the role he played, he set aside a day each year after 1697 to fast and pray for forgiveness.  He publicly apologized for his sins.
        His 1700 publication of The Selling of Joseph is considered the first anti-slavery piece published in the colonies.  He argues all men are created equal, using examples to prove his argument.         

     

The Selling of Joseph: A Memorial, by Samuel Sewall, M.A.
(Boston: Green and Allen, 1700)


    Forasmuch as Liberty is in real value next unto Life: None ought to part with it themselves, or deprive others of it, but
upon most mature Consideration.
    The numerousness of slaves at this day in the province, and the uneasiness of them under their slavery, hath put many upon thinking whether the foundation of it be firmly and well laid; so as to sustain the vast weight that is built upon it. It is most certain that all men, as they are the Sons of Adam, are Coheirs; and have equal right unto liberty, and all other outward comforts of life.
    GOD hath given the Earth [with all its Commodities] unto the Sons of Adam, Psal 115.16. And hath made of One Blood, all Nations of Men, for to dwell on all the face of the Earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation: That they should seek the Lord. Forasmuch then as we are the Offspring of GOD &c. Act 17.26, 27, 29.
    Now although the Title given by the last ADAM, doth infinitely better men's estates, respecting GOD and themselves; and grants them a most beneficial and inviolable lease under the broad seal of Heaven, who were before only tenants at will: Yet through the indulgence of GOD to our First Parents after the Fall, the outward estate of all and every of their children, remains the same, as to one another. So that originally, and naturally, there is no such thing as slavery.
    Joseph was rightfully no more a slave to his brethren, than they were to him: and they had no more authority to sell him, than they had to slay him. And if they had nothing to do to sell him; the Ishmaelites bargaining with them, and paying down twenty pieces of silver, could not make a title. Neither could Potiphar have any better interest in him than the Ishmaelites had. Gen. 37.20, 27, 28. For he that shall in this case plead Alteration of Property, seems to have forfeited a great part of his own claim to humanity. There is no proportion between twenty pieces of silver, and LIBERTY. The commodity it self is the claimer. If Arabian gold be imported in any quantities, most are afraid to meddle with it, though they might have it at easy rates; lest if it should have been wrongfully taken from the owners, it should kindle a fire to the consumption of their whole estate. 'Tis pity there should be more caution used in buying a horse, or a little lifeless dust; than there is in purchasing men and women: Whenas they are the offspring of GOD, and their Liberty is,
. . . Auro pretiosior Omni [Isaiah 13:12]. And seeing GOD hath said, He that stealeth a man and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death. Exod. 21.16. This law being of everlasting equity, wherein man stealing is ranked amongst the most atrocious of capital crimes: What louder cry can there be made of that celebrated warning,
Caveat Emptor!
    And all things considered, it would conduce more to the welfare of the province, to have white servants for a term of years, than to have slaves for life. Few can endure to hear of a Negro's being made free; and indeed they can seldom use their freedom well; yet their continual aspiring after their forbidden liberty, renders them unwilling servants.
    And there is such a disparity in their conditions, colour & hair, that they can never embody with us, and grow up into orderly families, to the peopling of the land: but still remain in our body politick as a kind of extravasat blood [involuntary resident].
    As many Negro men as there are among us, so many empty places there are in our Train Bands, and the places taken up of men that might make husbands for our daughters. And the sons and daughters of New England would become more like Jacob, and Rachel, if this slavery were thrust quite out of doors.
    Moreover it is too well known what temptations masters are under, to connive at the fornication of their slaves; lest they should be obliged to find them wives, or pay their fines. It seems to be practically pleaded that they might be lawless; 'tis thought much of, that the law should have satisfaction for their thefts, and other immoralities; by which means, Holiness to the Lord, is more rarely engraven upon this sort of servitude.
    It is likewise most lamentable to think, how in taking Negros out of Africa, and selling of them here, That which GOD has joined together men do boldly rend asunder [Matt. 19:6]; Men from their Country, Husbands from their Wives, Parents from their Children.
    How horrible is the uncleanness, mortality, if not murder, that the ships are guilty of that bring great crowds of these miserable men, and women. Methinks, when we are bemoaning the barbarous usage of our friends and kinsfolk in Africa: it might not be unseasonable to enquire whether we are not culpable in forcing the Africans to become slaves amongst our selves. And it may be a question whether all the benefit received by Negro slaves, will balance the accompt of cash laid out upon them; and for the redemption of our own enslaved friends out of Africa. Besides all the persons and estates that have perished there.
Obj. 1. These Blackamores are of the Posterity of Cham, and therefore are under the curse of slavery. Gen.9. 25, 26, 27.
    Answ.
Of all offices, one would not beg this; viz. Uncalled for, to be an executioner of the vindictive wrath of God; the extent and duration of which is to us uncertain. If this ever was a commission; how do we know but that it is long since out of date? Many have found it to their cost, that a prophetical denunciation of judgment against a per-
son or people, would not warrant them to inflict that evil. If it would, Hazael might justify himself in all he did against his Master, and the Israelites, from 2 Kings 8. 10, 12 [killing the king, and women].
    But it is possible that by cursory reading, this text may have been mistaken. For Canaan is the person cursed three times over, without the mentioning of Cham. Good Expositors suppose the curse entailed on him, and that this prophey was accomplished in the extirpation of the Canaanites, and in the servitude of the Gibeonites. Vide Pareum [Ed. Note: referencing the analysis of German theologian David Pareus (1548-1635)].
    Whereas the Blackmores are not descended of Canaan, but of Cush. Psal. 68. 31. Princes shall come out of Egypt [Mizmim] Ethiopia [Cush] shall soon stretch out her hands unto God. Under which names, all Africa may be comprehended; and their Promised Conversion ought to be prayed for. Jer. 13. 23. Can the Ethiopian change his skin? This shows that black men are the posterity of Cush: Who time out of mind have been distinguished by their colour. And for want of the true, Ovid assigns a fabulous cause of it
Sanguine tum credunt in
corpora summa vocato
Æthiopum populos nigrum
traxisse colorem.
Metamorph. lib. 2.

Obj. 2. The Nigers are brought out of a pagan country, into places where the Gospel is preached.
    Answ. Evil must not be done, that good may come of it. The extraordinary and comprehensive benefit accruing to the Church of God, and to Joseph personally, did not rectify his brethrens' sale of him.
Obj. 3. The Africans have Wars one with another: Our Ships bring lawful Captives taken in those Wars.
    Answ. For ought is known, their wars are much such as were between Jacob's sons and their brother Joseph. If they be between town and town; provincial, or national: Every war is upon one side unjust. An unlawful war can't make lawful captives. And by receiving, we are in danger to promote, and partake in their barbarous cruelties. I am sure, if some Gentlemen should go down to the Brewsters to take the air, and fish: And a stronger party from Hull should surprise them, and sell them for slaves to a ship outward bound: they would think themselves unjustly dealt with; both by sellers and buyers.
And yet 'tis to be feared, we have no other kind of title to our Nigers. Therefore
all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the Law and the Prophets. Matt. 7.12.
Obj. 4. Abraham had servants bought with his money, and born in his house.
    Answ. Until the circumstances of Abraham's purchase be recorded, no argument can be drawn from it. In the mean time, Charity obliges us to conclude, that he knew it was lawful and good.
    It is observable that the Israelites were strictly forbidden the buying, or selling one another for slaves. Levit. 25. 39, 46. Jer. 34. 8 . . . 22. And GOD gaged His Blessing in lieu of any loss they might conceipt they suffered thereby. Deut. 15. 18.
    And since the partition wall is broken down, inordinate self love should likewise be demolished. GOD expects that Christians should be of a more ingenuous and benign frame of spirit. Christians should carry it to all the world, as the Israelites were to carry it one towards another. And for men obstinately to persist in holding their neighbours and brethren under the rigor of perpetual bondage, seems to be no proper way of gaining assurance that God has given them spiritual free-
dom. Our blessed Saviour has altered the measures of the ancient love-song, and set it to a most excellent new tune, which all ought to be ambitious of Learning. Matt. 5. 43, 44. John 13.34. These Ethiopians, as black as they are; seeing they are the sons and daughters of the First Adam, the brethren and sisters of the Last ADAM, and the Offspring of GOD; they ought to be treated with a respect agreeable.


   
Servitus perfecta voluntaria, inter Christianum & Christianum, ex parte servi patientis sæpe est licita quia est necessaria: sed ex parte domini agentis, & procurando & exercendo, vix potest esse licita: quia non convenit regulæ illi generali: Quæcunque volueritis ut faciant vobis homines, ita & vos facite eis. Matt. 7.12.
    Perfecta servitus pænæ, non potest jure locum habere, nisi ex delicto gravi quod ultimum supplicium aliquo modo meretur: quia libertas ex naturali æstimatione proximo accedit ad vitam ipsam, & eidem a multis præferri solet.*
Ames. Cas. Consc. Lib. 5.
Cap. 23.Thes. 2, 3. BOSTON of the Massachusets; Printed by Bartholomew Green, and John Allen, June, 24th, 1700.

---------------------------------------

Note:  Pamphlet was reprinted by Benjamin Lay, Philadelphia, 1737
 


All the miseries and evils which men suffer from vice, crime, ambition, injustice, oppression, slavery and war, proceed from their despising or neglecting the precepts contained in the Bible. 

Noah Webster, History of the United States, p. 339]

 

That execrable sum of all villanies commonly called the Slave-trade.
       John Wesley
, Journal     

 

We Americans are not responsible for the African slave tradition.  We did not begin slavery, we ended it.

Kevin Beary  National Review, March 1997

  

A Bill Concerning Slaves, 1779   Thomas Jefferson

        Be it enacted by the General Assembly, that no persons shall, henceforth, be slaves within this commonwealth, except such as were so on the first day of this present session of Assembly, and the descendants of the females of them.

        Negroes and mulattoes which shall hereafter be brought into this commonwealth and kept therein one whole year, together, or so long at different times as shall amount to one year, shall be free. But if they shall not depart the commonwealth within one year thereafter they shall be out of the protection of the laws.

        Those which shall come into this commonwealth of their own accord shall be out of the protection of the laws; save only such as being seafaring persons and navigating vessels hither, shall not leave the same while here more than twenty four hours together.

        It shall not be lawful for any person to emancipate a slave but by deed executed, proved and recorded as is required by law in the case of a conveyance of goods and chattels, on consideration not deemed valuable in law, or by last will and testament, and with the free consent of such slave, expressed in presence of the court of the county wherein he resides: And if such slave, so emancipated, shall not within one year thereafter, depart the commonwealth, he shall be out of the protection of the laws. All conditions, restrictions and limitations annexed to any act of emancipation shall be void from the time such emancipation is to take place.

        If any white woman shall have a child by a negro or mulatto, she and her child shall depart the commonwealth within one year thereafter. If they fail so to do, the woman shall be out of the protection of the laws, and the child shall be bound out by the Aldermen of the county, in like manner as poor orphans are by law directed to be, and within one year after its term of service expired shall depart the commonwealth, or on failure so to do, shall be out of the protection of the laws.

        Where any of the persons before described shall be disabled from departing the commonwealth by grievous sickness, the protection of the law shall be continued to him until such disability be removed: And if the county shall in the mean time, incur any expense in taking care of him, as of other county poor, the Aldermen shall be entitled to recover the same from his former master, if he had one, his heirs, executors and administrators.

        No negro or mulatto shall be a witness except in pleas of the commonwealth against negroes or mulatoes, or in civil pleas wherein negroes or mulattoes alone shall be parties.

        No slave shall go from the tenements of his master, or other person with whom he lives, without a pass, or some letter or token whereby it may appear that he is proceeding by authority from his master, employer, or overseer: If he does, it shall be lawful for any person to apprehend and carry him before a Justice of the Peace, to be by his order punished with stripes, or not, in his discretion.

        No slave shall keep any arms whatever, nor pass, unless with written orders from his master or employer, or in his company, with arms from one place to another. Arms in possession of a slave contrary to this prohibition shall be forfeited to him who will seize them.

        Riots, Routs, unlawful assemblies, trespasses and seditious speeches by a negro or mulato shall be punished with stripes at the discretion of a Justice of the Peace; and he who will may apprehend and carry him before such Justice.

 

Remember that national crimes require national punishments, and without declaring what punishment awaits this evil, you may venture to assure them that it cannot pass with impunity, unless God shall cease to be just or merciful. 

Benjamin Rush

 "An Address to the Inhabitants of the British Settlements in America Upon Slave-Keeping " (Boston: John Boyles, 1773), p. 30.)


Did the Creator intend that the noblest creatures in the visible world should live such a life as this? 

John Wesley, Thoughts Upon Slavery

 I never mean, unless some particular circumstances should compel me to do 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 Washington
, in his farewell address

  Chains shall He break, for the slave is our brother.

And in His name all oppression shall cease.

Our fellow-countrymen in chains!
Slaves--in a land of light and law!
Slaves--crouching on the very plains
Where rolled the storm of Freedom's war!
       John Greenleaf Whittier
, Voices of Freedom
 

 THE WARNING
Beware! The Israelite of old, who tore
The lion in his path,--when, poor and blind,
He saw the blessed light of heaven no more,
Shorn of his noble strength and forced to grind
In prison, and at last led forth to be
A pander to Philistine revelry,--

Upon the pillars of the temple laid
His desperate hands, and in its overthrow
Destroyed himself, and with him those who made
A cruel mockery of his sightless woe;
The poor, blind Slave, the scoff and jest of all,
Expired, and thousands perished in the fall!

There is a poor, blind Samson in this land,
Shorn of his strength and bound in bonds of steel,
Who may, in some grim revel, raise his hand,
And shake the pillars of this Commonweal,
Till the vast Temple of our liberties.
A shapeless mass of wreck and rubbish lies.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

 

. . . I fully agree in Opinion with a very celebrated Author, that "Freedom or Slavery will prevail in a (City or) Country according as the Disposition & Manners of the People render them fit for the one or the other"; and I have long been convinced that our Enemies have made it an Object, to eradicate from the Minds of the People in general a Sense of true Religion & Virtue, in hopes thereby the more easily to carry their Point of enslaving them. Indeed my Friend, this is a Subject so important in my Mind, that I know not how to leave it. Revelation assures us that "Righteousness exalteth a Nation"--Communities are dealt with in this World by the wise and just Ruler of the Universe. He rewards or punishes them according to their general Character. The diminution of publick Virtue is usually attended with that of publick Happiness, and the public Liberty will not long survive the total Extinction of Morals.

Samuel Adams (Letter to John Scollay, 1776)

 

 

Below paragraph is taken from:

SUMMARY VIEW OF THE RIGHTS OF BRITISH AMERICA    by Thomas Jefferson, 1774

That we next proceed to consider the conduct of his majesty, as holding the executive powers of the laws of these states, and mark out his deviations from the line of duty: By the constitution of Great Britain, as well as of the several American states, his majesty possesses the power of refusing to pass into a law any bill which has already passed the other two branches of legislature. His majesty, however, and his ancestors, conscious of the impropriety of opposing their single opinion to the united wisdom of two houses of parliament, while their proceedings were unbiased by interested principles, for several ages past have modestly declined the exercise of this power in that part of his empire called Great Britain. But by change of circumstances, other principles than those of justice simply have obtained an influence on their determinations; the addition of new states to the British empire has produced an addition of new, and sometimes opposite interests. It is now, therefore, the great office of his majesty, to resume the exercise of his negative power, and to prevent the passage of laws by any one legislature of the empire, which might bear injuriously on the rights and interests of another. Yet this will not excuse the wanton exercise of this power which we have seen his majesty practice on the laws of the American legislatures. 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 attempts 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 advantages of a few African corsairs to the lasting interests of the American states, and to the rights of human nature, deeply wounded by this infamous practice. Nay, the single interposition of an interested individual against a law was scarcely ever known to fail of success, though in the opposite scale were placed the interests of a whole country. That this is so shameful an abuse of a power trusted with his majesty for other purposes, as if not reformed, would call for some legal restrictions. .

 

 

In 1785, Madison spoke in favor of a Jefferson bill for the gradual abolition of slavery.  Though the bill failed, a French observer was impressed with Madison.  He wrote that Madison was "A young man [who]. . . astonishes . . . his eloquence, his wisdom, and his genius, has had the humanity and courage (for such a proposition requires no small share of courage) to propose a general emancipation of the slaves...."   Marquis de Chastellux, Travels in North American the Years 1780, 1781 and 1782, Rice, ed. 2 vols. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, for Institute for Early American History and Culture, Williamsburg, Va., 1963), 653, [from footnote by George Grieve eighteenth century translator]. See James Madison and Slavery by Kenneth M. Clark ) http://www.innercity.org/holt/slavechron.html

Eloquence has been defined to be the art of persuasion. If it included persuasion by convincing, Mr. Madison was the most eloquent man I ever heard.
Patrick Henry, on James Madison, 1790

Every person seems to acknowledge his greatness. He blends together the profound politician with the scholar.
William Pierce, on James Madison, 1787


 

Harriet Beecher was the seventh child of a of a noted clergyman.  She had lived for 18 years in Cincinnati, separated only by the Ohio River from a slave-holding community in Kentucky.  She learned about the life of fugitive slaves through her contact with the "Underground Railroad," a secret network to help escaped slaves reach safety in the North.

    In 1836, Harriet married widower Calvin Stowe, a teacher of languages and biblical literature in the seminary.  In 1850 her husband became professor at Bowdoin College and moved his family to Brunswick, Maine.  In Brunswick, 1851, Stowe wrote the story of Uncle Tom's Cabin as a serial for the Washington, D.C., anti-slavery weekly, the National Era.  It became a book the next year.
    In writing the book, Stowe drew on her personal experience to accumulate a large number of documents and testimonies against slavery.  She brought to light the futility of slavery through Tom's truth over evil:

     "How would ye like to be tied to a tree, and have a slow fire lit up around ye?" asked Legree. 'Wouldn't that be pleasant, eh, Tom?'
    "Mas'r,' said Tom, 'I know ye can do dreadful things, but'—he stretched himself upward and clasped his hands—'but after ye've killed the body, there ain't no more ye can do. And oh! there's all eternity to come after that!' "

    Following publication of the book, she was invited often to speak against slavery both in America and Europe.  In 1856, she published a second anti-slavery novel, Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp.

   Overcoming difficulties, she accomplished much.  She wrote religious periodicals, children's books, poems, travel books, biographical sketches, and ten adult novels. Throughout it all, she believed Christ was with her, "I thank God there is one thing running through all of them, from the time I was thirteen years old, and that is the intense unwavering sense of Christ's educating, guiding presence, and care.

 

Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand.  When I awake, I am still with you. 

Psalm 139:18

See: Bolton, Sarah K. Lives of Girls Who Became Famous. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Co., 1886. Erskine, John. Leading American Novelists. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1910.  Fields, Annie (ed.) Life and Letters of Harriet Beecher Stowe. Boston: Houghton Mifflin and Company, 1898.

 Still, Still With Thee    by Harriet B. Stowe    Felix Mendelssohn

Still, still with Thee, when purple morning breaketh
When the bird waketh, and the shadows flee
Fairer than morning, lovelier than the daylight
Dawns the sweet consciousness, I am with Thee

Alone with Thee, amid the mystic shadows
The solemn hush of nature newly born
Alone with Thee in breathless adoration
In the calm dew and freshness of the morn

Still, still with Thee as to each newborn morning

A fresh and solemn splendor still is giv'n,

So doth this blessed consciousness, awaking,

Breathe each day nearness unto Thee and heav'n!

 

When sinks the soul, subdued by toil, to slumber,

Its closing eyes look up to Thee in prayer;

Sweet the repose beneath Thy wings o'ershading,

But sweeter still to wake and find Thee there!

So shall it be at last, in that bright morning
When the soul waketh and life’s shadows flee
O in that hour, fairer than daylight dawning
Shall rise the glorious thought, I am with Thee


    Henry Ward Beecher:  Harriet Beecher Stowe's brother, a pastor filled with dramatic power and imagination as well as a heart of love and mind of intelligence.  He was very educated and read freely many books, even the likes of Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer.

     He regarded God as a benevolent father, the Bible as a book in guidance for understanding, and religion as a way to an active life motivated by love.  He preached that love among brothers and sisters was fulfillment of the law as love of God was the essence of all Christianity. 

    Stowe believed that man must awaken their conscience and then must forbid the growth of slavery.  He was always against slavery and believed that it had to be overthrown under the constitution.  In his editorials, he impressed upon the public mind a clear opinion that slavery was wrong and against the best interests of the country.  He consulted with the political leaders, did his part to inspire the patriotism of the North, and created a mind set wanting to confirm and ratify the emancipation proclamation whenever the president should issue it.


Slavery naturally tends to destroy all sense of justice and equity. It puffs up the mind with pride: teaches youth a habit of looking down upon their fellow creatures with contempt, esteeming them as dogs or devils, and imagining themselves beings of superior dignity and importance, to whom all are indebted. This banishes the idea, and unqualifies the mind for the practice of common justice.
David Rice, speech to the constitutional convention of Kentucky, 1792

 

David Rice:  Clergyman, born in Virginia, 1733.  Graduated at Princeton where he studied theology. He was licensed to preach in 1762 and was installed as pastor of the Presbyterian church at Hanover, Virginia, in 1763. After five years he resigned; and three years later, he took charge of three congregations in new settlements of Virginia, where he worked during the period of the Revolution.

    When Kentucky was opened to settlement, he moved there with his family where he organized the first religious congregation in Kentucky, 1784. He and his wife, Mary, opened the earliest school in their house.  Mary was a daughter of Reverend Samuel Blair. 

     Rice organized and became chairman of a conference for instituting the Presbyterian church in the new territory in 1785.  He was founder of Transylvania Academy, which became Transylvania University. 

    In 1792, he helped frame Kentucky's constitution. Despite his protest speech against slavery, the Constitution continued the legalization of slavery in Kentucky.

    His published works include an Essay on Baptism (1789) ; Lecture on Divine Decrees (1791) ; Slavery Inconsistent with Justice and Policy (1792); An Epistle to the Citizens of Kentucky Professing Christianity, those that Are or Have Been Denominated Presbyterians (1805);  A Second Epistle to the Presbyterians of Kentucky," warning them against the errors of the day (1808), and A Kentucky Protest against Slavery" (New York, 1812).

 

David Rice's grandson was John Holt, a clergyman, educated at Liberty Hall academy where he began the study of medicine in 1799, afterward studied theology, and was later installed as pastor of a Presbyterian church in Virginia.  In 1815, he began the publication of the "Christian Monitor," a religious periodical, which he conducted for several years.  From 1818 till 1829 he edited a similar publication called the "Virginia Evangelical and Literary Magazine."

     He was asked to be president of Princeton in 1822, but a few weeks later accepted a professorship of theology at Hampden Sidney College.  He received the degree of D.D. from Princeton in 1819.

   
    
Speech on abolition of slavery (excerpts below) was given by David Rice during Kentucky's constitutional convention.

    Sir, I have lived free, and in many respects happy for nearly sixty years; but my happiness has been greatly diminished ... by hearing a great part of the human species groaning under the galling yoke of bondage.... When I consider their deplorable state, and who are the cause of their misery, the load of misery that lies on them, and the load of guilt on us for imposing it on them; it fills my soul with anguish. I view their distresses, I read the anger of Heaven, I believe that if I should not exert myself, when, and as far, as in my power, in order to relieve them, I should be partaker of the guilt.   .......

    As creatures of God we are, with respect to liberty, all equal. If one has a right to live among his fellow creatures, and enjoy his freedom, so has another; if one has a right to enjoy the property he acquires by an honest industry, so has another. If I by force take that from another, which he has a just right to according to the law of nature (which is divine law) which he has never forfeited, and to which he has never relinquished his claim, I am certainly guilty of injustice and robbery; and when the thing taken is a man's liberty, when it is himself, it is the greatest injustice....

    A slave claims his freedom, he pleads that he is a man, that he was by nature free, that he had not forfeited his freedom, nor relinquished it. Now unless his master can prove that he is not a man, that he was not born free, or that he has forfeited or relinquished his freedom, he must be judged free; the justice of his claim must be acknowledged. His being long deprived of this right, by force or fraud, does not annihilate it, it remains; it is still his right. When I rob a man of his property, I leave him his liberty, and a capacity of acquiring and possessing more property; but when I deprive him of his liberty, I also deprive him of this capacity; therefore I do him greater injury, when I deprive him of his liberty, than when I rob him of his property. It is in vain for me to plead that I have the sanction of law; for this makes the injury the greater, it arms the community against him, and makes his case desperate.

    If my definition of a slave is true, he is a rational creature reduced by the power of legislation to the state of a brute, and thereby deprived of every privilege of humanity, except as above, that he may minister to the ease, luxury, lust, pride, or avarice of another, no better than himself.

    We only want a law enacted that no owner of a brute, nor any other person, should kill or dismember it, and then in law the case of a slave and a brute is in most respects parallel; and where they differ, the state of the brute is to be preferred. The brute may steal or rob, to supply his hunger; the law does not condemn him to die for his offence, it only permits his death; but the slave, though in the most starving condition, dare not do either, on penalty of death or some severe punishment.

    Is there any need of arguments to prove, that it is in a high degree unjust and cruel, to reduce one human creature to such an abject wretched state as this, that he may minister to the ease, luxury, lust, pride, or avarice of another? Has not that other the same right to have him reduced to this state, that he may minister to his interest or pleasure? On what is this right founded? Whence was it derived? Does it come from heaven, from earth, or from hell? Has the great King of heaven, the absolute sovereign disposer of all men, given this extraordinary right to white men over black men? Where is the charter? In whose hands is it lodged? Let it be produced and read, that we may know our privilege.

    Thus reducing men is an indignity, a degradation to our own nature. Had we not lost a true sense of its worth and dignity, we should blush to see it converted into brutes. We should blush to see our houses filled, or surrounded with cattle in our own shapes. We should look upon it to be a fouler, blacker stain, than that with which the vertical suns have tinged the blood of Africa. When we plead for slavery, we plead for the disgrace and ruin of our own nature. If we are capable of it we may ever after claim kindred with the brutes, and renounce our own superior dignity.

    From our definition it will appear, that a slave is a creature made after the image of God, and accountable to him for the maintenance of innocence and purity; but by law reduced to a liableness to be debauched by men, without any prospect or hope of redress.

    That a slave is made after the image of God no Christian will deny; that a slave is absolutely subjected to be debauched by men, is so apparent from the nature of slavery, that it need no proof....

    If slavery is not consistent with justice, it must be inconsistent with good policy. For who would venture to assert, that it would be good policy for us to erect a public monument of our injustice, and that injustice is necessary for our prosperity, and happiness?....

    The prosperity of a country depends upon the industry of its inhabitants; idleness will produce poverty: and when slavery becomes common, industry sinks into disgrace. To labor, is to slave, to work, is to work like a Negro; and this is viewed as disgraceful; it levels us with the meanest of the species; it sits hard upon the mind; it cannot be patiently borne. Youth are hereby tempted into idleness, and drawn into other vices; they see no other way to keep their credit, and acquire some little importance. This renders them like those they ape, nuisances of society....

    Slavery naturally tends to destroy all sense of justice and equity. It puffs up the mind with pride: teaches youth a habit of looking down upon their fellow creatures with contempt, esteeming them as dogs or devils, and imagining themselves beings of superior dignity and importance, to whom all are indebted. This banishes the idea, and unqualifies the mind for the practice of common justice. If I have, all my days, been accustomed to live at the expense of a black man, without making him any compensation, or considering myself at all in his debt, I cannot think it any great crime to live at the expense of a white man.... If I have no sense of obligation to do justice to a black man, I can think little to do justice to a white man.... If I am in principle a friend to slavery, I cannot, to be consistent, think it any crime to rob my country of its property and freedom, whenever my interest calls, and I find it in my power....

    Put all the above considerations together, and it evidently appears, that slavery is neither consistent with justice or good policy. These are considerations, one might think, sufficient to silence every objection; but I foresee, notwithstanding, that a number will be made....

    The question is that concerning the liberty of man....

    To call our fellow-men, who have not forfeited, nor voluntarily resigned their liberty, our property, is a gross absurdity, a contradiction to common sense, and an indignity to human nature....

    Human legislatures should remember, that they act in subordination to the great Ruler of the universe, have no right to take the government out of his hand nor to enact laws contrary to his; that if they should presume to attempt it, they cannot make that right, which he has made wrong; they cannot dissolve the allegiance of his subjects, and transfer it to themselves, and thereby free the people from their obligations to obey the laws of nature. The people should know, that legislatures have not this power....

    If there is not in government some fixed principle superior to all law, and above the power of legislators, there can be no stability, or consistency in it; it will be continually fluctuating with the opinions, humours, passions, prejudices, or interests, of different legislative bodies. Liberty is an inherent right of man, of every man; the existence of which ought not to depend upon the mutability of legislation....

    The slavery of the negroes began in iniquity; a curse has attended it, and a curse will follow it. National vices will be punished with national calamities. Let us avoid these vices, that we may avoid the punishment which they deserve; and endeavour to so act, as to secure the approbation and smiles of Heaven....

The preceding article is a rough version of the article that appeared in The American Almanac.  Any use of, or quotations from, this article must attribute them to The New Federalist, and The American Almanac. http://www.14beacon.org/abtarchives/abolitionist.htm

All good men wish the entire abolition of slavery, as soon as it can take place with safety to the public, and for the lasting good of the present wretched race of slaves. The only possible step that could be taken towards it by the convention was to fix a period after which they should not be imported.
Oliver Ellsworth, The Landholder, 1787

 

  Think about it: We went into slavery pagans; we came out Christians. We went into slavery pieces of property; we came out American citizens. We went into slavery with chains clanking about our wrists; we came out with the American ballot in our hands...
    Notwithstanding the cruelty and moral wrong of slavery, we are in a stronger and more hopeful condition, materially, intellectually, morally, and religiously, than is true of an equal number of black people in any other portion of the globe.
  from Booker T. Washington's Up From Slavery
 

Slavery, or an absolute and unlimited power in the master over the life and fortune of the slave, is unauthorized by the common law.... The reasons which we sometimes see assigned for the origin and the continuance of slavery appear, when examined to the bottom, to be built upon a false foundation. In the enjoyment of their persons and of their property, the common law protects all.
James Wilson, The Natural Rights of Individuals, 1804
 

It is much to be wished that slavery may be abolished. The honour of the States, as well as justice and humanity, in my opinion, loudly call upon them to emancipate these unhappy people. To contend for our own liberty, and to deny that blessing to others, involves an inconsistency not to be excused.
John Jay, letter to R. Lushington, 1786
 

Every measure of prudence, therefore, ought to be assumed for the eventual total extirpation of slavery from the United States ... I have, throughout my whole life, held the practice of slavery in ... abhorrence.
 John Adams, letter to Robert Evans, 1819


Stanza from Union Dixie 

 Oh, may our Stars and Stripes still wave
Forever o'er the free and brave,
Right away, come away, right away, come away.
And let our motto ever be -
"For Union and for Liberty!"
Right away, come away, right away, come away.
 

Save the Union  Mrs. Thomas M. Coleman

Sons of Columbia, your Country now calls you;
Arise in your manhood, prepare for the fight;
Repel the bold traitors, their false pride and treason,
And teach them that Freemen will dare to do right

. Oh, sink party spirit for once in oblivion;
Let peace be your motto, in God be your trust;
Let those who would wage civil war in their madness,
In anguish of spirit repent in the dust.

Go back to the days of the dark Revolution,
When son and when sire to battle did go,
With garments all tattered and feet bare and bleeding,
Each foot print was left in the cold winter snow.

Then treat not so lightly this boon dearly purchased,
By the blood of our fathers, the good and the brave!
Who fought, bled and died 'neath the Banner of Freedom,
Which in glory and triumph forever shall wave

Like true sons of Freedom, now rush to the rescue,
Like sons of one sire, be ye firm to your trust;
Stand up for the Union, be true to your country,
Nor let her proud banners be trailed in the dust.

        Thomas Paine advocated abolition of slavery in America.  Below is excerpted an essay published March,1775, in the Pennsylvania Journal and the Weekly Advertiser.  A few weeks later, the first anti-slavery society in America was formed in Philadelphia, of which Paine was a founding member.

To Americans:

        That some desperate wretches should be willing to steal and enslave men by violence and murder for gain, is rather lamentable than strange. But that many civilized, nay, Christianized people should approve, and be concerned in the savage practice, is surprising; and still persist, though it has been so often proved contrary to the light of nature, to every principle of Justice and Humanity, and even good policy, by a succession of eminent men, and several late publications.

        Our Traders in MEN (an unnatural commodity!) must know the wickedness of the SLAVE-TRADE, if they attend to reasoning, or the dictates of their own hearts: and such as shun and stiffle all these, wilfully sacrifice Conscience, and the character of integrity to that golden idol.

        The Managers the Trade themselves, and others testify, that many of these African nations inhabit fertile countries, are industrious farmers, enjoy plenty, and lived quietly, averse to war, before the Europeans debauched them with liquors, and bribing them against one another; and that these inoffensive people are brought into slavery, by stealing them, tempting Kings to sell subjects, which they can have no right to do, and hiring one tribe to war against another, in order to catch prisoners. By such wicked and inhuman ways the English are said to enslave towards one hundred thousand yearly; of which thirty thousand are supposed to die by barbarous treatment in the first year; besides all that are slain in the unnatural ways excited to take them. So much innocent blood have the managers and supporters of this inhuman trade to answer for to the common Lord of all!

        Many of these were not prisoners of war, and redeemed from savage conquerors, as some plead; and they who were such prisoners, the English, who promote the war for that very end, are the guilty authors of their being so; and if they were redeemed, as is alleged, they would owe nothing to the redeemer but what he paid for them.

        They show as little reason as conscience who put the matter by with saying - "Men, in some cases, are lawfully made slaves, and why may not these?" So men, in some cases, are lawfully put to death, deprived of their goods, without their consent; may any man, therefore, be treated so, without any conviction of desert? Nor is this plea mended by adding- "They are set forth to us as slaves, and we buy them without farther inquiry, let the sellers see to it." Such man may as well join with a known band of robbers, buy their ill-got goods, and help on the trade; ignorance is no more pleadable in one case than the other; the sellers plainly own how they obtain them. But none can lawfully buy without evidence that they are not concurring with Men-Stealers; and as the true owner has a right to reclaim his goods that were stolen, and sold; so the slave, who is proper owner of his freedom, has a right to reclaim it, however often sold.

        Most shocking of all is alleging the sacred scriptures to favour this wicked practice. One would have thought none but infidel cavillers would endeavour to make them appear contrary to the plain dictates of natural light, and the conscience, in a matter of common Justice and Humanity; which they cannot be. Such worthy men, as referred to before, judged otherways; Mr. Baxter declared, the Slave-Traders should be called Devils, rather than Christians; and that it is a heinous crime to buy them. But some say, "the practice was permitted to the Jews." To which may be replied,

1. The example of the Jews, in many things, may not be imitated by us; they had not only orders to cut off several nations altogether, but if they were obliged to war with others, and conquered them, to cut off every male; they were suffered to use polygamy and divorces, and other things utterly unlawful to us under clearer light.

2. The plea is, in a great measure, false; they had no permission to catch and enslave people who never injured them.

3. Such arguments ill become us, since the time of reformation came, under Gospel light. All distinctions of nations and privileges of one above others, are ceased; Christians are taught to account all men their neighbours; and love their neighbours as themselves; and do to all men as they would be done by; to do good to all men; and Man-stealing is ranked with enormous crimes. Is the barbarous enslaving our inoffensive neighbours, and treating them like wild beasts subdued by force, reconcilable with the Divine precepts! Is this doing to them as we would desire they should do to us? If they could carry off and enslave some thousands of us, would we think it just? - One would almost wish they could for once; it might convince more than reason, or the Bible.

        As much in vain, perhaps, will they search ancient history for examples of the modern Slave-Trade. Too many nations enslaved the prisoners they took in war. But to go to nations with whom there is no war, who have no way provoked, without farther design of conquest, purely to catch inoffensive people, like wild beasts, for slaves, is an height of outrage against humanity and justice, that seems left by heathen nations to be practised by pretended Christian. How shameful are all attempts to colour and excuse it!

        As these people are not convicted of forfeiting freedom, they have still a natural, perfect right to it; and the governments whenever they come should, in justice set them free, and punish those who hold them in slavery.

        So monstrous is the making and keeping them slaves at all, abstracted from the barbarous usage they suffer, and the many evils attending the practice; as selling husbands away from wives, children from parents, and from each other, in violation of sacred and natural ties; and opening the way for adulteries, incests, and many shocking consequences, for all of which the guilty Masters must answer to the final Judge.

        If the slavery of the parents be unjust, much more is their children's; if the parents were justly slaves, yet the children are born free; this is the natural, perfect right of all mankind; they are nothing but a just recompense to those who bring them up: And as much less is commonly spent on them than others, they have a right, in justice, to be proportionably sooner free.

        Certainly, one may, with as much reason and decency, plead for murder, robbery, lewdness and barbarity, as for this practice. They are not more contrary to the natural dictates of conscience, and feeling of humanity; nay, they are all comprehended in it.

        But the chief design of this paper is not to disprove it, which many have sufficiently done; but to entreat Americans to consider.

.......The great Question may be - What should be done with those who are enslaved already? To turn the old and infirm free, would be injustice and cruelty; they who enjoyed the labours of the their better days should keep, and treat them humanely. As to the rest, let prudent men, with the assistance of legislatures, determine what is practicable for masters, and best for them. Perhaps some could give them lands upon reasonable rent, some, employing them in their labour still, might give them some reasonable allowances for it; so as all may have some property, and fruits of their labours at the own disposal, and be encouraged to industry; the family may live together, and enjoy the natural satisfaction of exercising relative affections and duties, with civil protection, and other advantages, like fellow men. Perhaps they might sometime form useful barrier settlements on the frontiers. Thus they may become interested in the public welfare, and assist in promoting it; instead of being dangerous, as now they are, should any enemy promise them a better condition.

        The past treatment of Africans must naturally fill them with abhorrence of Christians; lead them to think our religion would make them more inhuman savages, if they embraced it; thus the gain of that trade has been pursued in oppositions of the redeemer's cause, and the happiness of men. Are we not, therefore, bound in duty to him and to them to repair these injuries, as far as possible, by taking some proper measure to instruct, not only the slaves here, but the Africans in their own countries? Primitive Christians, laboured always to spread the divine religion; and this is equally our duty while there is an heathen nation: But what singular obligations are we under to these injured people!

These are the sentiments of JUSTICE AND HUMANITY.  

        Henry Laurens was a South Carolina merchant-planter who became involved with politics during the Revolutionary War.  He was a delegate to the Continental Congress, the third President of the Second Continental Congress, the Vice-President of South Carolina, and a diplomat.  He led the movement to overthrow British rule during the American Revolution--first in his native state of South Carolina and then as President of the Continental Congress (1777-1778).   He abhorred slavery as shown by his August, 1776, letter to his son John Laurens.

        My Negroes, all to a man, are strongly attached to me; hitherto not one of them has attempted to desert; on the contrary, those who are more exposed hold themselves always ready to fly from the enemy in case of a sudden descent.  Many hundreds of that colour have been stolen and decoyed by the servants of King George the Third.  Captains of British ships of war and noble lords have busied themselves in such inglorious pilferage, to the disgrace of their master and disgrace of their cause.  These Negroes were first enslaved by the English; acts of parliament have established the slave trade in favour of the home-residing English, and almost totally prohibited the Americans from reaping any share of it.  Men of war, forts, castles, governors, companies and committees are employed and authorized by the English parliament to protect, regulate and extend the slave trade.  Negroes are brought by Englishmen and sold as slaves to Americans.  Bristol, Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, etc., etc., live upon the slave trade.  the British parliament now employ their men-of-war to steal those Negroes from the Americans to whom they had sold them, pretending to set the poor wretches free, but basely trepan and sell them into tenfold worse slavery in the West Indies, where probably they will become the property of Englishmen again, and of some who sit in parliament.  What meanness!  What complicated wickedness appears in this scene!  O England, how changed!  How fallen!         You know, my dear son, I abhor slavery.  I was born in a country where slavery had been established by British kings and parliaments, as well as by the laws of that country ages before my existence.  I found the Christian religion and slavery growing under the same authority and cultivation.  I nevertheless disliked it.  In former days there was no combating the prejudices of men supported by interest; the day I hope is approaching when, from principles of gratitude as well as justice, every man will strive to be foremost in showing his readiness to comply with the golden rule.

        Not less than twenty thousand pounds sterling would all my Negroes produce if sold at public auction tomorrow.  I am not the man who enslaved them; they are indebted to Englishmen for that favour; nevertheless I am devising means for manumitting many of them, and for cutting off the entail of slavery.  Great powers opposed me--the laws and customs of my country, my own and the avarice of my countrymen.  What will my children say if I deprive them of so much estate?  These are difficulties, but not insuperable.  I will do as much as I can in my time, and leave the rest to a better hand.

    When Africans were first brought to the new World, they clung to the religions of their ancestors; but as the years passed and new generations were born, slaves accepted American culture and Christianity as part of being home.  Presbyterian, Methodist, and Baptist preachers gave sermons of hope which found their way into the souls of slaves who cried for freedom on earth.  They found comfort in the biblical message of spiritual equality and began to have hope of deliverance from God.  As they were a musical people used to putting ideas into song, their longings and complaints were soulfully prayed to God in musical verse.  They had to sing from their hearts up to the heavens about all their feelings.

On being brought from Africa to America

  by Phillis Wheatley

'Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land,
Taught my benighted soul to understand
That there's a God, that there's a Saviour too:
Once I redemption neither sought nor knew.
Some view our sable race with scornful eye,
"Their colour is a diabolic die."
Remember, Christians! Negroes, black as Cain,
May be refin'd, and join th' angelic train.

    Owners instilled within black slaves a sense of inferiority, helplessness, and dependence.  If the slaves had only their masters by which to judge Christianity, few might have become Christians.  In view of Christian virtues, they were well aware of the shortcomings of their owners whose very faith, which they themselves as slaves were beginning to embrace, seemed only to be a Sunday ritual to their owners.

All good men wish the entire abolition of slavery, as soon as it can take place with safety to the public, and for the lasting good of the present wretched race of slaves. The only possible step that could be taken towards it by the convention was to fix a period after which they should not be imported.
Oliver Ellsworth, The Landholder, 1787

Oliver Ellsworth:

Political Affiliation: Federalist
Religious Affiliation: Active member of the Congregational First Church of Windsor.

    Born 1745, Ellsworth entered Yale in 1762 and then transferred to the College of New Jersey (Princeton) at the end of his second year.  Received his degree in theology, studied law for 4 years, and was admitted to the bar in 1771.  He was able to build up a reputable and prosperous law practice.

    In 1777, he became Connecticut's state attorney for Hartford County and became one of Connecticut's representatives in the Continental Congress, serving on various committees during six annual terms.  During the Revolution, Ellsworth was one of the five men who supervised Connecticut's war expenditures. 
    When the Constitutional Convention met in Philadelphia in 1787, Ellsworth once again represented Connecticut. He served on the Committee of Five that prepared the first draft of the Constitution. Though he left the convention and did not sign the final document, he urged its adoption upon his return to Connecticut and wrote the Letters of a Landholder to promote its ratification. 
    Ellsworth served as one of Connecticut's first two senators in the new federal government between 1789 and 1796.  He chaired the committee to frame the bill organizing the federal judiciary, and he helped to work out the practical details necessary to run a new government.

     In the spring of 1796 he was appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and also served as commissioner to France in 1799 and 1800.  Upon his return to America in early 1801, Ellsworth retired from public life and lived in Windsor, CT, until his death in 1807. National Archive and Records Administration. (Biographical Directory of the US Congress)  Oliver Ellsworth (National Archives -- The Founding Fathers)

New York Quakers twice published Jupiter Hammon's essay during his lifetime; and it was published after his death by members of the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery.

Essay, 1787  Hammon, age 76, after being freed by the family he served for three generations

   
In his An Address to the Negroes in the State of New York, Hammon preached that slaves are capable of accepting Christ which would guarantee themselves freedom after death.  He encouraged blacks to have high moral standards precisely because their enslavement on earth had already secured their place in heaven. 

    Hammon advocated a plan of gradual emancipation rather than an immediate end to slavery.  He thought a pension should be established by slave owners for slaves after they were no longer able to work or care for themselves.

   


NEGRO SLAVERY

"We have slaves likewise in our northern provinces; I hope the time draws near when they will be all emancipated: but how different their lot, how different their situation, in every possible respect! They enjoy as much liberty as their masters,

they are as well clad, and as well fed; in health and sickness they are tenderly taken care of; they live under the same roof, and are, truly speaking, a part of our families. Many of them are taught to read and write, and are well instructed in the principles of religion; they are the companions of our labours, and treated as such; they enjoy many perquisites, many established holidays, and are not obliged to work more than white people. They marry where inclination leads them; visit their wives every week; are as decently clad as the common people; they are indulged in educating, cherishing, and chastising their children, who are taught subordination to them as to their lawful parents: in short, they participate in many of the benefits of our society, without being obliged to bear any of its burthens. They are fat, healthy, and hearty, and far from repining at their fate; they think themselves happier than many of the lower class whites: they share with their masters the wheat and meat provision they help to raise; many of those whom the good Quakers have emancipated, have received that great benefit with tears of regret, and have never quitted, though free, their former masters and benefactors."

 

See: Letters from an American Farmer, by Hector St. Jean de Crevecoeur, New York, Fox, Duffield, 1904. . 231

Henry Clay

Paul Cuffee, a devout African-American Quaker, dreamed of a fresh start for blacks who could use skills they had acquired in America to build a new nation of their own.  He died before he could help fully develop this dream.  

    In 1811, Paul Cuffee and a crew of nine black seamen sailed out of Philadelphia bound for Sierra Leone, a British colony that had been created as a haven for poor blacks from London and black Loyalists who had a hard time as free people in Nova Scotia. He stayed for three months, met with government officials and local chiefs, visited schools and Methodist meetings, and distributed Bibles.
    Cuffee later received an English land grant on which he could settle a few immigrants of his choosing. His plans were delayed by the War of 1812, but in 1815-1816 he made a successful voyage to Sierra Leone with 38 colonists. On January 16, 1817, he wrote that in Sierra Leone, "These few Europeans hath pritty much Control of the Colony Yet the people of Coular Are intitled to every privlege of a free born Subjects.... Yet It cannot be said that Thay Are Equal for the prejudice of tradition is preciptable but I believe much Lieth At thare Doors."
 Library of Congress,  http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part3/3h485.html

The partial success of Cuffee's venture encouraged white proponents of colonization to form the American Colonization Society.       African Americans faced continued hardship and inequality. A number of white Americans shared their angst in wanting to resolve this complex problem.  Some voices called for the return of African Americans to the land of their forebears in hopes that removing former slaves to Africa would eliminate the need for freed blacks to live and work together with whites.  Some slaveholders were troubled by the morality issues concerning slavery and wanted to free their slaves—but only if the former slaves could then be sent far away.

      In 1816, Presbyterian minister Robert Finley suggested that a colony be established in Africa to take free people of color, most of whom had been born free, away from the United States.  Rev. Finley meant to colonize with their consent "the free people of color residing in our country, in Africa, or such other place as Congress may deem most expedient."  Many free African-Americans, however, including those who had supported Paul Cuffee's efforts, were wary of this idea and preferred to stay in the land they had helped to build. They planned to continue the struggle for equality and justice in America. 

        LIBERIA

The first president of the American Colonization Society was former U.S. President James Monroe, for whom Monrovia, the capital of Liberia, was renamed.  Henry Clay was ACS president from 1836 to 1849.

        For many years the American Colonization Society tried to persuade the United States Congress to appropriate funds to send colonists to Liberia (“land of the free”). Although Henry Clay led the campaign, it failed. The society did, however, succeed in its appeals to some state legislatures.

        Freed slaves were sent to Africa "to promote and execute a plan for colonizing in Africa, with their own consent, the free people of color residing in the US."  They knew the African-American had a clear disadvantage in a dominantly white environment and believed their chances for happiness would be greater if they were given their own country.  Some also believed it was a good opportunity to spread Christianity in Africa.

        The ACS wanted a certain location in West Africa, but they were unable to persuade local tribal leaders to sell that territory.  In 1820, 88 free black settlers and 3 white helpers sailed for Sierra Leone shortly after signing a constitution requiring that the settlement operated according to U.S. laws. 

        Finding space on Scherbro Island off the west coast of Africa, the new immigrants began to construct a new settlement.  Within a few days, 22 of the African-Americans and all 3 white officials died of yellow fever.  Another ship soon arrived with new passengers and fresh supplies.
        In 1821, Captain Stockton of the USS Alligator obtained a 36-mile long strip of coastline in exchange for rum, weapons, shoes, and other miscellaneous items. The Scherbo Island group moved to this new location as did other blacks directly arriving from the United States.

        The settlement was on Providence Island near the city of Monrovia where the Society had made arrangements and agreements with local chiefs.  However, the agreement was not honored as the colonists were continuously attacked by indigenous peoples.  Add to this disaster, the threat of disease, and we find the settlers barely able to maintain their rightful home.  In 1824, they built protective forts, which gave them a degree of security. 

         In America, 1825: The ACS began a quarterly, The African Repository and Colonial Journal, edited by Rev. Ralph Randolph Gurley who headed the Society until 1844.  Among the items printed were positive articles about Africa, official dispatches emphasizing the prosperity of the colony, information about emigrants, and lists of donors.  Recruitment was difficult, however, as negative black attitudes toward colonization continued and limited the numbers of potential settlers.

        By 1830, only 1,430 blacks had been settled in Liberia, but many more blacks were now willing to emigrate since the Nat Turner rebellion had produced significant white backlash against free blacks. Virginia, Kentucky, and Maryland all appropriated funds for the shipment of free blacks to Africa. A Kentucky state affiliate was formed in 1828, and the members began to raise money for transporting Kentucky blacks—free volunteers as well as slaves set free on the condition that they agree to emigrate to Africa. Over 1,000 blacks went to Liberia in 1832
        The Society controlled the colony of Liberia until 1847 when Liberia was proclaimed a free and independent state. It was provided with a constitution much like the American constitution, making it the first democratic republic on the African continent.  Between 1848 and 1854, more money was appropriated by the states making it possible for over 4,000 free blacks to be brought to Liberia.  In 1850, Virginia set aside $30,000 annually for five years to aid and support emigration.  During the 1850s, the Society also received several thousand dollars from the New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Missouri, and Maryland legislatures.
        By 1867, the Society had sent more than 13,000 emigrants. They raised enough money to buy a 40-square-mile site along the St. Paul’s River. The principal town, established in 1846, was named in honor of Clay and his Lexington estate, Ashland.  After the Civil War, many more blacks wanted to go to Liberia, but financial support for colonization had waned.

 

See: Facts about Liberia from the U.S. State Department
Liberian history timeline (through 1997) is available from the American Colonization Society collection at the Library of Congress  

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/gmdhtml/libhtml/liberia.html

Johnston, Harry, Liberia. London: Hutchinson, 1906.

Nelson, Harold D., ed., Liberia: A Country Study. Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1985.

Shick, Tom W., Behold the Promised Land: The History of Afro-American Settler Society in Nineteenth-Century Liberia. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980

Staudenraus, P.J., The African Colonization Movement, 1816 - 1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961; reprint, New York: Octagon Books, 1980.

        When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.  This note was a promise that all men would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. . . . I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed:  "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.    Martin Luther King, "I Have A Dream," August 28, 1963

        The Revolution most certainly dealt a severe blow to America's inherited institution of slavery.  Though the Continental Congress had tried to outlaw the slave trade in 1774, it was not until the Revolution that that trade was almost completely halted.  In 1776 the clause of the Body of Liberties allowing enslavement of "lawful captives taken in just wars" was repealed concerning Negroes taken on the high seas.  Since new blacks fresh from Africa were not being brought into the population, the majority of slaves were American-born with no personal memories of an African homeland.  They were adapted to America and becoming culturally ripe and anxious for freedom.        

         Knowing that slavery was irreconcilable with professions of freedom, Delaware prohibited it in 1776, Virginia in 1778, and Maryland in 1783.  In the south, leaders did what they could to mitigate slavery; but proposals for gradual emancipation were defeated, and manumission laws were adopted in a most hesitant fashion.  Jefferson's original proposal of 1784 to outlaw slavery in the western territory--from the Great Lakes to the Gulf--was defeated by a vote of 7 to 6, but the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 did decree freedom in the territory north of the Ohio. 

          In Massachusetts the Supreme Court held that the provision of the Constitution declaring all men free and equal meant just what it said. The first article of the Bill of Rights of the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780 provided that "All men are born free and equal."   Pennsylvania provided for gradual emancipation after 1780 while Connecticut and Rhode Island provided the same after 1784.  By 1790, every state except South Carolina and Georgia had outlawed slave importations. 

           Congress passed, and President Jefferson signed into law a national prohibition against the slave trade, effective January 1, 1808.  James Wilson declared, "If there was no other lovely feature in the Constitution but this one, it would diffuse a beauty over its whole countenance.  Yet the lapse of a few years, and Congress will have power to exterminate slavery from within our borders."            

Preamble to the Act for Gradual Abolition of Slavery passed by the Pennsylvania Assembly, March, 1780

        When we contemplate our Abhorrence of that Condition to which the Arms and Tyranny of Great Britain were exerted to reduce us, when we look back on the Variety of Dangers to which we have been exposed, and how miraculously our Wants in many Instances have been supplied and our Deliverances wrought, when even Hope and human fortitude have become unequal to the Conflict; we are unavoidably led to a serious and grateful Sense of the manifold Blessings which we have undeservedly received from the hand of that Being from whom every good and perfect Gift cometh. Impressed with these Ideas we conceive that it is our duty, and we rejoice that it is in our Power, to extend a Portion of that freedom to others, which hath been extended to us; and a Release from the state of thralldom, to which we ourselves were tyrannically doomed, and from which we have now every Prospect of being delivered. It is not for us to enquire, why, in the Creation of Mankind, the Inhabitants of the several parts of the Earth, were distinguished by a difference in Feature or Complexion. It is sufficient to know that all are the Work of an Almighty Hand, We find in the distribution of the human Species, that the most fertile, as well as the most barren parts of the Earth are inhabited by Men of Complexions different from ours and from each other, from whence we may reasonably as well as religiously infer, that he, who placed them in their various Situations, hath extended equally his Care and Protection to all, and that it becometh not us to counteract his Mercies.

        We esteem a peculiar Blessing granted to us, that we are enabled this Day to add one more Step to universal Civilization by removing as much as possible the Sorrows of those, who have lived in undeserved Bondage, and from which by the assumed Authority of the Kings of Britain, no effectual legal Relief could be obtained. Weaned by a long Course of Experience from those narrow Prejudices and Partialities we had imbibed, we find our Hearts enlarged with Kindness and Benevolence towards Men of all Conditions and Nations; and we conceive ourselves at this particular Period extraordinarily called upon by the Blessings which we have received, to manifest the Sincerity of our Profession and to give a substantial Proof of our Gratitude.    JOHN BAYARD, SPEAKER  
Enabled into a law at Philadelphia, on Wednefday, the firft day of March, A.D. 1780
Thomas Paine, clerk of the general affembly. 

         

     
 

     In 1783 the case of Commonwealth v Nathaniel Jennison came before the court.  Jennison, indicted for assault on Quock Walker, defended his behavior on the ground that Walker was his slave.  The court, speaking through the Chief Justice who was soon to be appointed to the first United States Supreme Court, ruled that under the provision of the Constitution of Massachusetts slavery was abolished in Massachusetts.

        In his instructions to the jury, Chief Justice William Cushing held that the constitution had, in fact, granted rights that were incompatible with slavery:

        As to the doctrine of slavery and the right of Christians to hold Africans in perpetual servitude, and sell and treat them as we do our horses and cattle, that (it is true) has been heretofore countenanced by the Province Laws formerly, but nowhere is it expressly enacted or established. It has been a usage -- a usage which took its origin from the practice of some of the European nations, and the regulations of British government respecting the then Colonies, for the benefit of trade and wealth. But whatever sentiments have formerly prevailed in this particular or slid in upon us by the example of others, a different idea has taken place with the people of America, more favorable to the natural rights of mankind, and to that natural, innate desire of Liberty, with which Heaven (without regard to color, complexion, or shape of noses-features) has inspired all the human race. And upon this ground our Constitution of Government, by which the people of this Commonwealth have solemnly bound themselves, sets out with declaring that all men are born free and equal -- and that every subject is entitled to liberty, and to have it guarded by the laws, as well as life and property -- and in short is totally repugnant to the idea of being born slaves. This being the case, I think the idea of slavery is inconsistent with our own conduct and Constitution; and there can be no such thing as perpetual servitude of a rational creature, unless his liberty is forfeited by some criminal conduct or given up by personal consent or contract ....

The jury found Jennison guilty of assault and battery.