Virginia's Attitude Toward Slavery and Secession

An examination of a few of the great number of deeds and wills which are to be found on record throughout Virginia will serve to illustrate the motives of her emancipators and t...

"If we were to invoke the greatest blessing on earth, which Heaven, in its mercy, could now bestow on this nation, it would be the separation of the two most numerous races of i...

Fourteen days later, the President made a verbal request to his Cabinet for an additional expression of their views upon the same subject. Seward and Smith adhered to their form...

"It is conceded on all hands that Virginia is in a state of moral and political retrogression among the states of the Confederacy.... We humbly suggest our belief, that the slav...

The work of the Society was endorsed by the churches and more and more it assumed the character of a Christian enterprise. It was commended because it brought relief to Virginia...

It would seem impossible to reconcile the existence of this public sentiment with the idea that the state had degenerated into "the mother of slave breeders," and that her peopl...

The amendment further provided that Congress should never have the power to abolish slavery in the states where it existed, nor in the District of Columbia without the consent o...

"The General Assembly of this commonwealth, taking into view the situation of the confederacy as well as reflecting on the alarming representations made from time to time by the...

In the large measure of truth contained in this declaration lay the profound tragedy of the Civil War—a battle for the supremacy of one of two ideals, thus brought into antagoni...

"The election in Virginia for members of her State Convention had much significance. The one hundred and fifty-two delegates chosen were, with substantial correctness, classed a...

"I give and bequeath unto my above named executors all the negro slaves that I now own or may own ... I do most solemnly and seriously request and exhort them to do with my said...

"Stonewall" Jackson never owned but two slaves, a man and a woman, both of whom he purchased at their own solicitation. He immediately accorded to them the privilege of earning...

Indiana at first permitted free negroes to settle in the state, provided they gave bonds, with approved security, not to become charges upon the counties where they lived; but,...

I wish, my Lord, we could be blessed with the same prohibition. They import so many negroes here that I fear this colony will some time or other be confirmed by the name of New...

Such was the condition of affairs with respect to the controversy over slavery in Virginia in the fateful winter of 1860-61. For the maintenance of the institution stood the con...

Care must be taken not to confound the formally declared attitude of the Republican Party with that of the Abolitionists. The exact position of many of the leading anti-slavery...

"The existence of an uneradicable and insurmountable race difference is indisputable. The white man and the black man cannot flourish together, the latter being considerable in...

In 1860, the Governor of Kentucky made requisition upon the Governor of Ohio for the return to the former state of a fugitive from justice indicted for the violation of a statut...

"Should this convention be adopted there is every reason to believe that it will be the commencement of a system destined to accomplish the entire abolition of the slave trade."

"But this unfavorable change of sentiment is due chiefly to the fanatical violence of those Northern anti-slavery men usually called Abolitionists.... They have not, by honourab...

The anti-slavery sentiments of prominent Virginians, expressed in the speeches delivered in the notable debate which occurred in the Virginia Legislature of 1832, may well be co...

This work is designed as a contribution to the volume of information from which the historian of the future will be able to prepare an impartial and comprehensive narrative of t...

Colonization of negroes, appropriation by Virginia Legislature in aid of, 59, 64; origin of the idea of, 60; resolutions of Virginia Legislature favoring, 1800, 60; same, 1805,...

In addition to all the considerations set forth in the foregoing pages, the student of history must, if he would fully appreciate the forces which controlled their action with r...

Summers, George W., declares disunion a menace to slavery, 223; a delegate from Virginia to Peace Conference, 246; extract from his speech at same, 248; a leader of the Union me...