"I make bold earnestly to entreat, that thou wouldst be pleased seriously to read them, when I doubt not thou wilt perceive it to be a matter which calls for the most deep consideration of all who are concerned for the civil, as well as religious welfare of their country, and who are desirous to avert those judgments, which evils of such a dye must necessarily sooner or later bring upon every people who are defiled therewith, and will, I trust, plead my excuse for the freedom I take in thus addressing myself to thee. How an evil of so deep a dye, has so long, not only passed unnoticed, but has even had the countenance of the government, and been supported by law, is surprising; it must be because many worthy men in power, both of the laity and clergy, have been unacquainted with the horrible wickedness with which the trade is carried on, the corrupt motives which give life to it, and the groans, the numberless dying groans, which daily ascend to God, the common father of mankind, from the broken hearts of those our deeply oppressed fellow creatures."[120]

* * * * *

"PHILADELPHIA, TENTH MONTH, 30th, 1772.

"I herewith send thee a small tract (which I desire thou mayest keep) lately sent me by Granville Sharp; it is an appendix to his former treatise, and was published on account of the late negroe trial. He has wrote me a long intelligent letter, with relation to the situation of things in London on that head, which I shall be well pleased to have an opportunity to communicate to thee. It seems lord Mansfield, notwithstanding truth forced him to give such a judgment, was rather disposed to favour the cause of the master than that of the slave. He advised the master to apply to the parliament then sitting, which was done accordingly, but without success. He fears such an application will be renewed at the next session, and is preparing through his friends in parliament and the bishops, to endeavour to prevent its taking place, and calls for our help from this side the water. In this case as he desires a speedy answer, I stand in need of the advice of my friends what answer to make him. I have already let one opportunity pass; there will be soon another to Liverpool. I have also to communicate an interesting letter from Benjamin Franklin on the same subject."

* * * * *

"PHILADELPHIA, ELEVENTH MONTH, 30th, 1772.

"Dear Samuel,

"I received both thy letters, inclosing the petition, and have been concerned that I have not sooner acquainted thee with what had been resulted thereon; but the care of a large school, engagement upon engagement, I think four or five evenings last week, on committees, &c., and the books which I received from England, which I intended to send thee not being all returned, occasioned the delay. The vessel from Virginia being near its departure when the petitions came to hand, had but just time to confer with James Pemberton, on the expediency of forwarding them, when we concluded best to take more time and wait for a future opportunity which he thought would offer. I herewith send thee such of the pieces relating to slavery, &c. of the negroes, which I have been able to get back; people are shamefully careless in not returning borrowed books. That wanting, wrote by a West Indian, I will send hereafter. I have received since I saw thee, a letter from the chief justice of South Carolina, which will I believe afford thee much satisfaction."

* * * * *

"PHILADELPHIA, TWELFTH MONTH, 14th, 1773.

"Beloved Friend,

"The passage we were seeking for is Psalms 68, 31, 'Princes shall come out of Egypt, Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God,' under which name all that part of Africa inhabited by negroes may be comprehended, and that these are the people here intended is clear from Jer. 13, 23, 'can the Ethiopian change his skin?'

"Since my return I have received letters from Thomas Nicholson in North Carolina, Edward Stabler in Virginia, and James Berry in Maryland, all leading members in their several yearly meetings (these I shall be glad to communicate to thee) expressive of their concern for forwarding the great and good work we are engaged in. Edward Stabler, clerk of the yearly meeting of Virginia, expresses, that though they have not yet received the encouragement they desire to their petition in England, yet it has not abated the zeal of some of their leading men against the traffic."

* * * * *

"PHILADELPHIA, FOURTH MONTH, 28th, 1773.

"Doctor John Fothergill,

"Thy kind letter of the twenty-eighth of Eight Month last, I received in due time, and gratefully acknowledge thy kind sympathy therein expressed. I am likeminded with thee, with respect to the danger and difficulty which would attend a sudden manumission of those negroes now in the southern colonies, as well as to themselves, as to the whites; wherefore except in particular cases the obtaining their freedom, and indeed the freedom of many even amongst us, is by no means the present object of my concern. But the best endeavors in our power to draw the notice of the governments, upon the grievous iniquity and great danger attendant on a further prosecution of the slave trade, is what every truly sympathising mind cannot but earnestly desire, and under divine direction promote to the utmost of their power. If this could be obtained, I trust the sufferings of those already amongst us, by the interposition of the government, and even from selfish ends in their masters, would be mitigated, and in time Providence would gradually work for the release of those, whose age and situation would fit them for freedom. The settlements now in prospect to be made in that large extent of country, from the west side of the Allegany mountains to the Mississippi, on a breadth of four or five hundred miles, would afford a suitable and beneficial means of settlement for many of them among the white people, which would in all probability be as profitable to the negroes as to the new settlers. But I do not desire to take up thy time especially with matters of so remote a nature, it being indeed with reluctance I take up any of it, which I would have avoided, was there any person to whom I could have addressed myself with the same expectation, that what I have in view would be thereby answered. An address has been presented to our assembly, desiring it would use its utmost endeavours with the king and parliament, that an end may be put to the slave trade, by laying a duty of twenty pounds on all slaves imported. It was thought necessary that some friends with you should be acquainted with the further steps that had been, or were likely to be taken, so as to enable you to speak in support of the law, if necessary: to which end I herewith send thee a copy of the address, also a copy of what I now write to our agent, Benjamin Franklin, on that head, in order to make him acquainted with what passes here on this momentous concern.

"I have also enclosed a number of copies of a pamphlet wrote at the time we presented the petition, in order to lay the weight of the matter briefly before the members of the assembly, and other active members of government in this and the neighbouring provinces. It was written by Benjamin Rush, a young physician of the Presbyterian communion, a person who I understand thou was acquainted with, when pursuing his studies three or four years past with you. I almost send a small collection of religious tracts, chiefly compiled for the use of inquiring people in our back countries, where such books are much wanted. I endeavoured so to collect them as to be plain, instructive and edifying, without touching upon that which might be of fruitless debate.

"ANTHONY BENEZET."

* * * * *

"PHILADELPHIA, FOURTH MONTH, 1773.

"Granville Sharp,

"I wrote thee at large, by a vessel for Ireland, about six weeks past, and also three weeks ago by the packet from New York, respecting the steps taken, and likely to be pursued in the several more northern provinces, in relation to the slave trade. I am glad to understand from my friend Benjamin Franklin, that you have commenced an acquaintance, and that he expects in future, to concert with thee in the affair of slavery. I herewith send thee some pamphlets, and in a confidence of thy goodness of heart, which by looking to the intention, will construe the freedom I have taken in the best light,

"I remain with love, "ANTHONY BENEZET."

* * * * *

"HANOVER, January 18, 1773.

"Dear Sir:

"I take this opportunity to acknowledge the receipt of Anthony Benezet's book against the slave trade: I thank you for it. It is not a little surprising, that the professors of christianity, whose chief excellence consists in softening the human heart, in cherishing and improving its finer feelings, should encourage a practice so totally repugnant to the first impressions of right and wrong. What adds to the wonder is, that this abominable practice has been introduced in the most enlightened ages. Times, that seem to have pretensions to boast of high improvements in the arts and sciences, and refined morality, have brought into general use, and guarded by many laws, a species of violence and tyranny, which our more rude and barbarous, but more honest ancestors detested. Is it not amazing, that at a time, when the rights of humanity are defined and understood with precision, in a country, above all others, fond of liberty; that in such an age, and in such a country, we find men professing a religion the most humane, mild, gentle and generous, adopting a principle as repugnant to humanity, as it is inconsistent with the bible, and destructive to liberty? How few in practice from conscientious motive!

"Would any one believe that I am master of slaves, of my own purchase! I am drawn along by the general inconvenience of living here without them. I will not, I cannot justify it. However capable my conduct, I will so far pay my devoir to virtue, as to own the excellence and rectitude of her precepts, and lament my want of conformity to them.

"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 for slavery. If we cannot reduce this wished for reformation to practice, let us treat the unhappy victims with lenity. It is the furthest advance we can make towards justice. It is a debt we owe to the purity of our religion, to show that it is at variance with that law, which warrants slavery.

"I know not where to stop. I could say many things on the subject; a serious view of which, gives a gloomy perspective in future times!"[121]

* * * * *

"PHILADELPHIA, TENTH MONTH, 23d, 1774.

"Dear ——.

"I was pleased to hear from thee. I have not been unmindful of endeavoring to lay before all the delegates I have conversed with, the dreadful situation of the people in the most southern provinces, and the absolute necessity they are under of ceasing, at least from any farther import of negroes. With Patrick Henry I went further, he gave some attention when I mentioned from whence I apprehended we must look for deliverance, even from God alone, but pursuing such methods as would be most agreeable to the nature of the Beneficent Father of the family of mankind, whose love and regard to his children, even such who were influenced by wrong dispositions, remained unchangeable. That we could not conciliate the Divine regard, but by acting agreeably to the Divine attribute, which was love, and was to overcome by suffering.

"That whatever wound might be given or received, between us and the mother country, if ever that which was right prevailed, we should mourn over. That as christianity knew of no enemies, we could not expect deliverance by the violent method proposed, without departing from the true foundation. To this with seriousness he replied, that it was strange to him, to find some of the Quakers manifesting so different a disposition from that I had described. I reminded him that many of them had no other claim to our principles, but as they were children or grandchildren of those who professed those principles. I suppose his remark principally arose from the violent spirit which some under our profession are apt to show, more particularly in the congress, amongst whom I understand one of the deputies from your city, and one from ours, appear as principals for promoting such measures. I feel but little apprehension at the prospect of things, which to many is so alarming. People are afraid of being disturbed in their enjoyments, in their ease, their confidence in the world, and the things of it. But I fear nothing more than giving way to a spirit whose hope and expectation is from the unchristian, yea unnatural, and cruel measures proposed by many, too many, who seemed to have worked themselves to such a pitch, that it looks as if they were athirst for blood! Its from God alone, by true faith in his promises, deliverance must arise; and if from the prevalence of other measures affliction and distress should be our lot, it will be our own fault if it does not work for our good. Oh! if a sufficient concern prevailed to experience grace to gain the victory, to know all worldly inclinations and desires to be brought under the regulation of the humbling power of the gospel, many would feel so much of self in themselves, inducing to hope and seek for comfort from the world, from our ease and plenty, which is yet as a bar to obtaining an establishment in the pure, the humble, self denying path of truth. If we properly felt our wants, the gulf between us and true peace, if the combat between nature and grace were duly maintained, the dread of outward evils would have little weight with us, however we fall by outward commotion, even if the earth should be dissolved, if in proper dispositions we cannot fall lower than in God's arms.

"ANTHONY BENEZET.

"P.S. I should have been glad to have seen thyself and dear companion before you left us, but make it a rule to take no exception where no slight is intended; indeed where it is, to bear it, and take the first opportunity to return kindness for the contrary, as most noble, and most conducive to peace."

* * * * *

"PHILADELPHIA, THIRD MONTH, 30th, 1774.

"I was sorrowfully disappointed in not seeing thee in town. I had just received a long letter from Granville Sharp, which I should have been glad of an opportunity of showing thee, and taking thy advice upon a suitable answer, more particularly upon a matter he appears to have much at heart, viz. our procuring as many petitions as possible from persons of some weight in the several provinces, to the same purport as ours to the assembly, immediately to the king alone. As I shall not send my letter before William Dillwyn goes, which may be some time first, perhaps I may still have an opportunity of consulting thee on this matter. Inclosed I send the copy of an argument, &c. I found in Granville Sharp's letter which strikes me boldly and deeply. I hope the idea will have a tendency to raise generous sentiments in some of thy brethren of the law, whose hearts are not yet quite scared with the love of the world, to appear in the noble cause of real liberty. I showed it to Dr. Rush, and inquiring whether we should publish it in the prints, he replied, 'they would knock us on the head if we did,' I believe it will in future be profitably made use of. Remember me affectionately to James Kinsey, I should be glad to know his sentiments on the law reasoning of the argument. What a great thing it is to stand up for liberty, true liberty, from a mind truly delivered from all selfishness, in an unfeigned love to God and mankind. O the selfishness of the human heart, how much of it is apt still to cleave to us, even when our designs are upright."

* * * * *

"Dear Samuel,

"I herewith send thee a dozen pamphlets. I shall be glad that these and more of the same may be handed to the members of your assembly, and such others in your province, with whom they may be likely to promote a representation being made to the king and parliament against the slave trade."

* * * * *

"Seventh day, 4 o'clock.

"Dear Friend,

"I should have been very glad to have got thee to peruse the notes (on slavery) I intend to make, as they will be large, and I wish if possible to put them into the hands of the members of every assembly on the continent, except South Carolina and Georgia, but do not desire thou shouldst be put out of the way on that occasion. I suppose it will be eight or ten, or more days before in the press. It might preserve me from inadvertently publishing something which might rather weaken the cause we have both at heart. However, in this, and all other things, I desire to stand clear in the purity of my design, and leave the event, but watch against my national activity."

* * * * *

FROM GOVERNOR LIVINGSTONE, OF NEW JERSEY

"The piece on slave keeping is excellent, but the arguments against the lawfulness of war, have been answered a thousand times. May the father of lights lead us into all truths, and over all the commotions of this world, to his own glory, and the introduction of that kingdom of peace and righteousness, which will endure forever. Believe me to be your sincere friend."

* * * * *

FROM AMBROSE SERLE, SECRETARY TO LORD HOWE

"PHILADELPHIA, JUNE 2d, 1778.

"I ought not to omit, my valued friend, the returning you my kindest thanks for your obliging present of books, which I shall peruse with intention, and for your sake keep them by me. It would be happy for the world at large, and for individuals, if the principles they maintain were rightly understood and cordially received; we should in that case have had no occasion to deplore the present miseries and troubles, which (as the certain effect of sin) naturally result from the ambition, dishonesty and other unmortified passions of mankind. The world on the contrary would be something like a paradise regained; and universal benevolence and philanthropy, reside as they ought in the human heart. But though from long experience we may and must despair of the general diffusion of Christian sentiments and practice, we have this comfortable trust, in our own particular persons, that we have a peace which the world can neither give nor take away; and though the kingdoms of this world tumble into confusion, and are lost in the corrupted strivings of men, we have a kingdom prepared of God, incorruptible and that cannot fade away. There, though I see your face no more upon earth, I have hope of meeting with you again; both of us divested of all that can clog or injure our spirits, and both participating that fulness of joy which flows from God's right hand for evermore. To his tender protection I commend you, and remain with sincere esteem your affectionate friend."

* * * * *

FROM JOHN WESLEY

"Mr. Oglethorp you know went so far as to begin settling a colony without negroes, but at length the voice of those villains prevailed who sell their country and their God for gold, who laugh at human nature and compassion, and defy all religion but that of getting money. It is certainly our duty to do all in our power to check this growing evil, and something may be done by spreading those tracts which place it in a true light. But I fear it will not be stopped till all the kingdoms of this earth become the kingdoms of our God."

* * * * *

FROM NATHANIEL GILBERT, OF ANTIGUA

"October 29, 1768.

"I desire to embrace as my brethern all who love the Lord Jesus in sincerity. I cannot but think that all true Christians agree in fundamentals. Your tracts concerning slavery are very just, and it is a matter I have often thought of, even before I became acquainted with the truth: your arguments are forcible against purchasing slaves, or being any way concerned in that trade."

* * * * *

"PHILADELPHIA, SEVENTH MONTH, 16th, 1781.

"My Friend Abbe Raynal,

"From the idea which I conceived of the justice, and generosity of thy sentiments, I took the liberty of writing to thee about seven or eight months past under cover of my friend Benjamin Franklin, and likewise by J—— B——, who we are afraid was lost on his passage. Having received no answer by several vessels, nor knowing whether my letters reached thee, or whether thine miscarried, and a good opportunity offering by my friend Dr. Griffitts, I now seize it to send thee two copies of a small extract of origin and principles of my brethern the Quakers, whom I observe in such of thy writings as have come to our hands, thou didst not think unworthy of thy attention. I have nothing to add to what I have already wrote thee, but I shall repeat my wish of saluting thee affectionately on the principles of reason and humanity, which constitutes that grand circle of love and charity, unconfined by our parentage or country, but which affectionately embraces the whole creation, earnestly desiring to the utmost of my abilities to promote the happiness of all men, even of my enemies themselves, could I have any. I beseech God to give thee strength that thou mayest continue to hold up to mankind, thy brethren, principles tending to replenish their hearts with goodness, friendship and charity towards each other, that thus thou mayest, to the utmost of thy power, render men reasonable, useful, and consequently happy; and more especially that thou mayest combat that false principle of honour, or rather of intolerable pride and folly, which so strongly prevails in our nation, where the most indolent, and the least useful, fancy themselves, and are reputed the most noble. Let us endeavour to make them sensible that men are noble, but in exact proportion with their being rational. The happiness which is to be found in virtue alone, is sought for by men through the titles acquired by their fathers for their activity in those wars which have desolated the world, or in the wealth accumulated by their ancestors; both means generally unjust and oppressive, and consequently rather sources of shame and humiliation. For as the Chinese philosopher well observes, 'there is scarcely one rich man out of an hundred, who was not himself an oppressor, or the son of an oppressor.'

"Let us display to princes and rulers of nations, the example of Numa Pompilius, who, by a conduct opposite to that of Romulus, his predecessor, and most of his successors, rendered the Romans, during his long reign, so respectable and happy. Above all, my dear friend, let us represent to our compatriots the abominable iniquity of the Guinea trade. Let us put to the blush the pretended disciples of the benign Saviour of the World, for the encouragement given to the unhappy Africans in invading the liberty of their own brethren. Let us rise, and rise with energy against the corruption introduced into the principles and manners of the masters and owners of slaves, by a conduct so contrary to humanity, reason, and religion. Let us be still more vehement in representing its baneful influence on the principles and manners of their wretched offspring, necessarily educated in idleness, pride, and all the vices to which human nature is liable.

"How desirable is it that Lewis the Sixteenth, whose virtues, and good disposition have been so nobly praised, would set an example to the other potentates of Europe, by forbidding his subjects to be concerned in a traffic so evil in itself, and so corrupting in its consequences; and that he would also issue out ordinances in favour of the negroes, who are now slaves in his dominions. Alas! should christianity, that law of love and charity, work its proper effect on the hearts of its pretended disciples, we should see numbers of christians traverse Africa, and both the Indies, not to pollute themselves with slavery and slaughter, nor to accumulate wealth, the supreme wish of the present nominal christians, but that divine love would impel them to visit remote regions in order to make the inhabitants acquainted with the corruption of the human heart, and invite them to seek for the influence of that grace proposed by the gospel, by which they may obtain salvation. I am under the necessity of concluding hastily, requesting thou wouldst excuse faults, which time does not allow me to correct, and to write to me by various opportunities, the vessels bound to those parts often missing their destination.

"I am affectionately thy friend, "ANTHONY BENEZET."

To this energetic and impassioned epistle, the abbe made the following answer.

"BRUXELLES, DECEMBER 26, 1781.

"All your letters have miscarried; happily I received that of the sixteenth of July, 1781, with the pamphlets filled with light and sensibility, which accompany it. Never was any present more agreeable to me. My satisfaction was equal to the respect I have always had for the society of Quakers. May it please Heaven to cause all nations to adopt their principles; men would then be happy, and the globe not stained with blood. Let us join in our supplications to the supreme Being, that he may unite us in the bonds of a tender and unalterable charity.

"I am, &c. "RAYNAL."

* * * * *

TO CHARLOTTE, Queen of Great Britain.

"Impressed with a sense of religious duty, and encouraged by the opinion generally entertained of thy benevolent disposition to succour the distressed, I take the liberty, very respectfully, to offer to thy perusal some tracts which I believe faithfully describe the suffering condition of many hundred thousands of our fellow creatures of the African race, great numbers of whom, rent from every tender connexion in life, are annually taken from their native land, to endure, in the American islands and plantations, a most rigorous and cruel slavery, whereby many, very many of them, are brought to a melancholy and untimely end. When it is considered, that the inhabitants of Britain, who are themselves so eminently blessed in the enjoyment of religious and civil liberty, have long been, and yet are, very deeply concerned in this flagrant violation of the common rights of mankind, and that even its national authority is exerted in support of the African slave trade, there is much reason to apprehend that this has been, and as long as the evil exists, will continue to be, an occasion of drawing down the Divine displeasure on the nation and its dependencies. May these considerations induce thee to interpose thy kind endeavours on behalf of this greatly oppressed people, whose abject situation gives them an additional claim to the pity and assistance of the generous mind, inasmuch as they are altogether deprived of the means of soliciting effectual relief for themselves. That so thou may not only be a blessed instrument in the hand of Him 'by whom kings reign, and princes decree justice,' to avert the awful judgments by which the empire has already been so remarkably shaken, but that the blessings of thousands ready to perish may come upon thee, at a time when the superior advantages attendant on thy situation in this world, will no longer be of any avail to thy consolation and support. To the tracts on the subject to which I have thus ventured to crave thy particular attention, I have added some others, which at different times, I have believed it my duty to publish, and which I trust will afford thee some satisfaction; their design being for the furtherance of that universal peace, and good will amongst men, which the gospel was intended to introduce. I hope thou will kindly excuse the freedom used on this occasion, by an ancient man, whose mind for more than forty years past, has been much separated from the common course of the world, and long painfully exercised in the consideration of the miseries under which so large a part of mankind equally with us the objects of redeeming love, are suffering the most unjust and grievous oppression, and who sincerely desires the temporal, and eternal felicity of the queen and her royal consort.

"ANTHONY BENEZET.

"PHILADELPHIA, EIGHTH MONTH, 25th, 1783."



REVIEWS OF BOOKS

The Life and Times of Booker T. Washington. By B. F. RILEY, D.D., LL.D. Introduction by EDGAR Y. MULLINS, D.D., LL.D., President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Fleming H. Revell Company, New York, 1916. Pp. 301.

Booker T. Washington, Builder of a Civilization. By EMMETT J. SCOTT and LYMAN BEECHER STOWE. Doubleday, Page & Company, 1916. Pp. 331.

Since the death of Dr. Booker T. Washington, the press has been loud in singing his praises and writers have hurriedly published sketches of his career. These first biographies unfortunately have been inadequate to furnish the public a proper review of the record of the distinguished man. In these two volumes before us, however, this requirement has certainly been met.

The first is a valuable work which must find its way into every up-to-date library in this country. It is an excellent estimate of the services of a distinguished Negro, written by a white man who is unselfishly laboring for the uplift of the black race. "Though of another race," says Dr. Riley, "the present biographer is not affected by the consciousness that he is writing of a Negro." Throughout this work the writer is true to this principle. He has endeavored to be absolutely frank in noting here and there the difficulties and handicaps by which white men of the South have endeavored to keep the Negro down. The aim of the author is so to direct attention to the needs of the Negro and so to show how this Negro demonstrated the capacity of the blacks that a larger number of white men may lend these struggling people a helping hand.

Primarily interested in the bearing of the educator's career on the conditions now obtaining in this country, the author has little to say about his private life, choosing rather to present him as a man of the world. Tracing his career, the author mentions his antecedent, his poverty, his training at Hampton, his first ventures and the establishment of Tuskegee. He then treats with more detail Dr. Washington's national prominence, widening influence, ability to organize, and increasing power. He carefully notes, too, the great educator's chief characteristics, his sane and balanced views, his belief in the cooperation of the two races, and his power to interpret one race to the other. It is mainly this portion of the book that makes this biography a work of incalculable value in the study of the Negro during the last quarter of the century.

The other biography of Booker T. Washington is a somewhat more intensive study of his life than that of Dr. Riley. The authors are Mr. Washington's confidential associate and a trained and experienced writer, sympathetically interested in the Negro because of the career of his grandmother, Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of "Uncle Tom's Cabin." It contains a fitting foreword by Major R. R. Moton, Dr. Washington's successor, and a forceful preface by Ex-President Theodore Roosevelt. The book is well written and well illustrated.

These authors were chosen by Mr. Washington himself with the hope that they would produce "a record of his struggles and achievements at once accurate and reliable." Coming from persons so closely associated with the distinguished educator, the reader naturally expects some such treatment as the "Life and Letters of Booker T. Washington." A work of such scope, however, the authors themselves maintain is yet to be written. Passing over his childhood, early training and education, which they consider adequately narrated in "Up From Slavery," the authors have directed their attention toward making an estimate of the services of the educator during the last fifteen years of his life. Written with this purpose in view the work serves as a complement of Dr. Riley's book which is more concerned with the earlier period.

Each chapter is complete in itself, setting forth a distinct achievement or the manifestation of some special ability. Here we get an excellent account of the making of Tuskegee, the leadership of its founder, his attitude on the rights of the Negro, how he met race prejudice, the way in which he taught Negroes to cooperate, how he encouraged the Negro in business, what he did for the Negro farmer, his method of raising large sums of money, his skill in managing a large institution, and finally an appropriate estimate of the man.

* * * * *

In Spite of Handicap. An Autobiography. By JAMES D. CORROTHERS. With an Introduction by RAY STANNARD BAKER. George H. Doran Co., New York, 1916. Pp. 238.

This book is a study of Negro race prejudice, chiefly in the North. One can not read the life of this member of the Negro race without becoming much more vividly informed of the terrible power race prejudice plays in retarding the progress of undeniably capable persons when they are known to have some Negro blood. It is a sadly true picture not only of the handicaps to Mr. Corrothers, but of practically all Negroes of talent who essay to come out of the caste to which barbaric prejudice assigns his group. For this reason we could substitute for this individual as subject of this story most of his race in the North.

The student of history will be more interested in his description of his boyhood home, a Negro settlement in Cass County, Michigan. This place was first an Under-Ground Railroad Station established in 1838 by some Southern Quakers whose conscience no longer allowed them to hold their black brethren in slavery. They brought their slaves into this far Northern region and soon protected other fugitive slaves from the South. It became such a place of security for these runaway slaves that in a few years they became sufficiently numerous to constitute a large settlement. In 1847 a number of slave owners raided the place in an effort to capture some of their Negroes. They had little success, however. Manumitted slaves, free persons of color, and fugitives continued to come and at the time of the outbreak of the Civil War the community had been well established. Since the Civil War many of the descendants of these pioneers have risen in various walks of life and have left an impress on the world. The author of this volume is a representative of this class.

The writer describes how that early in his career in this Cass County atmosphere he met with the awful handicap of race prejudice which forced upon him the conviction as to the difficulty of a colored man to rise. In running from the conditions in the South his people did not find a paradise in the North. Just as the author began by fighting his way among the white boys who objected to him because of his manifestation of superior talent for one of his color so he has had to struggle throughout life. He has, however, become a writer of some note, contributing verse and stories to such leading publications as the Century Magazine, Harper's, The Dial, The Crisis, The Southern Workman, The Boston Transcript, and The Chicago Tribune.

The author makes no pretence of writing a scientific historical or sociological treatise. He relates such anecdotes of his own life as will throw light on the influence of race prejudice in impeding the progress of capable Negroes. His style is easy and clear, at times beautiful. The book is well worth the reading of any person seriously interested in our race problems.

E. L. MCLEAN

* * * * *

The Administration of President Hayes. BY JOHN W. BURGESS. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1916. Pp. 154.

These lectures, the author says, give in bare outline a description of the administration of President Hayes. For various reasons his administration has not received extended treatment by the students of American History. Professor Burgess seeks to show that Hayes was one of the greatest executives in the history of our nation, and that wrongfully "the manner of his election has been used to depreciate his service." He says: "As time goes on, however, and as the partisan hatreds which are clustered around the election are lost from view, his work looms larger and ever larger."

At the present time when there is such uncertainty in the election of President and reference is made to that one of 1876, many are repeating the contention that a partisan vote of the Electoral Commission unconstitutionally made Hayes President. The author very clearly points out that no president was more entitled to his office on constitutional grounds than Rutherford B. Hayes. Contrary to the assertion that eight Republican members of the Electoral Commission voted on partisan grounds, Professor Burgess says that it was they who stood squarely on the constitution and the seven Democratic members of that commission voted purely on party lines. The Democrats had neither "a leg nor a peg to stand upon in any one of the cases" of Oregon, Louisiana, Florida or South Carolina. The Electoral Commission in each case went back of the returns and accepted those certified by the officials of the State, who had been in conformity with the Constitution of the United States duly qualified to make them.

These lectures review the important problems of Hayes's administration. Among these problems growing out of the Civil War was the increasing aggression of the legislative branch of the federal government. Beginning with the Reconstruction Period the government was more and more becoming a parliamentary one. Hayes was determined to reestablish it on its constitutional foundations. When he came into power the lower house was in control of the Democrats and it was they who were determined to usurp executive power. Riders were placed on appropriation bills and efforts were made to force the President to assent to laws which would eliminate the Federal Government from all interference with the affairs of the Southern States. Notwithstanding the fact that they forced an extra session of Congress when both branches were Democratic, Hayes stood firm and in a long fight curbed the aggression of the legislative branch. Among other great achievements of his administration the author points out the reform of the currency, improvements in civil service, and the adoption of a wise policy in the treatment of the Indians.

The withdrawal of the troops from the defence of the Republican governments in the South, President Hayes thought was necessary that strife might cease and that those best fitted to rule should take charge of their home affairs. The author considers this to be one of the greatest acts of statesmanship that any president ever performed. The old charge that this was a result of a deal between Southern Democrats who were peacefully to permit Hayes to become President in return for relieving them of military rule, he terms an invention of the politicians and radical friends of the Negro. He maintains that before Hayes ever became a candidate for the presidency it was well known that he held such views favorable to the South.

The reader should bear in mind here that this theory of Mr. Burgess is in keeping with his radical position that the Negro being inferior and unfit for citizenship he should have been left at the mercy of the white man who wanted to enslave him. Here as in all of Mr. Burgess's Reconstruction discussions he sees only one side of the question. The white man should be supreme and the Negro should merely have freedom of body with no guarantee that even this would not be of doubtful tenure. Reconstruction studies will always be valueless as long as they are prosecuted by men of biased minds.

ORVILLE HOLLIDAY.

* * * * *

American Patriots and Statesmen from Washington to Lincoln. By ALBERT BUSHNELL HART. P. F. Collier & Son, New York, 1916. Five Volumes.

The editor deserves great credit for bringing together so much original material reflecting the thought of the men who made the nation. Every phase of American life and politics has been considered, giving both the scholar and the layman a ready reference and guide for a more intensive study of public opinion in this country than can be obtained from the ordinary treatises on history and government. The manner of selecting and arranging the materials exhibits evidence of breadth of view on the part of the compiler and places his long experience as a professor in the leading university of this country at the disposal of persons who have not labored in this field so long.

Here we have the thoughts of almost every distinguished man who materially influenced the history of this country from the time of the discovery of America to the outbreak of the Civil War. The writer has drawn on the works of all classes, statesmen, sages, men of affairs, State officials, congressmen, senators, presidents, judges; ministers, doctors, lawyers, educators, novelists, essayists and travellers; poets and orators. Every section of the country, too, is represented in this collection and a few foreigners who have manifested peculiar interest in Americans have also been included. Some of these important subjects treated in these documents are such questions as "Expectations from the New World," "The First Immigrants," "Principles of Personal Liberty," "Extension of Colonial Freedom," "The American Revolution," "Independence of the United States," "Liberty in a Federal Constitution," "National Democracy," "The Frontier," "States Rights," "Slavery," "Nullification," and "The Popularization of Government." Important treatises having a special bearing on the Negro have not been omitted. Among these are Hinton Rowan Helpers' Appeal to the Non-slaveholding Whites, Benjamin Wade's Defiance of Secession, John Brown's Last Speech of a Convicted Abolitionist, William H. Seward's Irrepressible Conflict, Abraham Lincoln's A House Divided against itself cannot Stand, his Meaning of the Declaration of Independence, his Philosophy of Slavery, the Gettysburg Address, and the Emancipation Proclamation.

The collection as a whole makes a valuable reference work for the modern teacher who is trying to explain the past in terms of present achievements. These materials are so arranged as to show that what we now call new problems in American life are issues of old, that the questions now arising as to how to manage the army and navy, how to deal with our colonies, how to maintain our position as a world power, and how to promote national preparedness, have all been discussed pro and con by leading statesmen in the past. Libraries in need of source material lying in this field would make no mistake in purchasing this valuable collection.

A. H. CLEMMONS.

FOOTNOTES:

[120] All of these letters are taken from Roberts Vaux's "Memoirs of the Life of Anthony Benezet," pp. 25-62.

[121] Written by Patrick Henry.



NOTES

Harrison and Sons, London, have published an "Anthropological Report on Sierra Leone," by Northcote W. Thomas, in three parts. Part I covers the law and customs of the Tinne and other tribes. Part II consists of a "Tinne-English dictionary" and part III of a grammar and stories.

This firm has also brought out "Specimens of Languages from Sierra Leone" by the same author. This work contains tabular vocabularies with short stories and notes on Tones, illustrated with the Staff Notation.

Macmillan and Company have published the "My Yoruba Alphabet" by R. E. Bennett.

"Maliki Law" by F. H. Buxton has appeared with the imprint of Luzac and Company. This is a summary from French Translations of the "Mukhtasar of Sidi Khalil" by Captain Buxton of the Political Department of Nigeria. It was published by order of Sir F. D. Sugard, Governor-General of Nigeria.

"Native Life in South Africa before and since the European War and the Boer Rebellion" by Sol. T. Plaatje has been published by P. S. King. This work is especially valuable for students of Negro History in that they may obtain from it the other side of the race problem in that country. The author is an educated native who has served the government as an interpreter, and now edits for a native syndicate Tsala ea Batho (The People's Friend). The purpose of the writer is to explain the grievances of the natives and especially that one resulting from the Land Act of 1913.

Allen and Unwin have published the third volume of "The History of South Africa from 1795 to 1872" by G. McCall Theal. The work is to be completed in five volumes.

Among Putnam's recent publications is F. W. Seward's "Reminiscences of a War Time Statesman and Diplomat," being his father William H. Seward.

The University of Chicago Press has published "Slavery in Germanic Society during the Middle Ages."

C. R. Hall has published through the Princeton University Press his "Andrew Johnson: Military Governor of Tennessee."

Stokes has published J. A. B. Scherer's Cotton as a World Power.

Mr. Henry B. Rankin's "Personal Recollections of Abraham Lincoln" has come from the press of the Putnams. This book is interesting and valuable in that it is written by a man who studied law under Lincoln and Herndon.

The Chicago Historical Society has published a booklet entitled "The Convention that nominated Lincoln," giving its outward and local aspects.

In C. J. Heatwole's History of Education in Virginia, published by Macmillan, passing mention is given the effort to enlighten the Negroes in that State. The writer is mainly concerned with the efforts for the uplift of the Negro since emancipation. He seemed to be ignorant of the many efforts at education put forth by the Negroes with the help of their friends even before the Civil War.

E. S. Green's History of the University of South Carolina has been published by the State Publishing Company at Columbia. In treating the period during which the Negroes were in control of that institution the author is adversely critical of the freedmen in general, but mentions some colored graduates and pays a tribute to the high character of Richard Theodore Greener, who served there as instructor.

"The South To-day" by John M. Moore has been published by the Missionary Education Movement of the United States and Canada.

The JOURNAL OF NEGRO HISTORY has received a copy of Charles E. Benton's "Troutbeck: A Dutchess County Homestead," with an introduction by John Borroughs. Among the beautiful illustrations in this pamphlet is that of Webutuck River at Troutbeck during the performance of the "Hiawatha Pageant" at the fifth Amenia Field Day, August 15, 1914.

A. A. Schomburg's Bibliographical Checklist of American Negro Poetry has been published as one of a series of monographs edited by Charles F. Heartman of New York. It is a valuable work.

The Argosy Company, Georgetown, British Guiana, has recently published a work entitled Black Talk. This book consists of notes on Negro dialect compiled by C. G. Cruickshank. It is an interesting and informing volume.



THE JOURNAL

OF

NEGRO HISTORY

VOL. II—APRIL, 1917—No. 2



I

THE EVOLUTION OF THE SLAVE STATUS IN AMERICAN DEMOCRACY

Slavery and freedom were constituent elements in American institutions from the very beginning. In the inherent antagonism of the two, DeTocqueville recognized the most serious menace to the permanence of the nation.[122] Slavery, which came in time to be known as the "peculiar institution" of the South, gradually shaped the social, moral, economic and political ideas of that section to fit its genius. The more democratic tendencies of the free industrial order of the North served by contrast to crystallize still more the group consciousness of the South. In this wise the erstwhile loyal South was slowly transformed into a section that was prepared to place local and sectional interests above national, and the result was secession. Just as it was not loyalty to inalienable human rights in the abstract that brought about the abolition of slavery in the North, but rather the gradual expansion of the idea of liberty through the free give and take of a vigorous democracy in which economic and social conditions militated against slavery, so it was not loyalty to States' rights in the abstract that brought about the Civil War but rather the alien group consciousness of the slave States which was the outgrowth of totally different economic and social conditions. It is the object of this paper to trace the influence of these various factors upon the status of the slave.

Slavery of both Indians and Negroes and white servitude were well recognized forms of social status in all the colonies, and slavery was general down to the time of the American Revolution. As early as 1639 we hear of a Negro slave in Pennsylvania. In 1644 Negroes were in demand to work the lowlands of the Delaware. In 1685 William Penn directed his steward at Pennsbury to secure blacks for work "since they might be held for life," which was not true of indentured servants.[123] Negro slaves were sold in Maryland in 1642.[124] Negroes are referred to in the Connecticut records as early as 1660.[125] An "act against trading with negro slaves" was passed in Elizabeth-Town, New Jersey, in 1682.[126] An entry in Winthrop's Journal, February 26, 1638, states that a "Mr. Peirce, in the Salem ship, the Desire, returned from the West Indies after seven months. He had been to Providence, and brought some cotton, and tobacco, and Negroes, etc."[127] The twenty Negroes sold to the colonists at Jamestown, 1619, were the first landed on the soil of Virginia and possibly the first brought to the American colonies.[128]

There is evidence to show that the status of the Negro was at first very closely affiliated with that of the white servant with whom the colonists were thoroughly familiar and who stood half way between freedom and complete subjection. It is probable, therefore, that both Indian and Negro servitude preceded Indian and Negro slavery in all the colonies,[129] though the transition to slavery as the normal status of the Negro was very speedily made. The first and essential feature in this transition was the lengthening of the period of servitude from a limited time to the natural life. The slave differed from the servant then not so much in the loss of liberty, civil and political, as in the perpetual nature of that loss.[130]

There were several factors operating in the case of the Negro to fix the status of the slave as his normal condition, the earliest and one of the strongest of which was economic in character. Certainly the influences which brought Negro slavery to the West-Indies and later to the British colonies to the north were primarily economic. As a result of her great commercial expansion in the first half of the fifteenth century Spain had established a thriving slave trade with the west coast of Africa. When it was discovered that the natives of the West Indies, who had been enslaved to meet the labor demands of the new world, were unable to do the work Spain began to import Negro slave labor at the suggestion of Bishop Las Casas, thus turning the stream of slave trade westward about the beginning of the sixteenth century. By way of the English island colonies, the Bermudas and Barbados, the slave trade extended northward to the American colonies, the first slaves being brought from the West Indies to Virginia in 1619, so that by the end of the seventeenth century the traffic had reached proportions that frightened the colonists into taking measures for its restriction.[131]

The fact that Negro slavery reached American soil by way of the West Indies is not without significance as throwing light upon the status of the slave especially in the southern colonies such as the Carolinas and Georgia. The first Negro slaves imported into South Carolina came from Barbados in 1671 and there is reason for thinking that the Barbadian slave code and customs were imported with the slaves, for the act passed in Barbados in 1668 declaring Negro slaves to be real estate was copied very closely in the South Carolina act of 1690.[132] The stringency of the Barbadian slave code and the resulting barbarous treatment of the slaves have made the little island famous in history. "For a hundred years," says Johnston, "slaves in Barbados were mutilated, tortured, gibbeted alive and left to starve to death, burnt alive, flung into coppers of boiling sugar, whipped to death, overworked, underfed, obliged from sheer lack of any clothing to expose their nudity to the jeers of the 'poor' whites."[133] And yet the owners of these slaves were English, of the same stock under which developed the mild patriarchal type of slavery of Virginia. The difference in the status of the slave in Virginia and in the northern colonies as opposed to the colonies farther south, where in some places the Barbadian conditions were at least approximated, is to be explained in terms of the different social and economic conditions rather than the character of the slave-owners. The West Indian type of slavery was not conducive to the more intimate and sympathetic relations which arose between slave and master in the colonies to the north where a fairly complete integration of the Negro in the social consciousness of the white took place.

It is easy to distinguish factors in the economic conditions in the northern and southern colonies which brought about these differences in the status of the slave in the two sections. In the trading colonies of New England and in the farming colonies of the Middle States the occupations in which slave labor could be profitably made use of were limited in number. The climate was too cool, especially for freshly imported slaves. Slave labor was ill adapted to the kind of crops the soil demanded. The status of the slave from the very nature of the case approximated that of the servant. The slaves became for the most part servants, the time of whose service was perpetual. The slaves of Pennsylvania, for this reason, were treated much more kindly than the Negroes in the West Indies. Their lot was doubtless far happier than that of the slaves in the lower South.[134]

The conditions in the planting colonies from Virginia southward were different. Here was an unlimited supply of fertile lands which lent themselves readily to the unskillful and exhausting methods of slave labor. Here too was a warm climate congenial to the Negro, though enervating and often unhealthful for the white. The staples, such as the sugar cane, rice and later the cotton plant, were such as the unscientific slave labor might easily cultivate. All the conditions of profitable slave labor were present, namely, possibilities for concentration of labor, its absolute control and direction and exploitation.

The status of the Negro in the planting colonies was the outcome of these economic conditions. He was deprived of the stimulating effect of personal intercourse with the white, enjoyed by the slave at the north. His status was fixed by a certain position in an industrial system, the tendency of which was to attach him more and more to the soil and, especially on the larger plantation, to make of him a "living tool." He became, as time went on, the economic unit. Even free labor, in so far as it survived slave labor, was forced to take its measure of values from the slave. There were of course gradations in status even among the slaves in the lower South so that the same system could include the conditions described in Fanny Kemble's Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation as well as those portrayed in Smedes' Memorials of a Southern Planter. If we take the whole sweep of country from New England to the far South, the differences in the status of the slave varied still more, including the exceedingly mild form of slavery in Pennsylvania where the slave was not essentially different from the indentured servant, the patriarchal slavery of Virginia, as well as the capitalistic exploitation of slave labor in the great rice plantations of South Carolina and Georgia and the cotton and cane plantations of Mississippi and Louisiana. Here, in some cases at least, the West Indian conditions were approximated. In the lower South particularly were found those conditions which as we shall see later tended to fix the slave status as an integral part of southern life so that in time it came to be spoken of as the South's "peculiar institution."

Strange as it may seem, religion also played a large part in the determination of the status of the slave in early colonial days. Just as it was the zeal of the early Church which had much to do with the eradication of the slavery of antiquity, so it was also the zeal and bigotry of churchmen that had much to do with the reinstatement of slavery of a type worse in some respects than that of antiquity. Speaking of the custom of the Spaniards of enslaving the Moors that fell into their hands through conquest, Prescott says: "It was the received opinion among good Catholics of that period, that heathen and barbarous nations were placed by the circumstances of their infidelity without the pale both of spiritual and civil rights."[135] The expansion that took place as a result of the discovery of the new world brought Europeans into contact with heathen who according to the prevailing opinions were without the pale of Christianity and, therefore, possessed of no rights that Christians need observe. It is not surprising then that Columbus brought back Indian slaves with him, though Isabella ordered returned those "who had not been taken in just war."

The Puritan settlers of New England were not one whit behind the Spanish in making use of the same religious grounds for the enslaving of the Indians conquered in war. Roger Williams in a letter to John Winthrop in 1637 writes as follows of a successful expedition against the Pequots: "It having again pleased the Most High to put into our hands another miserable drove of Adam's degenerate seed, and our brethren by nature, I am bold (if I may not offend in it) to request the keeping and bringing up of one of the children." The following extract from a letter to Winthrop in 1645 is a curious mixture of religious bigotry and Yankee shrewdness: "A war with the Narragansetts is very considerable to this plantation, for I doubt whether it be not sin in us, having power in our hands, to suffer them to maintain the worship of the devil, which their pow wows often do; secondly, if upon a just war the Lord should deliver them into our hands, we might easily have men, women and children enough to exchange for Moors (Negroes?) which will be more gainful pillage for us than we conceive, for I do not see how we can thrive until we get into a flock of slaves sufficient to do all our business, for our children's children will hardly see this great continent filled with people, so that our servants will still desire freedom to plant for themselves and not stay but for very great wages. And I suppose you know very well how we shall maintain twenty Moors cheaper than one English servant."[136] Few passages better illustrate how religious ideas and economic needs conspired to bring about the enslavement of both Indian and Negro at this early period.

Race also played its part in determining the slave status. There was present more or less from the very beginning of slavery in States like Virginia the tendency to limit such servitude to the Negro race. At first, when both Indian and Negro slaves were found together, there was no a priori ground for discriminating against the Negro in favor of the Indian and designating the status of the slave as the normal status of the Negro. The probable reason is that racial characteristics of the Indian made him a bad subject for slavery. The Massachusetts colonists found the Pequot Indians surly, revengeful and in the words of Cotton Mather unable to "endure the Yoke."[137] The Negro, on the contrary, proved himself much more tractable and therefore more profitable as a slave. These plastic race traits, in fact, have enabled the Negro to survive while the less adaptive Indian has disappeared. Thus the bonds of a servile status hardened from decade to decade about the Negro, being determined partly by economic needs, partly by religious prejudices and partly by the Negro's own peculiar racial traits.

Legislation, which always follows in the wake of status and normally gives expression to it, corroborates what has just been stated. Virginia in the act of 1670 first fixed the legal status of the slave and so worded the act as virtually to protect the Indian from enslavement. By an act of 1705 she made Indian enslavement illegal, thus practically limiting slavery to the Negro. Hence at the time when Virginia drew up her famous Declaration of Rights, in which she affirmed the natural equality and inalienable rights of all men, the prevailing sentiment of the community undoubtedly was that the normal status of the Negro was that of the slave, which status placed him entirely without the scope of these lofty declarations. The protests of such men as George Wythe and Thomas Jefferson were contrary to the drift of the social mind.[138] The last stage in this process of determining status on the basis of race is to be found in the various slave codes that grew up in the Southern States. They were supposed to be done away with forever by the war amendments and Sumner's famous Bill of Rights but the problem is one far too subtle and intricate for regulation by statute, as the Supreme Court has discovered. Status based upon color still exists both North and South though without legal sanction.[139]

The noble conceptions of freedom and equality which were embodied in the bills of rights and the Declaration of Independence were destined in time to triumph over slavery, though not without bloodshed. It is interesting to trace their influence on the status of the slave. The doctrine of human rights found in the Declaration of Independence and in the bills of rights of the State constitutions, despite its metaphysical cast, is not derived from the political philosophy of the French; the key of the demolished Bastile sent by Lafayette to Washington by the hand of Thomas Paine symbolized rather the debt owed to America by France.[140] The Declaration itself perhaps shows closer affiliations with John Locke's Treatise on Civil Government, which may be taken as a statement of the principles contended for in the Puritan Revolution of 1688. But even Locke's ideas of civil and religious liberty were not original with him. They were in reality the result of applying to the sphere of politics the logical implications of doctrines preached by the Protestant reformers of a century or two earlier in their revolt against the authority of tradition. To be sure the masses of men were ignorant of the theological distinctions drawn by Luther and Knox between the democracy of sin under the first Adam and the democracy of grace under the second Adam or Christ. The levelling effect of these ideas, however, was unmistakably felt as in the doggerel of John Ball, the mad Wycliffite priest of Kent,

"When Adam dalf and Eve span, Who was then the gentleman?"

In the next century under the pressure of their struggle against injustice masquerading behind charters and parliaments, the Puritans under the leadership of John Locke made their appeal to natural rights just as the reformers before them had made their appeal to the higher rights and duties that hold in a spiritual kingdom of grace. The appeal, originally religious in origin, now appears stripped of its theological setting and hence with a certain "metaphysical nakedness" which only the enthusiasm and sense of need arising from the necessities of their situation prevented its champions from perceiving. Locke and Blackstone, while insisting upon the absolute and inalienable rights of the individual, never broke with the feeling for precedent inherent in the Englishman. The natural rights they preached were only conceived as having validity within the sphere of the British subject and not for humanity in general.[141]

In very much the same way the colonists, in the struggles against royal oppression, felt the need for a higher and more comprehensive sanction for their conduct and following the precedent set them by the Puritans of the seventeenth century, they fell back upon the notion of inalienable rights possessed by each individual independent of society. Here, too, the inspiration and original setting of these ideas were strongly religious. Religious toleration had gained constitutional recognition in almost all the colonies so that the political movement out of which American freedom was born had the powerful support of religious sanction. To this fact must be attributed in part at least the tone of finality and absoluteness in the American declarations of rights. Out of this universal recognition of liberty of conscience arose the notion of a right of a higher sort not inherited but inherent and inalienable because rooted in man's religious nature—"a God-given franchise."

This sense of the inherent and inalienable nature of the rights of conscience was, under the stress of the immediate political exigencies of the struggle with England, very easily and naturally extended from the sphere of religion to that of civil and political rights. It provided the sanction for the break with the mother-country that was contemplated. Virginia's declaration of rights was intended to be law, for the preamble states that these rights "do pertain to them (the people of Virginia) and their posterity as the basis and foundation of government." And what are these rights? They are first of all, "That all men are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they can not by any compact deprive or divest their posterity, etc."[142] Thus, from the logic of events and not as a result of a philosophical speculation, the Revolutionary fathers were forced to take advanced ground in their definition of human rights. Leaving the fixed social order of the old country for the wilderness, where the only society was that of the savage, they naturally looked upon government as arising out of a compact behind which lay the sovereign autonomy of the individual by virtue of inalienable rights given him by God. What more natural in their revolt from the old country than to make this doctrine the political and moral sanction of their course?

The rich emotional life aroused by the war for national independence as well as the struggle of over half a century later for the emancipation of the slave have given to these ideas of inalienable human rights a hold upon the conscience of the nation altogether incommensurate with their actual validity. It would be a thankless task and yet an altogether feasible one to show that the Revolutionary fathers did not break with English traditions in their declarations of rights. They simply stripped these principles of their original religious and political setting and persuaded themselves that through a fresh and rigorous restatement of them they had established their finality and originality. A stream is not changed by altering the name it bears at its fountain head. The very enthusiasm and loyalty of the men of '76 for what has been called "metaphysical jargon" leads one to suspect that the ultimate basis of these ideas lay in the social consciousness of the people. The democratic ideals they expressed in institutional forms—social, political or religious—belonged, of course, to the social heritage they brought with them from the old country. They did not, therefore, discover these "lost title deeds of the human race." It would be much nearer the truth to say they merely stated them clearly because by virtue of previous training and a new environment they had succeeded best in realizing those conditions, social and political, which alone make their clear statement possible. The measure of success and validity of any social doctrine, no matter how abstract, is to be found in its harmony with the background from which it springs and in the extent to which it actually succeeds in effecting needed social adjustments. It was perfectly natural that our forefathers should wish to proclaim as a new and unalterable truth, the everlasting possession of themselves and of all free people, what they already enjoyed. This did not alter the fact that the only guarantee for the perpetuity of these rights was the vigorous democracy of which they were the expression. "The Americans," writes Jellinek, "could calmly precede their plan of government with a bill of rights, because that government and the controlling laws had already long existed."[143]

As these great notions of human rights first took hold of the Anglo Saxon through religion, so it was through religion also that the ideals of freedom and equality first affected the status of the slave. We have already seen what was the prevailing doctrine of Christendom at the time of the discovery of the new world. It was that infidels and heathen were without the Christian fold and so did not come under those sanctions of conduct that prevailed in the dealings of Christians with each other. The colonists, therefore, assumed "a right to treat the Indians on the footing of Canaanites or Amalekites" with no rights a Christian need regard.[144] The same was held true of the Negroes. In time, however, petitions began to be received from slaves desiring to be admitted to baptism and this raised the question concerning the status of the slave after conversion to Christianity.[145] The dilemma faced by the slave-owner with religious scruples was as follows: To confer baptism would be in accordance with the contention of pious churchmen that slavery was but a means to bring about the salvation of the heathen.[146] On the other hand, to admit to baptism would, according to the doctrines of the Reformation, destroy the slave status entirely. By virtue of having entered the democracy of grace represented by the Church of Christ, the distinction of bond and free disappeared. To keep out the slave would be to hamper the spread of Christianity; to admit him would be to eliminate slavery.

This problem, however, seems never to have troubled the Puritan's conscience greatly.[147] From his stern, high Calvinistic point of view he was the elect of the earth, to whom the Almighty had given the heathen for an inheritance, and in this he found a satisfactory justification for his harsh and high-handed dealings with weaker races such as the Indian and the Negro. Yet the germ of freedom contained in the limited democracy of the elect of Calvinism was bound in time to break the hard theological moulds in which it was originally cast. It did this subsequently under the stress of external events in the effort to throw off the shackles of British oppression. Nowhere did the essential injustice of slavery become more evident to the minds of men than in the healthful humanizing and socializing atmosphere of the progressive industrial democracy of New England.

In the southern colonies especially, the question about the status of the converted slave threatened to interfere with the slave-traffic so that several of them passed acts to relieve the consciences of its citizens. That of Virginia in 1667 is typical. It was enacted that "Baptism doth not alter the condition of the person as to his bondage or freedom; in order that diverse masters freed from this doubt may more carefully endeavor the propagation of Christianity."[148] This act is interesting as showing the appearance even at this early period of the ethical dualism between free spiritual personality and the physical disabilities of slavery. This in time became classic with pro-slavery writers and perhaps received its strongest statement in a book that appeared even after emancipation.[149]

In the constitution of the province of Carolina, drawn up by John Locke in 1669, we have another interesting instance of the way in which the traditions of freedom associated with religion conflicted with slavery. The author of the famous Treatise on Government, which was in part the inspiration of our Declaration of Independence, did not feel that slavery was in any way incompatible with the doctrine of freedom. Locke's constitution takes it for granted that slaves would form part of the population of the province, though the constitution was drawn up possibly two years before the first slave was brought to the colony.[150] Locke insists upon entire religious freedom. "No person whatsoever shall disturb, molest, or persecute another for his speculative opinions in religion or his way of worship." But he stipulates that this spiritual freedom shall in no way affect the status of the slave. "Since charity obliges us to wish well to the souls of all men, and religion ought to alter nothing in any man's civil estate or right, it shall be lawful for slaves, as well as others, to enter themselves, and be of what church or profession any of them shall think best and, therefore, be as fully members as any freeman. But no slave shall hereby be exempted from that civil dominion his master hath over him, but be in all things in the same state and condition he was in before." And again, even more explicitly in section 110: "Every freeman of Carolina shall have absolute power and authority over his negro slaves, of what opinion or religion soever." These sections were evidently intended to meet any scruples that might arise as to the effect of conversion upon the slave's status. The culmination of this discussion was an opinion of the Crown-Attorney and Solicitor-General of England, given in 1729 in response to an appeal from the colonists, to the effect that baptism in no way changed the status of the slave.[151] The trade of British merchantmen was being endangered and it was important to remove the scruples of the religious slaveholder.

In this feeling of Christian sympathy and fellowship for the slave who professed Christianity undoubtedly lay potentialities for the betterment of his conditions. Had there been favorable economic and political forces working to bring these notions of equality more and more to the consciousness of men, just as the storm and stress of political struggle forced them to espouse the doctrines of inalienable human rights, doubtless freedom would have come to the slave with the growing sense of the wider implications of democracy. Certainly had there prevailed in the South economic and social forces similar to those in the North, the emancipation of the Negro would have taken place naturally and normally in both sections. That Locke and his contemporaries felt no incongruity between their ideas of liberty and the existence of slavery must be attributed to the fact that the full social implications of their doctrines had not yet been brought home to them by industrial development. They accepted the status of the slave as a matter of course in the existing agricultural order.

It is easy to see in Virginia, the chief slave-holding State of the earlier period, how economic interests in time narrowed the sphere of action and finally counteracted entirely the tendency of religion to extend to the slave the ideal of freedom. In the act of 1670, the first which dealt with slaves in Virginia, the enfranchising effect of conversion was limited to servants imported from Christian lands; thus were excluded at once the great majority of Negroes who came, of course, from Africa. The few Negroes brought in from Christian lands, such as England and the West Indies, were assigned by the act to the status of servants from which many attained freedom. It was inevitable that, in Virginia and the southern colonies especially, the religious notion that profession of Christianity made a difference in status should disappear before the more practical principle of race and color. By the time of the Revolution the matter of religion had practically disappeared as a factor in the status of the slave,[152] except in so far as it continued in the form of the vicious ethical dualism which asserted that the slave could enjoy equality and freedom in the spiritual sphere while enduring physical bondage. This provided an effective salve for many a pious slaveholder's conscience.

At the time of the American Revolution before the real problem of slavery was felt, except in the minds of a few prophetic spirits such as Jefferson, we can still detect two clearly marked tendencies. At the South economic forces were combining with the social and racial conditions to fix the status of slave as the normal condition of the Negro, a most portentous fact for the future of that section. At the North economic and social conditions were pointing already towards a gradual emancipation of the slave in a democratic order that was becoming more and more conscious of the full significance of the ideas of freedom and equality.

What was the effect upon the status of the slave North and South of the struggle for independence and the adoption of a declaration to the effect that all men are free and equal and possessed of certain inalienable rights?[153] In Pennsylvania from the very beginning of the war of independence interest in the manumission of slaves increased until it finally culminated in the act of 1780, an "Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery," by adopting which Pennsylvania became the first State to pass an abolition law.[154] The preamble of this act asserts it to be the duty of Pennsylvanians to give substantial proof of their gratitude for deliverance from the oppression of Great Britain "by extending freedom to those of a different color but the work of the same Almighty hand." Previous to 1776 discussion had been going on also in Massachusetts looking to the abolition of slavery and in 1777 there was introduced an act with the preamble declaring that "the practice of holding Africans and the children born of them, or any other persons in slavery, is unjustifiable in a civil government, at a time when they are asserting their natural freedom."[155] This act never became law and it is an interesting commentary upon conditions in the North, and especially in New England, that in Massachusetts slavery was not abolished by legislation but by the slow working of public sentiment. The assembly of Rhode Island, likewise, prefaced an act against the importation of slaves in 1774 by asserting that those who were struggling for the preservation of their rights and liberties, among which that of personal freedom is greatest, must be willing to extend a like liberty to others.[156] Similar agitation and legislation were going on in almost all the Northern and Middle States under the stimulus of the spirit of freedom of the time.[157]

It is easy to note a change in the mental atmosphere as we pass to the States farther south. The Assembly of Delaware tabled indefinitely a bill of 1785 for the gradual abolition of slavery, and Maryland in her declaration of rights adopted in 1776 restricted the enjoyment of certain rights to freemen only. A petition introduced in the House of Burgesses of Virginia in 1785, asking for general emancipation on the ground that slavery was contrary to the principles of religion and the ideas of freedom on which the government was founded, was read and rejected without an opposing voice; Washington remarked in a letter to Lafayette that it could hardly get a hearing.[158] In fact, there is evidence for believing that, while leading men such as Jefferson, Madison, Washington, Mason and Pinkney saw the evil of slavery and wished heartily to rid their States of it, the mass of the citizens of Maryland and Virginia did not wish to do away with the institution either because of social habits and economic interests, or because they felt unable to cope with the problem of an emancipated black population. It must be remembered that in Maryland there were three slaves to five whites, in Virginia and Georgia the numbers were about equal, in South Carolina there were two slaves to one white, while in Massachusetts there were sixty whites to one slave.[159] In the States farther south, the Carolinas and Georgia, no change or attempted change in the status of the slave seems to have occurred. The force of social and economic habits was already too strong for the movings of the spirit of freedom to affect the status of the slave.

The leaders of the time realized this only too well. Patrick Henry, writing to a Quaker in 1773, said that slavery was "as repugnant to humanity as it is inconsistent with the Bible and destructive of liberty. Every thinking honest man rejects it as speculation, but how few in practice from conscientious motives! Would any one believe that I am a master of slaves of my own purchase? I am drawn along by the general inconvenience of living without them."[160] Jefferson in a letter written in 1815 expressed the hope that slavery would in time yield "to the enlargement of the human mind, and its advancement in science," but he confessed also that "where the disease is most deeply seated, there it will be slowest in eradication. In the Northern States it was merely superficial and easily corrected; in the Southern, it is incorporated with the whole system, and requires time, patience and perseverance in the curative process. That it may finally be effected and its progress hastened, will be my last and fondest prayer."[161]

Little light is gained as to the position occupied by the slave in the social mind from the discussions and debates of the constitutional convention of 1787, although slavery is tacitly recognized in the clauses on representation and taxation, the extension of the slave-trade, and the regulation of fugitive slaves. In connection with the basis of representation and taxation the question arose whether the slave was a person or a chattel, but it was debated not with the view of bringing out what the consensus of opinion of the nation at large was but rather with a view to the political exigencies of the situation. The individual States had never been inclined nor did they now propose to surrender to the Union the right to determine the status of persons within their limits so that the debates were begun with the general concession of the fact that slavery existed in some of the States, that it would in all probability continue to exist, and that the future of the institution was primarily a problem that belonged to the individual States where it was found.

The problem facing the members of the convention was, therefore, to provide a system of representation that would ensure political equality to all sections and at the same time safeguard the peculiar conditions and social and economic institutions of each State. To base representation entirely upon the number of the free population would give an undue preponderance to the free States, while to base it upon all, both slave and free, would give an undue advantage to the five slave States. Hence the rather queer compromise that representation "shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other persons"—"all other persons" being a euphemism for "slaves," a term which does not occur in the document. By this measure the slave was made to be only three fifths of a full social unit, or three fifths of a man. This would seem to imply that in the social consciousness of the nation at large the slave was part chattel and part person and this doubtless was the fact. Certainly this is not the last instance where a tendency has manifested itself to assign to the Negro a sort of intermediary status between a chattel and a full social unit. The question came up in 1829 in the Virginia constitutional convention in the struggle between the slaveholding eastern and the free western section of that State.[162] Doubtless one reason for the refusal of Congress to reduce the representation of the Southern States, after the legislation of a few years ago, that practically disfranchised the Negro in the far South, has been an unwillingness thus to lend national sanction to the inferior political as well as social status to which this legislation has at least for the time being reduced the Negro.

The clause in the constitution which subjected its framers to the bitterest criticism at the hands of anti-slavery agitators is that which requires that a "person held to service"—the term "slave" is here avoided also—in one State and escaping to another shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom the service is due. In view of the interests to be reconciled this clause was undoubtedly necessary to union.[163] If the free States were to become a place of refuge for escaping slaves it meant disaster for the States in which the institution of slavery existed and they insisted upon this as a self-protective measure. The constitution recognized the right of each State to preserve the integrity of its own domestic institutions. "It can never too often be called to mind," says Rhodes, "that the political parties of the Northern States and their senators and representatives in Congress, scrupulously respected the constitutional protection given to the peculiar institution of the South, until, by her own act, secession dissolved the bonds of union."[164] The tragedy of the situation lay in the fact that the political necessities of the time made unavoidable this strange union between freedom and slavery, the fundamental incompatibility of which the expanding national life was bound to make clear to the minds of men.

Looking back on this momentous period we are struck with what Lecky calls "the grotesque absurdity of slaveowners signing a Declaration of Independence which asserted the inalienable right of every man to liberty and equality."[165] That the contradiction existed, that it was felt by men like Jefferson, and that it was destined to become more prominent in the mind of the nation as the implications and applications of the great ideas of freedom and equality were enriched and enlarged in the expanding life of a virile democracy, can not be denied. But it may be remarked in the defense of our Revolutionary fathers that they were facing the practical problem of effecting national unity and that "it is a tendency of the Anglo-Saxon race to take the expedient in politics when the absolute right can not be had."[166] They compromised on slavery and on the whole wisely. Moreover, the history of the development of great moral and political concepts indicates that men often formulate principles the logical implications of which are not grasped until new problems and the demand for new social adjustments emerge. The great moral categories of courage, temperance and justice first received scientific formulation at the hands of the Greeks; the ever swelling stream of human civilization has vastly enriched and enlarged these conceptions but without altering their essential meaning. When the idea of liberty which in 1776 included only one class, namely, those who owned the property and administered the government of the nation, was expanded so as to include every member of the social order, at that moment slavery was doomed.

JOHN M. MECKLIN,

Professor in the University of Pittsburgh

FOOTNOTES:

[122] "Democracy in America," Vol. I, pp. 30, 361 ff, 369, 370, Colonial Press edition.

[123] Turner, "The Negro in Pennsylvania," pp. 1 and 19.

[124] Bracket, "The Negro in Maryland," p. 26.

[125] Steiner, "History of Slavery in Connecticut," p. 12.

[126] Cooley, "A Study of Slavery in New Jersey," p. 12.

[127] Moore, "Notes on the History of Slavery in Mass.," p. 5.

[128] Ballagh, "A History of Slavery in Virginia," p. 8.

[129] Ibid., p. 30.

[130] Ballagh, op. cit., p. 28.

[131] Ibid., p. 11.

[132] McCrady, "Slavery in the Province of South Carolina, 1670-1770," pp. 631 ff of the Report of the American Historical Association for 1895.

[133] Sir H.H. Johnston, "The Negro in the New World," pp. 217, 218.

[134] Turner, op. cit., p. 40; see also DuBois, "The Suppression of the African Slave Trade," Chs. III and IV.

[135] "Ferdinand and Isabella," Part II, Ch. 8.

[136] Moore, "History of Slavery in Massachusetts," pp. 2, 10.

[137] Brackett, op. cit., p. 20; Ballagh, op. cit., p. 36.

[138] Ballagh, op. cit., pp. 47 ff.

[139] Stephenson, "Race Distinction in American Law"; R. S. Baker, "Following the Color Line."

[140] Ritchie, "Natural Rights," p. 3; see also in this connection Jellinek, "The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of Citizens," and Scherger, "The Evolution of Modern Liberty."

[141] Jellinek, "The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of Citizen," p. 56.

[142] Jellinek, op. cit., p. 84.

[143] Jellinek, op. cit., pp. 88, 89.

[144] Moore, op. cit., pp. 2, 30.

[145] Ibid., p. 58.

[146] Cotton Mather, who sanctioned slavery, evidently had this in mind as the following observations show: "We know not when or how these Indians first became inhabitants of this mighty continent, yet we may guess that probably the devil decoyed these miserable savages hither, in hopes that the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ would never come here to destroy or disturb his absolute empire over them." (Quoted by Moore, op. cit., p. 31.)

[147] Moore, op. cit., pp. 58, 71.

[148] Ballagh, op. cit., pp. 46, 47.

[149] Dabney, Defence of Virginia, pp. 158 ff.

[150] McCrady, op. cit., p. 644; for the text of the constitution see Perley Poore, "The Federal and State Constitutions, Colonial Charters and other Organic Laws of the United States," Part II, pp. 1397 ff.

[151] Brackett, op. cit., p. 30.

[152] Ballagh, op. cit., pp. 46 ff.

[153] Brackett, "The Status of the Slave, 1775-1789," pp. 263 ff. of "Essays in the Constitutional History of the United States," edited by Jameson, 1889.

[154] Turner, op. cit., p. 79.

[155] Moore, op. cit., p. 182.

[156] Johnston, op. cit., p. 22.

[157] Brackett, "The Status of the Slave, etc.," pp. 296 ff.

[158] Ibid., p. 305.

[159] Ibid., p. 265.

[160] Quoted by Merriam, "The Negro and the Nation," p. 19.

[161] Wks., VI, 456; IX, 515, Ford Ed.

[162] Greeley, "The American Conflict," I, p. 109 ff.

[163] Curtis, "Constitutional History of the United States," I, p. 606.

[164] History of the United States, I, p. 24.

[165] Lecky, "A History of England in the Eighteenth Century," VI, p. 282.

[166] Rhodes, "History of the United States," I, p. 18.



JOHN WOOLMAN'S EFFORTS IN BEHALF OF FREEDOM

Pioneers of epoch-making reforms are seldom accorded the reward they merit. Later apostles usually obscure the greatness of their predecessors, and posterity is prone to overlook the pristine achievements of those who first had the vision. Such is the case of John Woolman, a poor, untutored shopkeeper of New Jersey. He was among the foremost to visualize the wrongs of human slavery, but his real significance as an abolitionist has been greatly dimmed by the subsequent deeds of such apostles as Garrison, Phillips, and Lincoln.

John Woolman's career as an apostle of freedom dates from his first appearance in the ministry of the Society of Friends, an organization commonly known as the Quakers, founded by George Fox in England during the middle of the seventeenth century. Shortly after the organization of this society, many of the members migrated to New England and the Middle Atlantic Colonies. Others were exiled by Charles II to the West Indies.[167] Paradoxical as it may seem, these earliest Friends, though distinguishing themselves from other Christian sects by their special stress on immediate teaching and guidance of the Holy Spirit, had no scruples against keeping slaves. As a matter of fact, there was a prevalent conviction that Christianity indorsed slavery.[168]

This anomalous indifference to the enslaved Negro's condition remained almost constant until 1742. A few sporadic attempts, to be sure, were made to discountenance slavery, but popular opinion, incited by greed, favored the institution. In 1671, for example, George Fox, during his visit to Barbadoes, admonished slaveholders to train their slaves in the fear of God; and further admonished the overseers "to deal gently and mildly with their Negroes, and not use cruelty towards them as the manner of some hath been and is, and after certain years of servitude make them free."[169] Four years later, William Edmundson complained against the unjust treatment of slaves, but was brought, for his pains, before the Governor, on the charge of "endeavoring to excite an insurrection among the blacks."[170] In 1688 the German Quakers of Germantown, Pennsylvania, sent to the Yearly Meeting for the Pennsylvania and New Jersey Colonies a protest against "the buying and keeping of Negroes."[171] The matter was taken under advisement, but not until eight years later did the Yearly Meeting advise against "bringing in any more Negroes." The Chester Quarterly Meeting, however, insisted upon the adoption of definite measures against slave traffic, but the Society never manifested any enthusiasm for such legislation. The Friends were themselves slaveholders, and slaveholders were rapidly increasing their wealth and power through slavery; so they felt no pressing need of reform. The Yearly Meetings, therefore, like many modern congresses, dextrously dodged the grave issue of Negroes' rights, and merely expressed an opinion meekly opposed to the importation of the blacks, and a desire that "Friends generally do, as much as may be, avoid buying such Negroes as shall hereafter be brought in, rather than offend any Friends who are against it; yet this is only caution and not censure."[172] Not until 1742 was any appreciable influence exerted on the Friends against slavery. A storekeeper of Mount Holly, New Jersey, requested his clerk to prepare a bill of sale of a Negro woman whom he had sold. The thought of writing such an instrument greatly oppressed the clerk. He complied, however, but afterwards told both the employer and the customer that he considered slave-keeping inconsistent with the Christian religion.[173] The clerk who ventured such an opinion was John Woolman.

John Woolman was born in Northampton, in Burlington County, West Jersey, in the year 1720. His youthful struggle against wickedness was in many respects similar to Bunyan's. The fear of God seized him in early boyhood, and an intense religious fervor characterized his future career. Though this fervor was undoubtedly an innate tendency, it owed its development partly to the early guidance of pious parents; for Woolman's father was, without doubt, a devout Christian. Every Sunday after meeting, the children were required to read the Holy Scriptures or some religious books. Here, no doubt, was the beginning of Woolman's religious devotion to the teachings of the Bible.[174] At times, during his youth, he apparently forgot these earliest teachings, but he never wandered too far to be reproved by his conscience. When he reached the age of sixteen, his will was finally subdued, and he learned the lesson that youth seldom learns,—that "all the cravings of sense must be governed by a Divine principle." He tells us that he became convinced that "true religion consisted in an inward life, wherein the heart doth love and reverence God, the Creator, and learns to exercise true justice and goodness, not only toward all men, but also toward the brute creatures."[175]

All this time Woolman lived with his parents and worked on the plantation. His schooling was, consequently, meagre, but he gave a generous portion of his leisure to his self-improvement. At the age of twenty-one, he left home to tend shop and keep books for a baker in Mount Holly. Meanwhile, his religious fervor was growing more intense, and with it his genuine philanthropy. The inevitable sequence of his accelerated enthusiasm for spreading the teachings of Christianity was his entrance into the Christian ministry.[176]