The Abolition Crusade and Its Consequences

sold them as slaves in the British West Indies and in the British-American colonies. William Goodell, a distinguished Abolitionist writer, tells us[7] that "in

etestable trade. Boston, Salem, and Newburyport in Massachusetts, and Newport and Bristol in Rhode Island, ama

American colonies were precisely the same as in the West Indies, except that the whites in the islands, so far as is known, never objected, whereas the records show that earnest pr

nth century. Then the cruelties practised by ship-masters in the Middle Passage attracted attention, and then came gradually a revolution in public op

others, who had brought about the abolition of the slave trade in England, continued their exertions in favor of the slave until finally, in 1833, Parliament abolished slavery in the Briti

ed African. This was not an act of policy, but the work of statesmen. Parliament but registered the edict of the people. The English nation, with one heart and one voice, under a strong Ch

d pulpit orator, in his celebrated letter o

ngland, the American conscience had also been aroused, and

cially, with the very fabric of existence. Naturally, it occurred to thoughtful men that there ought to be some such solution as that which was subsequently adopted in England, and which, as we have seen, was so highly extolled by Dr. Channing-emancipation of the slaves with compensation to the owners by the general government. The difficulty in our country was that the Federal Constitution conferred upo

ng resolutions, proposed as a solution of the pr

e people of color, held in servitude in the United States, be recommended to the legislat

national compact, or infringement of the rights of individuals; by the passage of a law by the general government (with the consent of the slave-holding States) which would provide that all children of persons now held in slavery, born after the

ciple that the evil of slavery is a national one, and that the people and the States

ited States, requesting him to lay the same before the legislature thereof; and that His Excellency will also forward a like copy to each of our senato

Jersey, Illinois, Connecticut, Massachusetts. Six of the slave-holding States emphatically disapprove

ords of Governor Wilson, of South Carolina, in submitting the resolutions: "A firm determination to resist, at the threshold, ever

ghts; they feared what Governor Wilson called "the overwhelming powers of the general government," and w

desire in the Southern States to get rid of slavery, the

be a recognition of the joint responsibility of both sections for the existence of slavery in the South. However that may be, the generous concurrence of nine of the thirteen Northern States indicates how kindly the temper of the North toward the South was before the ris

the General Assembly of Virginia, December 23, 1816. Its purpose was to rid the country of such free negroes and subsequently manumitted slaves as should be willing to go to Liberia, where a home was secu

te 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 snatched 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 t

re 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, th

eviously 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 t

affair; that we sympathize with them and, from principles of patriotism and philanthropy, are willing to share the toil and expense of abo

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 State

llinois, 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 institution exists, and that it

complished we may gather from the United States census reports. The tables following are taken from "Larned's History of Ready Reference," vol. V. The classifications are his. We have numb

sus means freedmen and their increase, and these tables tell their own story, a story to which must

some years before, the excess of "free blacks" in the South was over 5,000. Also that at every succeeding census, down to and i

XCESS I

AVES BLACKS, O

RTH BLACK

TH

s 1,900,976 27,109 4

271,488 32,357 657

s 2,601,521 47,154 35

C. 1,702,980 61,241 857

3,653,219 78,181 27,5

C. 2,208,785 108,265 1,1

5,030,371 99,281 19,1

C. 2,831,560 134,223 1,5

6,871,302 137,529 3,5

Ter. 3,660,758 182,070 2,

577,065 170,728 1,72

30 215,575 2,486,32

,269,149 196,262 262

65 238,187 3,204,05

8,791,159 225,967 6

84 262,003 3,953,69

was not enough of it to influence legislation. In all but three or four of these States, emancipation was made

895, 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 it

i Compromise. This dispute over the admission of Missouri is often said to have been the beginning of the sectional quarrel that finally ended in seces

he 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 nobody denied, during

nst that provision of the Constitution. What strengthens the statement that the North in 1828 submitted without protest to the "fugitive slave-catching clause of the Constitution," 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

itionists," slavery was in all that region an open question. Judge Temple says in his "Covenanter, Cavalier,

rs? Where could the freed slaves be sent, and how? And, if deportation should prove impossible, what system could be devised wher

atisfactorily answered, if the Christianity of the South had been left to its own time and mode of answering them, and

s was n