The Abolition Crusade and Its Consequences Part 3

The Colonization Society was composed of Southern and Northern philanthropists and statesmen of the most exalted character. Among its presidents were, at times, President Monroe and ex-President Madison.

Chief Justice Marshall was one of its presidents. Colonization, while relieving America, was also to give the negro an opportunity for self-government and self-development in his native country, aided at the outset by experienced white men, and Abraham Lincoln, when he was eulogizing the dead Henry Clay, one of the eloquent advocates of the scheme, seemed to be in love with the idea of restoring the poor African to that land from which he had been rudely s.n.a.t.c.hed by the rapacious white man. The society, with much aid from philanthropists and some from the Federal Government, was making progress when, from 1831 to 1835, the Abolitionists halted it.[15] They got the ears of the negro and persuaded him not to go to Liberia. Its friends thought the enterprise would stimulate emanc.i.p.ation by furnishing a home for such negroes as their owners were willing to manumit; but the new friends of the negro told him it was a trick of the slave-holder, and intended to perpetuate slavery--it was banishment. And Dr. Hart now, in his "Abolition and Slavery," calls it a move for the "expatriation of the negro."

[15] See Garrison's "Garrison."

All together only a few thousand negroes went to Liberia. The enterprise lagged, and finally failed, partly because of opposition, but chiefly because the negroes were slothful and incapable of self-government. The word came back that they were not prospering. For a time, while white men were helping them in their government, the outlook for Liberia had more or less promise in it. When the whites, to give the negroes their opportunity for self-development withdrew their case was hopeless.[16]

[16] See article in _Independent_, 1906, Miss Mahony.

In 1828, while emanc.i.p.ation was still being freely canva.s.sed North and South, Benjamin Lundy, an Abolition editor in charge of _The Genius of Emanc.i.p.ation_, then being published at Baltimore, in a slave State, went to Boston to "stir up" the Northern people "to the work of abolishing slavery in the South." Dr. Channing, who has been previously quoted, wrote a letter to Daniel Webster on the 28th of May, 1828, in which, after reciting the purpose of Lundy, and saying that he was "aware how cautiously exertions are to be made for it in this part of the country,"

it being a local question, he said: "It seems to me that, before moving in this matter, we ought to say to them (our Southern brethren) distinctly, 'We consider slavery _as your calamity, not your crime_, and _we will share with you the burden_ of putting an end to it. We will consent that the public lands shall be appropriated to this object; or that the general government shall be _clothed with the power to apply a portion of revenue to it_.'

"I throw out these suggestions merely to ill.u.s.trate my views. We must first let the Southern States see that we are their _friends_ in this affair; that we sympathize with them and, from principles _of patriotism and philanthropy, are willing to share the toil and expense_ of abolishing slavery, or, I fear, our interference will avail nothing."[17] Mr. Webster never gave out this letter until February 15, 1851.[18]

[17] "Webster's Works," vol. V, pp. 366-67, 1851.

[18] _Ib._, ed. 1851, vol. V, pp. 266-67.

In less than three years after that letter was written, Lundy's friend, William Lloyd Garrison, started in Boston a crusade against slavery in the South, on the ground that instead of being the "_calamity_," as Dr.

Channing deemed it to be, it was the "_crime_" of the South. Had no such exasperating sectional cry as this ever been raised, the story told in this little book would have been very different from that which is to follow. Even Spain, the laggard of nations, since that day has abolished slavery in her colonies. Brazil long ago fell into line, and it is impossible for one not blinded by the sectional strife of the past, now to conceive that the Southern States of this Union, whose people in 1830 were among the foremost of the world in all the elements of Christian civilization, would not long, long ago, if left to themselves, have found some means by which to rid themselves of an inst.i.tution condemned by the public sentiment of the world and even then deplored by the Southerners themselves.

The crime, if crime it was, of slavery in the South in 1830 was one for which the two sections of the Union were equally to blame. Abraham Lincoln said in his debate with Douglas at Peoria, Illinois, October 15, 1858: "When Southern people tell us they are no more responsible for slavery than we are, I acknowledge the fact. When it is said that the inst.i.tution exists, and that it is very difficult to get rid of it, in any satisfactory way, I can understand and appreciate the saying. I surely do not blame them for not doing what I would not know how to do myself."[19]

[19] "The Negro Problem," Pickett, 1809.

Prior to the rise of the Abolitionists in 1831, emanc.i.p.ationists in the South had been free to grapple with conditions as they found them. What they and what the people of the North had accomplished we may gather from the United States census reports. The tables following are taken from "Larned's History of Ready Reference," vol. V. The cla.s.sifications are his. We have numbered three of his tables, for the sake of reference, and have added columns 4 and 5, calculated from Larned's figures, to show "excess of free blacks" and "increase of free blacks, South."

Let the reader a.s.sume as a fact, which will perhaps not be questioned, that "free blacks" in the census means freedmen and their increase, and these tables tell their own story, a story to which must be added the statement that slaves in the South had been freed only by voluntary sacrifices of owners.

It will be noted that in 1790 the total "blacks" in the North was 67,479, and, although emanc.i.p.ation in these States had begun some years before, the excess of "free blacks" in the South was over 5,000. Also that at every succeeding census, down to and including that of 1830, the "excess of free blacks" increased with considerable regularity until 1830, when that excess is 44,547.

+----------------------+----------+-------+---------+-------+-------+--------+ TOTAL EXCESS INCREASE WHITES FREE SLAVES BLACKS, OF FREE IN FREE BLACKS NORTH BLACKS, BLACKS, SOUTH SOUTH +----------------------+----------+-------+---------+-------+-------+--------+ 1790: North, 9 States 1,900,976 27,109 40,370 67,479 .... .... South, 8 States 1,271,488 32,357 657,527 .... 5,248 .... 1800: North, 11 States 2,601,521 47,154 35,946 83,100 .... 20,045 South, 9 States 1,702,980 61,241 857,095 .... 14,087 28,884 and D.C. 1810: North, 13 States 3,653,219 78,181 27,510 105,691 .... 31,027 South, 11 States 2,208,785 108,265 1,163,854 .... 30,084 47,024 and D. C. 1820: North, 13 States 5,030,371 99,281 19,108 118,359 .... 21,100 South, 13 States 2,831,560 134,223 1,519,017 .... 34,942 25,958 and D. C. 1830: North, 13 States 6,871,302 137,529 3,568 141,097 .... 38,248 South, 13 States 3,660,758 182,070 2,005,475 .... 44,541 47,747 D. C. and Ter. 1840: North, etc. 9,577,065 170,728 1,728 171,857 .... 33,199 South, etc. 4,632,530 215,575 2,486,326 .... 44,547 33,505 1850: North, etc. 13,269,149 196,262 262 196,524 .... 25,534 South, etc. 6,283,965 238,187 3,204,051 .... 1,925 22,612 1860: North, etc. 18,791,159 225,967 64 226,031 .... 29,705 South, etc. 8,162,684 262,003 3,953,696 .... 36,036 23,816 +----------------------+----------+-------+---------+-------+-------+--------+

There was always in the South, prior to 1831, an active and freely expressed emanc.i.p.ation sentiment. But there was not enough of it to influence legislation. In all but three or four of these States, emanc.i.p.ation was made difficult by laws which, among other conditions, required that slaves after being freed should leave the State.

Emanc.i.p.ation in the North had not been completed in 1830. Professor Ingram, president of the Royal Irish Academy, says in his "History of Slavery," London, 1895, p. 184: "The Northern States--beginning with Vermont in 1777 and ending with New Jersey in 1804--either abolished slavery or adopted measures to effect its gradual abolition within their boundaries. But the princ.i.p.al operation of (at least) the latter change was to transfer Northern slaves to Southern markets."

There had been in 1820 an angry discussion in Congress about the admission of Missouri--with or without slavery--which was finally settled by the Missouri Compromise. This dispute over the admission of Missouri is often said to have been the beginning of the sectional quarrel that finally ended in secession; but the controversy over Missouri and that begun by the "New Abolitionists" in 1831 were entirely distinct. They were conducted on different plans.

In the Missouri controversy the only questions were as to the expediency and const.i.tutionality of denying to a new State the right to enter the Union, with or without slavery, as she might choose. The entire dispute was settled to the satisfaction of both sections by an agreement that States thereafter, south of 36 30', might enter the Union with or without slavery; _and n.o.body denied, during all that discussion about Missouri, or at any time previous to_ 1831, _that every citizen was bound to maintain the Const.i.tution and all laws pa.s.sed in pursuance of it, including the fugitive slave law_.

"The North submitted at that time (1828) to the obligations imposed upon it by the fugitive slave-catching clause of the Const.i.tution and the fugitive slave law of 1793."[20] So say the biographers of William Lloyd Garrison for the purpose of establishing, as they afterwards do, their claim that Garrison conducted a successful revolt against that provision of the Const.i.tution. What strengthens the statement that the North in 1828 submitted without protest to the "fugitive slave-catching clause of the Const.i.tution," is that the Compromise Act of 1820 contained a provision extending the fugitive slave law over the territory made free by the act, while it should continue to be territory, and until there should be formed from it States, to which the existing law would automatically apply. Every subsequent _nullification of the fugitive slave laws_ of the United States, whether by governors or state legislatures, was therefore a palpable _violation of a provision that was of the essence of the Missouri Compromise_.

[20] Garrison's "Garrison," vol. I, p. 113.

The South was content with the Missouri Compromise, and from that date, 1820, until the rise of the "New Abolitionists," slavery was in all that region an open question. Judge Temple says in his "Covenanter, Cavalier, and Puritan," p. 208: "In 1826, of the 143 emanc.i.p.ation societies in the United States, 103 were in the South."

The questions for Southern emanc.i.p.ationists were: How could the slaves be freed, and in what time? How about compensation to owners? Where could the freed slaves be sent, and how? And, if deportation should prove impossible, what system could be devised whereby the two races could dwell together peacefully? These were indeed serious problems, and required time and grave consideration.

"Who can doubt," says Mr. Curtis, to quote once more his "Life of Buchanan," "that all such questions could have been satisfactorily answered, if the Christianity of the South had been left to its own time and mode of answering them, and without any external force but the force of kindly, respectful consideration and forebearing Christian fellowship?"[21]

[21] George Ticknor Curtis's "Life of Buchanan," vol. II, p. 283.

But this was not to be.

CHAPTER III

THE NEW ABOLITIONISTS

On the first day of January, 1831, there came out in Boston a new paper, _The Liberator_, William Lloyd Garrison, editor. That was the beginning, historians now generally agree, of "New Abolitionism." The editor of the new paper was the founder of the new sect.

Benjamin Lundy was a predecessor of Garrison, on much the same lines as those pursued by the latter. Lundy had previously formed many Abolition societies. _The Philanthropist_ of March, 1828, estimated the number of anti-slavery societies as "upwards of 130, and most of them in the slave States, and of Lundy's formation, among the Quakers."[22] But Garrison became the leader and Lundy the disciple.

[22] Garrison's "Garrison," vol. I.

Garrison was a man of pleasing personal appearance, abstemious in habits, and of remarkable energy and will power. He was a vigorous and forceful writer. Denunciation was his chief weapon, and he had "a genius for infuriating his antagonists." The following is a fair specimen of his style. Speaking of himself and his fellow-workers as the "soldiers of G.o.d," he said: "Their feet are shod with the preparation of the _gospel of peace_.... Hence, when smitten on one cheek they turn the other also, being defamed they entreat, being reviled they bless," etc.

And on that same page,[23] and in the same prospectus, showing how he "blesses" those who, as he understands, are outside of the "Kingdom of G.o.d," he says: "All without are dogs and sorcerers, and ... and murderers, and idolaters, and whatsoever loveth a lie."

[23] _Ib._, Vol. II, p. 202.

Mr. Garrison had no perspective, no sense of relation or proportion. In his eye the most humane slave-holder was a wicked monster. He had a genius for organization, and a year after the first issue of _The Liberator_ he and his little body of brother fanatics had grown into the New England Anti-Slavery Society.

The new sect called themselves for a time the "New Abolitionists,"

because their doctrines were new. The principles upon which this organization was to be based were not all formulated at once. The key-note was sounded in Garrison's "Address to the Public" in the first number of _The Liberator_:

I shall strenuously contend for the immediate enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of our slave population. I shall be as harsh as truth and as uncompromising as justice on this subject. _I do not wish to think or speak or write with moderation._

In an earlier issue, after denouncing slavery as a "d.a.m.ning crime," the editor said: "Therefore my efforts shall be directed to _the exposure of those who practise it_."

The substance of Garrison's teachings was that slavery, anywhere in the United States, was the concern of all, and that it was to be put down by making not only slavery but also the slave-holder odious. And, further, it was the slave, not the slave-owner, who was ent.i.tled to compensation.

Thus the distinctive features of the new crusade were to be warfare upon the personal character of every slave-holder and the confiscation of his property. It was, too, the beginning of that sectional war by people of the North against the existence of slavery in the South, which, as we have seen, was deprecated by Dr. Channing in his letter three years before to Mr. Webster.

The new sect began by a.s.sailing slavery in States other than their own, and very soon they were openly denouncing the Const.i.tution of their country because under it slavery in those sections was none of their business; and of course they repudiated the Missouri Compromise absolutely, the essence of that compromise being that slavery was the business of the States in which it existed.

It was a part of their scheme to send circulars depicting the evils of slavery broadcast through the South; and they were sent especially to the free negroes of that section.

"In 1820," says Dr. Hart in his "Slavery and Abolition," "at Charleston (South Carolina), Denmark Vesey, a free negro, made an elaborate plot to rise, ma.s.sacre the white population, seize the shipping in the harbor, and, if hard pressed, to sail away to the West Indies. One of the negroes gave evidence, Vesey was seized, duly tried, and with thirty-four others was hanged."[24]

[24] Hart's "Slavery and Abolition," p. 163.

This plot, so nearly successful, was fresh in the minds of Southerners when the Abolitionists began their programme, and naturally, the South at once took the alarm--an alarm that was increased by the ma.s.sacre, in the Nat Turner insurrection, of sixty-one men, women, and children, which took place in Virginia seven months after the first issue of _The Liberator_. One of Turner's lieutenants is stated to have been a free negro. This insurrection the South attributed to _The Liberator_.

Professor Hart says a free negro named Walker had previously sent out to the South, from Boston, a pamphlet, "the tone of which was unmistakable," and that "this pamphlet is known to have reached Virginia, and may possibly have influenced the Nat Turner insurrection."[25]

[25] _Ib._, pp. 217-20.