Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 | Page 9

. . . . . 29,264 59,404 105,218 149,654 217,531 280,944 381,682 462,198 Ky. . . . . . . 11,830 40,434 80,561 126,732 165,213 182,258 210,981 225,483 La. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34,660 69,064 109,588 168,452 244,809 331,726 Md. . . . . . . 103,036 105,635 111,502 107,397 102,994 89,737 90,368 87,189 Miss. . . . . . . . . . 3,489 17,088 32,814 65,659 195,211 309,878 436,631 Mo. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3,011 10,222 25,091 58,240 87,422 114,931 N. C. . . . . . 100,572 133,296 168,824 205,017 245,601 245,817 288,548 331,059 S. C. . . . . . 107,094 146,151 196,365 258,475 315,401 327,088 384,984 402,406 Tenn. . . . . . 3,417 13,584 44,535 80,107 141,603 183,059 239,459 275,719 Tex. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58,161 182,566 Va. . . . . . . 293,427 345,796 392,518 425,153 469,757 449,087 472,528 490,865 ------- ------- --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- Totals . . . . 657,527 857,095 1,163,854 1,519,017 2,005,475 2,486,326 3,204,051 3,953,696 ------- ------- --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- Grand totals . 697,897 892,741 1,191,364 1,538,125 2,009,043 2,487,455 3,204,313 3,953,760
( 7) It is curious to note that 1621 dates the first bringing into Virginia and America bee-hives for the production of honey.
( 8) The following letter of Cotton Mather will show the Puritan's intolerance of Wm. Penn and his Society of Friends, and the prevailing opinion in his time on slavery and the slave trade.
"Boston, Massachusetts, September, 3, 1681. "To ye Aged and Beloved John Higginson: There be now at sea a skipper (for our friend Esaias Holderoft of London did advise me by the last packet that it would sail sometime in August) called ye Welcome (R. Green was master), which has aboard a hundred or more of ye heretics and malignants called Quakers, with W. Penn, who is ye scamp at ye head of them.
"Ye General court has accordingly given secret orders to master Malachi Huxtell of ye brig Porpoise to waylaye ye said Welcome as near ye coast of Codd as may be, and make captives of ye Penn and his ungodly crew, so that ye Lord may be glorified, and not mocked on ye soil of this new country with ye heathen worshippe of these people. Much spoil can be made by selling ye whole lot to Barbadoes, where slaves fetch good prices in rumme and sugar. We shall not only do ye Lord great service by punishing the Wicked, but shall make gayne for his ministers and people. Yours in the bowels of Christ,
"Cotton Mather."
( 9) Slavery was abolished in the District of Columbia by law of Congress, passed April 16, 1862.
President Lincoln's proclamation of January 1, 1863, emancipated all slaves in the seceded States (save in Tennessee and in parts of Louisiana and Virginia excepted therefrom) to the number of 3,063,395; those remaining were freed by the thirteenth amendment to the Constitution, December 18, 1865.
III DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
The Declaration of Independence, though accepted at once and to be regarded through all time by the liberty-loving world as the best and boldest declaration in favor of human rights, and the most pronounced protest against oppression of the human race, is totally silent as to the rights of the slaves in the colonies. It is true that Jefferson in his draft of this instrument, in the articles of indictment against King George III., used this language:
"He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in the transportation thither, . . . determined to keep open a market where white men should be bought and sold; he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce."
To conciliate Georgia and South Carolina, this part of the indictment was struck out. These colonies had never sought to restrain, but had always fostered the slave trade. Jefferson, in his Autobiography (vol. i, p. 19), suggests that other sections sympathized with Georgia and South Carolina in this matter.
"Our Northern brethren . . . felt a little tender under these censures: for though their people had very few slaves themselves, yet they had been considerable carriers of them to others."
Jefferson said King George preferred the advantage:
"of a few British corsairs to the lasting interests of the American States and to the rights of human