Part 8

_Kennedy's Life of Wirt_, Kennedy, Vol. II, p. 188.

Footnote 126:

_John Marshall, Life, Character and Judicial Services_, Dillon, Vol. I, p. 216.

Footnote 127:

_Debates of Virginia Convention of 1829-30_, p. 149.

Footnote 128:

_Idem_, p. 173.

Footnote 129:

_Life of James Madison_, Hunt, p. 369.

XIV

ANTI-SLAVERY SENTIMENTS OF PROMINENT VIRGINIANS (Continued)

ANTI-SLAVERY SENTIMENTS, 1832

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 considered in a group by themselves. The speakers were all young men and represented a later generation than those from whom quotations have already been given. Many of them were destined to fill important roles in the political life of the state and some of them, with undiminished influence, survived the period of the Civil War. McDowell became Governor of the state and a member of Congress; Preston was a member of Congress, a member of President Taylor's Cabinet, and one of the leading spirits in the Virginia Convention of 1861; Randolph was repeatedly returned to the Legislature and was a prominent member of the Reform Convention of 1850-51, and Faulkner was for years a member of Congress and also Minister to France.

The position of these Virginians was significant as representative of the widespread anti-slavery sentiments which pervaded the state. Chandler, of Norfolk County, represented the largest slaveholding county in Tide-water Virginia; Broadnax and Bolling, two large slaveholding counties in the Black Belt; Randolph and Marshall, counties in the Piedmont section; Preston, the Southwest; McDowell, the Upper Valley, and Berry and Faulkner, the two counties in the extreme lower end of the valley.

Thomas Marshall, of Fauquier County, speaking in the Virginia House of Delegates, January 14th, 1832, when the subject of the gradual abolition of slavery was under discussion, said:

"Wherefore, then, object to slavery? Because it is ruinous to the whites, retards improvements, roots out an industrious population—banishes the yeomanry of the country—deprives the spinner, the weaver, the smith, the shoemaker, the carpenter, of employment and support. The evil admits of no remedy, and it is increasing and will continue to increase until the whole country will be inundated by one black wave covering its whole extent, with a few white faces here and there floating on the surface."[130]

John A. Chandler, a representative from Norfolk County, speaking on the 17th of January in the same debate, said:

"It will be recollected, sir, that when the memorial from Charles City was presented by the gentleman from Hanover, and when its reference was opposed, I took occasion to observe that I believed the people of Norfolk County would rejoice could they even in the vista of time see some scheme for the general removal of this _curse_ from our land. I should have voted, sir, for its rejection because I was desirous to see a report from the committee declaring the slave population an evil and recommending to the people of this commonwealth the adoption of some plan for its riddance."[131]

William H. Broadnax, speaking as a representative from the County of Dinwiddie, on the 19th of January, in the same debate, said:

"That slavery in Virginia is an evil and a transcendent evil it would be idle and worse than idle for any human being to doubt or deny. It is a mildew which has blighted in its course every region it has touched from the creation of the world. Illustrations from the history of other countries and other times might be instructive and profitable had we time to review them, but we have evidence tending to the same conviction nearer at hand in the short histories of the different states of this great confederacy which are impressive in their admonitions and conclusive in their character."[132]

Henry Berry, speaking as a representative from Jefferson County, on the 20th of January, in the same debate, said:

"Sir, I believe that no cancer on the physical body was ever more certain, steady and fatal in its progress than is this cancer on the political body of the State of Virginia. It is eating into her very vitals. And shall we act the part of a puny patient, suffering under the ravages of a fatal disease, who would say the remedy is too painful, the dose is too nauseous, I cannot bear it; who would close his eyes in despair and give himself up to death? No, sir, I would bear the knife and the cautery, for the sake of health. I would never despair of the Republic. For myself, I would abandon hope on this subject and the state together."[133]

Charles James Faulkner, speaking as a representative from Berkeley County, on the 20th of January, in the same debate, said:

"Wherever the voice of your people has been heard since the agitation of this question, it has sustained your determination and called for the present enquiry. I have heard of county meetings, county petitions, and county memorials; I have heard from the North, the East, and the South. They are all, with one voice, against the continuance of slavery. None for it. The press, too, that mirror of public sentiment, that concentrated will of a whole community, has been heard from one extremity of the state to the other. Its power is with us, its moral force is united, efficient and encouraging. In this city, the capital of the Old Dominion, the heart of the commonwealth, which by one ventricle receives and through the other discharges the life blood of intelligence and public spirit throughout your empire, aye, and from a quarter and from many quarters where such a voice was least expected its tones have been firm, manly, and intrepid. Honor, sir, to those who dare speak the truth in the worst of times."

In conclusion he said:

"In the language of the wise and prophetic Jefferson, 'you must approach it, you must bear it, you must adopt some plan of emancipation, or worse will follow.'"[134]

James McDowell, speaking as a representative from Rockbridge County, on the 21st of January, in the same debate, said:

"Sir, you may place the slave where you please—you may dry up to your uttermost the fountains of his feelings, the springs of his thought—you may close upon his mind every avenue of knowledge and cloud it over with artificial night—you may yoke him to your labors as the ox which liveth only to work and worketh only to live—you may put him under any process, which, without destroying his value as a slave, will debase and crush him as a rational being—you may do this and the idea that he was born to be free will survive it all. It is allied to his hope of immortality—it is the ethereal part of his nature which oppression cannot reach; it is a torch lit up in his soul by the hand of the Deity and never meant to be extinguished by the hand of man."[135]

Thomas Jefferson Randolph, speaking as a representative from Albemarle County, on the 21st of January, in the same debate, said:

"Does slavery exist in any part of civilized Europe? No, sir, in no part of it. America is the only civilized Christian nation that bears the opprobrium. In every other country where civilization and Christianity have existed together they have erased it from their codes."[136]

Philip A. Bolling, speaking as a representative from Buckingham County, on the 25th of January, in the same debate, said:

"Mr. Speaker, it is vain for gentlemen to deny the fact that the feelings of society are fast becoming adverse to slavery. Moral causes which produce that feeling are on the march and will on until the groans of slavery are heard no more in this else happy country. Look over this world's wide page—see the rapid progress of liberal feelings—see the shackles falling from nations who have long writhed under the galling yoke of slavery. Liberty is going over the whole earth, hand in hand with Christianity."[137]

Footnote 130:

_Virginia Slavery Debate_, 1832, White, Speech of Thomas Marshall, p. 6.

Footnote 131:

_Idem_, Speech of J. A. Chandler, p. 3.

Footnote 132:

_Idem_, Speech of William H. Broadnax, p. 10.

Footnote 133:

_Idem_, Speech of Henry Berry, p. 2.

Footnote 134:

_Idem_, Speech of C. J. Faulkner, p. 5 and p. 22.

Footnote 135:

_Idem_, Speech of James McDowell, p. 20.

Footnote 136:

_Idem_, Speech of T. J. Randolph, p. 15.

Footnote 137:

_Idem_, Speech of Philip A. Bolling, p. 15.

XV

THE ANTI-SLAVERY SENTIMENTS OF PROMINENT VIRGINIANS (Concluded)

The period from 1833-1860 witnessed, as we have seen, the rise and progress of the abolition movement at the North and the growth of pro-slavery sentiment in Virginia and the South. These conditions are reflected in the deliverances of many prominent anti-slavery Virginians, and by a growing indisposition on the part of others of this element to publicly declare their sentiments or to take part in the discussions, which, with growing bitterness, marked the times.

ANTI-SLAVERY SENTIMENTS FROM 1833-1860

George Washington Parke Custis, speaking on the 21st of January, 1833, before the American Colonization Society, said:

"Some alarmists tell us that the slave population is to be freed. And, sir, does any one regret that the hope is held out, that with our own consent, we shall one day see an end of slavery? Should this Society be, as I doubt not it will, the happy means of producing this result, it will be renowned as having done one of the greatest and best deeds that have blessed the world."[138]

The following extract from a speech of William C. Rives serves not only to illustrate his anti-slavery sentiments, but the rise of the two antagonistic parties—the Abolitionists in the North and the Pro-slavery men in the South. The speech of Dr. Ruffner, delivered ten years later, also indicates the same condition and the fresh difficulties with which the cause of gradual emancipation in Virginia was thus confronted.

William C. Rives, speaking in the United States Senate on the 6th day of February, 1837, after deprecating the action of Mr. Webster in presenting abolition petitions as precipitating controversy over a subject with respect to which Congress had no jurisdiction, then replied to the position of Mr. Calhoun, that slavery was a beneficent institution, as follows:

"But, sir, while I have been thus prepared and determined to defend the constitutional rights of the South at every hazard, I have not felt myself bound to conform my understanding and conscience to the standard of faith that has recently been set up by some gentlemen in regard to the general question of slavery. I have not considered it a part of my duty as a representative from the South, to deny, as has been done by this new school, the natural freedom and equality of man; to contend that slavery is a positive good; that it is inseparable from the condition of man; that it must exist in some form or other in every political community; and that it is even an essential ingredient in Republican government. No, sir, I have not thought it necessary, in order to defend the rights and institutions of the South, to attack the great principles which lie at the foundation of our political system, and to revert to the dogmas of Sir Robert Filmer, exploded a century and a half ago by the immortal works of Sidney and Locke....

"In pursuing this course I have the satisfaction of reflecting that I follow the example of the greatest men and purest patriots who have illustrated the annals of our country—of the Fathers of the Republic itself.

"It never entered into their minds, while laying the foundation of the great and glorious fabric of our free government, to contend that domestic slavery was a positive good—a great good. Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Marshall, the brightest names of my own state, are known to have lamented the existence of slavery as a misfortune and an evil to the country, and their thoughts were often anxiously, however unavailingly, exercised in devising some scheme of safe and practical relief, proceeding always, however, from the states which suffered the evil....

"In following such lights as these, I feel that I sin against no principle of republicanism, and against no safeguard of Southern rights and Southern policy when I frankly say in answer to the interrogatory of the gentleman from South Carolina, that I do regard slavery as an evil—an evil not uncompensated, I know, by collateral effects of high value on the social and intellectual character of my countrymen; but still in the eye of religion, philanthropy and reason, an evil."[139]

Charles Fenton Mercer, in his work, _An Exposition of the Weakness and Inefficiency of the Government of the United States_, published in 1845, said:

"How shall we approach the horrid subject of slavery, the blackest of all blots, the foulest of all deformities? Here are a people descended from the very centre of civilization and free institutions of Europe, bearing with them the full tide of liberal principles, and the very cap and essence of liberty, and boasting not only of their descent, but that they are more than worthy of their ancestors, that have sanctioned slavery in its most abject form, and now, by actual enumeration, have upwards of three millions of them."[140]

R. R. Howison, the Virginia historian, in his _History of Virginia_, published in 1848, alluding to slavery in the state, said:

"We apprehend that in general, the people of Virginia hold slavery to be an enormous evil, bearing with fatal power upon their prosperity. This sentiment has been gaining ground during many years.... Under these circumstances, we hail with pleasure any indications that this part of our population (the slave portion) is decreasing in number and that the time shall come when Virginia shall be a free state."[141]

Dr. Henry Ruffner, President of Washington College, delivered in 1847 an address which was printed in pamphlet form and widely distributed, dealing with the subject of slavery and emancipation. Referring to the attitude and efforts of the Abolitionists and the effect upon anti-slavery sentiment in the state, he said:

"But, fellow-citizens, shall we suffer this meddlesome sect of Abolitionists to blind our eyes to the evils of slavery and to tie up our hands when the condition of the country, and the welfare of ourselves and our children, summon us to immediate action?...

"Having failed in their first mode of action by denunciatory pamphlets and newspapers, and by petitions to Congress, the most violent class of Abolitionists have now formed themselves into a political party aiming to subvert the Federal Constitution which guarantees the rights of slaveholders, and to destroy the Federal Union which is the glory and safeguard of us all. Thus they have armed against themselves every American patriot; and what is most remarkable, they have met from the opposite extreme those Southern politicians and ultra pro-slavery men—called 'Chivalry' and 'Nullifiers,' who so often predict and threaten a dissolution of the Union."[142]

Matthew F. Maury, writing in 1851, said:

"I am sure you would rejoice to see the people of Virginia rise up to-morrow and say, 'From and after a future day, say January 1st, 1855, there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in Virginia.' Although this would not strike the shackle from off a single arm nor command a single slave to go free, yet it would relieve our own loved Virginia of that curse."[143]

Bishop William Meade in 1854, writing of slavery, said:

"While we must acknowledge that the advantage of the African trade notwithstanding the cruelties accompanying it has been on the side of that people both temporally and spiritually; yet we can never be brought to believe that the introduction into, and the multiplication of slavery in Virginia has advanced either her religious, political, or agricultural interests. On the contrary we are confident that it has injured all."

In 1857, alluding to the foregoing statement, he wrote:

"I have been for the last fifty years, and more especially for the last thirty, travelling much the length and breadth of Virginia, making observations for myself, conversing with intelligent farmers, politicians, ministers of the gospel, and other Christians on the subjects referred to above. ... I have not only reconsidered them myself, but freely conversed with many sound-minded persons concerning the views there presented; and the result has been an increased conviction that they are correct and have been in time past, and still are held by the great body of our citizens, Christians, and statesmen."[144]

The statement of Howison, made in 1848—that, "in general, the people of Virginia hold slavery to be an enormous evil, bearing with fatal power upon their prosperity," is confirmed by these conclusions of Bishop Meade, expressed ten years later.

Robert E. Lee writing in December, 1856, said:

"In this enlightened age, there are few, I believe, but will acknowledge that as an institution slavery is a moral and political evil in any country. It is useless to expatiate on its disadvantages. I think it, however, a greater evil to the white than to the black race, and while my feelings are strongly enlisted in behalf of the latter, my sympathies are strongly for the former...."

"While we see the course of the final abolition of slavery is onward, and we give it the aid of our prayers and all justifiable means in our power, we must leave the progress as well as the result in His hands, who sees the end and chooses to work by slow influences."[145]

RESULTS OF ANTI-SLAVERY SENTIMENTS

If it be urged that despite the foregoing anti-slavery sentiments the institution remained intrenched in the laws of Virginia, and supported by a strong body of public opinion, it may be replied that the views of these Virginians, and others of like mind, were nevertheless productive of far-reaching and beneficent results. They were effective in robbing slavery of many of its most abhorrent and oppressive incidents. Under the public opinion thus generated the institution in Virginia assumed, as a rule, the patriarchal character—master and slave being bound by ties of mutual obligation and affection. Many of the legal hardships inseparable from the system were reduced to a minimum. Thus the breaking up of families, by sale of their members, was confined as nearly as possible to the distribution of estates and the collection of debts by process of law. In all the category of disreputable callings, there were none so despised as the slave-trader. The odium descended upon his children and his children's children. Against the legal right to buy and sell slaves for profit, this public sentiment lifted a strong arm, and rendered forever odious the name of "Negro-trader." The good results of these conditions were evidenced in the higher measure of character, courtesy and capacity, which, as a whole, distinguished the negroes of Virginia.

NUMBER OF EMANCIPATIONS IN VIRGINIA

The position of these Virginians was also of great importance in keeping before the mind of the people the conception that slavery was an abnormal institution, and that with her growth in wealth and white population, Virginia could and would free herself from what Robert E. Lee described as "a moral and political evil." Furthermore these sentiments were productive of an actual emancipation, the character and extent of which has been little appreciated. If devotion to the cause is to be measured by the actual manumissions effected, then Virginia's emancipators could contemplate with pride their record. George Wythe liberated his slaves at the close of the Revolution. Robert E. Lee, executor of George Washington Parke Custis, left his place at the front with the Army of Northern Virginia to emancipate the slaves of his testator as directed by the latter in his will.[146] Between these two there stretches a long line of emancipators, who, without compensation, liberated thousands of slaves. Mr. Ballagh estimates this number as high as one hundred thousand.[147] These slaveholders incurred not only the pecuniary loss of this great emancipation, but in many instances the expense of colonization. When, too, it is remembered that their communities were often thus further burdened by the problems incident to the presence of an increasing body of freedmen, the full import of the beneficence is better appreciated. That many of these ex-slaves, despite statutes and the efforts of masters and others to settle them at points beyond the state, remained in Virginia is attested by the Federal census, from which it appears that in 1860 there were still fifty-eight thousand and forty-two free negroes within her borders.

Footnote 138:

See _Proceedings of Sixteenth Annual Meeting of American Colonization Society_, January, 1833, p. XVII.

Footnote 139:

_Congressional Debates_, Vol. XIII, part I, p. 717.

Footnote 140:

_An Exposition of the Weakness and Inefficiency of the Government of the United States_, p. 167.

Footnote 141:

_History of Virginia_, Howison, Vol. II, p. 519.

Footnote 142:

_The Ruffner Pamphlet_, Lexington, 1847.

Footnote 143:

_Life of Matthew F. Maury_, Corbin, p. 131.

Footnote 144:

_Old Churches, Ministers and Families of Virginia_, Vol. I, pp. 89-90, note.

Footnote 145:

_Life of R. E. Lee_, Fitzhugh Lee, p. 64.

Footnote 146:

_Will Book No. 4_, p. 267, Clerk's Office, Alexandria County, Virginia.

Footnote 147:

_History of Slavery in Virginia_, Ballagh, p. 144.

XVI

SPECIMENS OF DEEDS AND WILLS EMANCIPATING SLAVES