The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade/Chapter 22
CHAPTER XXII.
Slavery under the Confederation. — Emancipation by the States.
The number of slaves in the United States at the time of the Declaration of Independence has been estimated at half a million. The following table exhibits their numbers in each state. It appears that slavery existed in all of the thirteen states at the commencement of the revolutionary war; but shortly after its close, as we shall see hereafter, slavery and the slave-trade were abolished in some of the states:
| NUMBER OF SLAVES IN THE UNITED STATES IN 1776. | ||||
| Massachusetts | 3,500 | Delaware | 9,000 | |
| Rhode Island | 4,373 | Maryland | 80,000 | |
| Connecticut | 5,000 | Virginia | 165,000 | |
| New Hampshire | 629 | North Carolina | 75,000 | |
| New York | 15,000 | South Carolina | 110,000 | |
| New Jersey | 7,600 | Georgia | 16,000 | |
| Pennsylvania | 10,000 | |||
No distinct provision on the subject of slavery appears in any of the state constitutions of the period, except in that of Delaware, which provided "that no person hereafter imported from Africa ought to be held in slavery under any pretense whatever;" and that "no negro, Indian, or mulatto slave ought to be brought into this state for sale from any part of the world."
Legal proceedings commenced in Massachusetts prior to the revolution to test the legality of slavery there, and though resulting in favor of the claimants of freedom, failed, however, to produce a general emancipation. Some attempts made at the commencement of the revolution to introduce the subject into the provincial Congress of Massachusetts were defeated; and that body seemed to recognize the legality of slavery by a resolution that no negro slave should be enlisted in the army. In 1777, a prize ship from Jamaica, with several slaves on board, was brought into Salem by a privateer. The slaves were advertised for sale; but the General Court interfered, and they were set at liberty. The declaration, presently inserted into the Massachusetts Bill of Rights, that "all men arc born free and equal," washeld by the supreme court of that state to prohibit slavery. So it was decided in 1783, upon an indictment for assault and battery against a master for beating his alleged slave. A similar clause in the second constitution of New Hampshire was held to guarantee personal freedom to all born in that state after its adoption.
An act of the Pennsylvania Assembly of 1780, passed principally through the efforts of George Bryan, and a little prior in date to the ratification of the constitution of Massachusetts, forbade the farther introduction of slaves, and gave freedom to all persons thereafter born in that state. Moderate as it was, this act did not pass without a good deal of opposition. Several members of Assembly entered a protest against it, acknowledging, indeed, "the humanity and justice of manumitting slaves in time of peace," but denouncing the present act as "imprudent" and "premature," and likely to have, by way of example, a most dangerous effect on the southern stales, whither the seat of war seemed about to be transferred. In 1784, laws similar to that of Pennsylvania were enacted in Connecticut and Rhode Island.
The Virginia Assembly, on the motion of Jefferson, prohibited, in 1778, the further introduction of slaves. In 1782, the old colonial statute was repealed, which forbade emancipations except for meritorious services, to be adjudged by the governor and council. This repeal remained in force for ten years, during which period private emancipations were very numerous. But for the subsequent reënactment of the old restrictions, the free colored population of Virginia might now have exceeded the slaves. Maryland followed the footsteps of Virginia both in prohibiting the further introduction of slaves and in removing the restraints on emancipation.
That feeling which led in New England and Pennsylvania to the legal abolition of slavery, was strongly responded to by the most illustrious and enlightened citizens of Maryland and Virginia. Jefferson denounced the whole system of slavery, in the most emphatic terms, as fatal to manners and industry, and endangering the very principles on which the liberties of the state were founded — "a perpetual exercise of the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submission on the other." Similar sentiments were entertained and expressed by Patrick Henry. "Would any one believe," he wrote, "that I am a master of slaves of my own purchase? I am drawn along by the general inconvenience of living here without them. I will not — I can not justify it! I believe a time will come when an 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, and an abhorrence of slavery." Washington avowed to all his correspondents "that it was among his first wishes to see some plan adopted by which slavery may be abolished by law." But these generous sentiments were confined to a few liberal and enlightened men. The uneducated and unreflecting mass did not sympathize with them. Jefferson, in his old age, in a letter on this subject, says: "From those of a former generation, who were in the fullness of age when I came into public life, I soon saw that nothing was to be hoped. Nursed and educated in the daily habit of seeing the degraded condition, both bodily and mental, of those unfortunate beings, not reflecting that that degradation was very much the work of themselves and their fathers, few had yet doubted that they were as legitimate subjects of property as their horses and cattle. The quiet and monotonous course of colonial life had been disturbed by no alarm and little reflection on the value of liberty, and when alarm was taken at an enterprise on their own, it was not easy to carry them the whole length of the principles which they invoked for themselves. In the first or second session of the legislature after I became a member, I drew to this subject the attention of Colonel Bland, one of the oldest, ablest, and most respectable members, and he undertook to move for certain moderate extension of the protection of the laws to these people. I seconded his motion, and, as a younger member, was more spared in the debate; but he was denounced as an enemy to his country, and was treated with the greatest indecorum." With the advance of the revolution, the sentiments Jefferson made a certain progress, resulting in the prohibition of the slave-trade and the freedom of emancipations, already mentioned; yet, though the constitution of Virginia declared life, liberty, and property to be unalienable rights, no legal restraint was placed upon the exorbitant and despotic power hitherto exercised over those held as slaves; and Washington, in 1785, complained in a letter to La Fayette that some "petitions for the abolition of slavery, presented to the Virginia Legislature, could scarcely obtain a hearing."
New York and New Jersey followed the example of Virginia and Maryland in prohibiting the further introduction of slaves — a prohibition extended to the domestic as well as to the African slave trade. Neither of these states, however, declared a general emancipation until many years thereafter. Slavery did not wholly cease in New York until about 1830, and in New Jersey a few years later.
The same generous sentiments had penetrated also into North Carolina, especially among the Quaker population; but the legislators of that state did not fully sympathize with them. Complaining of the frequency and danger of freedom given to slaves, the Assembly of 1777 reënacted the old restrictive law on the subject, with this modification, that, instead of the governor and council, the consent of the county court was made necessary to emancipations; and all negroes emancipated without that consent were ordered to be resold into slavery. Yet in 1186, by an act which declared the introduction of slaves into the state to be "of evil consequences and highly impolitic" a duty of £5 per head was imposed upon all future importations. South Carolina and Georgia omitted to follow the example of the other states in enacting laws to prevent or restrict the further introduction of slaves. So long, however, as the war lasted, an effectual stop, so far as importations from Africa were concerned, was put to that detestable traffic. Congress, indeed, never abrogated that part of the American Association by which the African slave-trade was totally renounced.
The disposition of the territories belonging to the thirteen recent colonies, now confederated as independent states, became a subject of solicitude in the
states and in Congress. By the terms of their charters, some of the colonies had an indefinite extension west wardly, and were only limited by the power of the grantor. Many of these charters conflicted with each other — the same territory being included within the limits of two or more totally distinct colonies. As the expenses of the revolutionary struggle began to bear heavily on the resources of the states, it was keenly felt by some that their share in the advantages of the expected triumph would be less than that of others. Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia, laid claim to spacious dominions outside of their proper boundaries; while New Hampshire, (save in Vermont,) Rhode Island, New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware, and South Carolina, possessed no such boasted resources to meet the war-debts constantly augmenting. They urged, therefore, with obvious justice, that these unequal advantages ought to be surrendered, and all the lands within the territorial limits of the Union, but outside of the proper and natural boundaries of the several states, respectively, should be ceded to, and held by, Congress, in trust for the common benefit of all the states, and their proceeds employed in satisfaction of the debts and liabilities of the Confederation. This reasonable requisition was ultimately, but with some reservations, responded to. Virginia reserved a sufficiency beyond the Ohio to furnish the bounties promised to her revolutionary officers and soldiers. Connecticut, a western reserve, since largely settled from the parent state. Massachusetts reserved five millions of acres, located in Western New York, which she claimed to be entitled by her charter to own. In either of these cases, the fee only was reserved, the sovereignty being surrendered.
The cessions were severally made during, or directly after the close of the revolutionary war. And one of the most obvious duties devolved on the Continental Congress, which held its sessions in Philadelphia directly after the close of that exhausting struggle, was the framing of an act or ordinance for the government of the vast domain thus committed to its care and disposal.
The responsible duty of framing this ordinance was devolved by Congress on a select committee, consisting of Mr. Jefferson of Va., (chairman,) Chase of Md., and Howell of R. I.; who in due time reported a plan for the government of the western territory, contemplating the whole region included within our boundaries west of the old thirteen states, and as far south as our 31st degree of north latitude; territory as yet partially ceded to the Confederation, but which was expected to be so, and embracing several of our present slave states. This plan contemplated the ultimate division of this territory into seventeen states, eight of them situated below the parallel of the Falls of the Ohio, (now Louisville,) and nine above it. Among other rules reported from this committee by Mr. Jefferson, for the government of this vast region, was the following:
"That after the year 1800, of the Christian era, there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in any of the said slates, otherwise than in punishment of crimes whereof the party shall have been convicted to be personally guilty." Congress having the aforesaid report under consideration, April 19, 1784, Mr. Spaight, of N. C, moved the striking out of the above paragraph. Mr. Read, of S. C, seconded the motion. The ayes and nays, being required by Mr. Howell, were ordered, and put in this form — "Shall the words moved to be stricken out stand?"
The question was lost, and the words were struck out, although six states voted aye to only three nay; and though of the members present, fifteen voted for, to six against, Mr. Jefferson's proposition. But the articles of confederation required a vote of nine states to carry a proposition; and, failing to receive so many, this comprehensive exclusion of slavery from the federal territories was defeated. The ordinance, thus depleted, after undergoing some further amendments, was finally approved, April 23d — all the delegates, but those from South Carolina, voting in the affirmative.
In 1787, the last Continental Congress, sitting in New York simultaneously with the Convention at Philadelphia which framed our Federal Constitution, took up the subject of the government of the western territory, raising a committee thereon, of which Nathan Dane, of Massachusetts, was chairman. That committee reported (July 11th) "An Ordinance for the government of the Territory of the United States, Northwest of the Ohio" — the larger area contemplated by Mr. Jefferson's bill not having been ceded by the southern states claiming dominion over it. This bill embodied many of the provisions originally drafted and reported by Mr. Jefferson, but with some modifications, and concludes with six unalterable articles of perpetual compact, the last of them as follows:
"There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory, otherwise than in punishment of crimes, whereof the parties shall be duly convicted."
To this was added, prior to its passage, the stipulation for the delivery of fugitives from labor or service, soon after embodied in the Federal Constitution; and in this shape, the entire ordinance was adopted (July 13th) by a unanimous vote, Georgia and the Carolinas concurring.
