The Anti-Slavery Crusade | Page 5

same
rights as other citizens. This is a perfectly logical application of the
doctrine of the Revolution.
The African slave-trade, however, developed earlier than the doctrine
of the Declaration of Independence. Negro slavery had long been an
established institution in all the American colonies. Opposition to the
slave-trade and to slavery was an integral part of the evolution of the
doctrine of equal rights. As the colonists contended for their own
freedom, they became anti-slavery in sentiment. A standard complaint
against British rule was the continued imposition of the slave-trade
upon the colonists against their oft-repeated protest.
In the original draft of the Declaration of Independence, there appeared
the following charges against the King of Great Britain:
"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 their transportation

thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the
warfare of the Christian King of Great Britain. Determined to keep
open a market where men should be bought and sold, he has prostituted
his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to
restrain this execrable commerce."
Though this clause was omitted from the document as finally adopted,
the evidence is abundant that the language expressed the prevailing
sentiment of the country. To the believer in liberty and equality, slavery
and the slave-trade are instances of war against human nature. No one
attempted to justify slavery or to reconcile it with the principles of free
government. Slavery was accepted as an inheritance for which others
were to blame. Colonists at first blamed Great Britain; later apologists
for slavery blamed New England for her share in the continuance of the
slave-trade.
The fact should be clearly comprehended that the sentiments which led
to the American Revolution, and later to the French Revolution in
Europe, were as broad in their application as the human race itself--that
there were no limitations nor exceptions. These new principles
involved a complete revolution in the previously recognized principles
of government. The French sought to make a master-stroke at
immediate achievement and they incurred counterrevolutions and
delays. The Americans moved in a more moderate and tentative manner
towards the great achievement, but with them also a counter-revolution
finally appeared in the rise of an influential class who, by openly
defending slavery, repudiated the principles upon which the
government was founded.
At first the impression was general, in the South as well as in the North,
that slavery was a temporary institution. The cause of emancipation
was already advocated by the Society of Friends and some other sects.
A majority of the States adopted measures for the gradual abolition of
slavery, but in other cases there proved to be industrial barriers to
emancipation. Slaves were found to be profitably employed in clearing
away the forests; they were not profitably employed in general
agriculture. A marked exception was found in small districts in the
Carolinas and Georgia where indigo and rice were produced; and
though cotton later became a profitable crop for slave labor, it was the
producers of rice and indigo who furnished the original barrier to the

immediate extension of the policy of emancipation. Representatives
from their States secured the introduction of a clause into the
Constitution which delayed for twenty years the execution of the will
of the country against the African slave-trade. It is said that a slave
imported from Africa paid for himself in a single year in the production
of rice. There were thus a few planters in Georgia and the Carolinas
who had an obvious interest in the prolongation of the institution of
slavery and who had influence enough, to secure constitutional
recognition for both slavery and the slave-trade.
The principles involved were not seriously debated. In theory all were
abolitionists; in practice slavery extended to all the States. In some,
actual abolition was comparatively easy; in others, it was difficult. By
the end of the first quarter of the nineteenth century, actual abolition
had extended to the line separating Pennsylvania from Maryland. Of
the original thirteen States seven became free and six remained slave.
The absence of ardent or prolonged debate upon this issue in the early
history of the United States is easily accounted for. No principle of
importance was drawn into the controversy; few presumed to defend
slavery as a just or righteous institution. As to conduct, each individual,
each neighborhood enjoyed the freedom of a large, roomy country.
Even within state lines there was liberty enough. No keen sense of
responsibility for a uniform state policy existed. It was therefore not
difficult for those who were growing wealthy by the use of imported
negroes to