free men of color a few years since by our amended Constitution"?1 Strangely, he forgets also an important passage of history, being nothing less than the point-blank refusal of the Continental Congress to insert the word “white” in the Articles of Confederation. The question came up June 25, 1778, on these words: "The Free Inhabitants of each of these States (paupers, vagabonds, and fugitives from justice excepted) shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of free citizens in the several States." The delegates from South Carolina, acting in the spirit of the Dred Scott decision, moved, in behalf of their State, to limit this guaranty to "free white inhabitants." On the question of inserting the word "white," eleven States voted, two in favor of the insertion, one was divided, and eight were against it. South Carolina, not disheartened, made another attempt, by moving to add, after the words "the several States," the further clause, "according to the law of such States respectively for the government of their own free white inhabitants," thus seeking again to limit the operation of this guaranty. This proposition was also voted down by the same decisive majority of eight to three.2 Such was the authoritative testimony of our fathers. And in harmony with this action was the Resolution for the Temporary Government of the Western Territory "ceded or to be ceded by individual States to the United States," dated April 23, 1784, and drawn by Jefferson, and also the famous Ordinance for the Government of the Northwestern Territory, drawn by Nathan Dane, of Massachusetts, adopted by the Con 1 State v. Manuel, 4 Devereux & Battle, R., 25. 2 Journals of Congress, Vol. III. p. 503; Vol. IV. pp. 379, 380. federation July 13, 1787, in both of which the voters were without distinction of color. Still more incomprehensible is the assertion of the Chief Justice, when we glance at the political literature of our country. Not only in Massachusetts, but elsewhere, the "axiom" of the Chief Justice, "which no one thought of disputing, or supposed to be open to dispute," was denied. Nobody did this in more energetic terms than General Oglethorpe, the founder of Georgia, who, in a letter to Granville Sharp, wrote, under date of October 13, 1776: "My friends and I settled the colony of Georgia, and by charter were established trustees, to make laws, &c. We determined. not to suffer Slavery there... We would not suf fer Slavery (which is against the Gospel, as well as the fundamental law of England) to be authorized under our authority; we refused, as trustees, to make a law permitting such a horrid crime." In the same spirit, John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, who had witnessed the workings of Slavery on our continent and in the West Indies, declared "American Slavery the vilest that ever saw the sun," and the "execrable sum of all villanies." "Men-buyers" he stigmatizes as "exactly on a level with men-stealers," the slaveholder as "partaker with a thief, and not a jot honester," and the means whereby slaves are procured as "nothing near so innocent as picking of pockets, housebreaking, or robbery upon the highway." 2 So also spoke James Otis, in his famous pamphlet entitled "The Rights of the British Colonists Asserted 1 Hoare's Memoirs of Granville Sharp (London, 1820), p. 157. 2 Letter to a Friend, February 26, 1791; Journal, February 12, 1772; Thoughts upon Slavery, V. 5: Works (New York, 1856), Vol. VII. p. 237; Vol. IV. p. 366; Vol. VI. p. 292. and Proved," first published in 1764, and reprinted in London, when he said: "The Colonists are, by the Law of Nature, free-born, as, indeed, all men are, white or black. . . . . Does it follow that it is right to enslave a man because he is black? Will short curled hair, like wool, instead of Christian hair, as it is called by those whose hearts are as hard as the nether millstone, help the argument? Can any logical inference in favor of Slavery be drawn from a flat nose, a long or a short face?" And so spoke Benjamin Rush, the patriot physician of Philadelphia, in "An Address to the Inhabitants of the British Settlements on the Slavery of the Negroes in America," where Slavery is exhibited as "repugnant to the genius of Christianity" and inconsistent with "the justice and goodness of the Supreme Being," and "a Christian slave" is called "a contradiction in terms."2 To these testimonies add the familiar words of statesmen, especially of Patrick Henry, “It is a debt that we owe to the purity of our religion, to show that it is at variance with that law that warrants Slavery," - and of Jefferson, in that memorable utterance, prompted by Slavery, "I tremble for my country, when I reflect that God is just, that His justice cannot sleep forever."4 All these sayings, directly repellent to the allegation of the Chief Justice, have often been cited in public speech, and most of them appear in a work entitled "Slavery and Antislavery," by that devoted Abolitionist, William Goodell, published several years before the opinion of the Chief Justice. 3 1 Rights of the British Colonies, p. 43. 2 Address (Philadelphia, 1773, 2d edit.), with a Vindication of the same, pp. 8, 15, 52. 3 Letter to Robert Pleasants, January 18, 1773: Goodell's Slavery and Antislavery, p. 70, note. 4 Notes on Virginia, Query XVIII. Forgetting laws, judicial decisions, history, and political literature, it was easy for the Chief Justice to forget how the religious sects of the country testified for the rights of the African, sometimes by individuals, and sometimes by corporate acts. Here the Quakers took the lead. As far back as 1688, a small body of German Quakers at Germantown, Pennsylvania, presented a protest to the Yearly Meeting against "buying, selling, and holding men in slavery," which was followed in 1696 by formal advice from this body that the members should "be careful not to encourage the bringing in of any more negroes, and that such that have negroes be careful of them."2 One of their number, George Keith, denounced Slavery with especial vigor, as "contrary to the religion of Christ, the rights of man, and sound reason and policy." At the beginning of the last century the Quakers of New England were agitated. In 1716, they sent forth a declaration from Nantucket, that "it is not agreeable to truth for Friends to purchase slaves and keep them term of life;" and in 1730, Elihu Coleman, of Nantucket, wrote a tract in reprobation of Slavery as "antiChristian," and "very opposite both to Grace and Nature." 5 In 1729, at Philadelphia, Ralph Sandiford exposed it in a pamphlet entitled "The Mystery of Iniquity"; and in 1737, Benjamin Lay gave to the 1 Clarkson, History of the Abolition of the African Slave-Trade (Philadelphia, 1808), Ch. V., Vol. I. p. 112. 2 Brief Statement of the Rise and Progress of the Testimony of the Religious Society of Friends against Slavery and the Slave-Trade (Philadelphia, 1843), p. 8. 8 Notices of Negro Slavery as connected with Pennsylvania, by Edward Bettle: Mem. Hist. Soc. Penn., Vol. I. pp. 366, 367. 4 Brief Statement, p. 43. 5 A Testimony against that Anti-Christian Practice of making Slaves of Men Macy's History of Nantucket, p. 279. world his work with the expressive title, "All SlaveKeepers, that keep the Innocent in Bondage, Apostates," and this was printed by Benjamin Franklin.1 Then came the extraordinary labors of John Woolman, who, from 1746 to 1768, travelled through the Middle and Southern Colonies, an avowed Abolitionist, testifying against Slavery, and of Anthony Benezet, who, by various writings, and by gratuitous instruction of negroes at an evening school, showed his sense of their common humanity. Meanwhile at their Yearly Meetings Slavery was condemned. In 1754, there was a recommendation "to advise and deal with such as engage" in the traffic, with the declared desire to guard against "promoting the bondage of such unhappy people."2 In 1776, it was declared "that the owners of slaves who refused to execute proper instruments for giving them their freedom were to be disowned." 3 There are also reports of meetings, — in Rhode Island, in 1717, 1727, 1760, 1769, and thence, nearly every year, to 1787,-in New York, previous to 1759, and in 1767, 1771, 1772, 1774, 1775, 1776, 1777, 1781, 1782, 1784, 1785, 1787,-and in Virginia, in 1757, 1764, 1766, 1767, 1768, 1773, 1780, and thence annually, with but one intermission, to 1787, where the rights of the African were recognized, and in most of them Slavery was condemned. The meeting of 1782, in Rhode Island, spoke of "that iniquitous practice of holding or dealing with mankind as slaves." The meeting of 1776, in New York, re 5 1 Memoirs of Benjamin Lay and Ralph Sandiford, by Roberts Vaux, pp. 29, 64. Goodell, Slavery and Antislavery, p. 40. 2 Clarkson, Vol. I. p. 113. Brief Statement, p. 17. 3 Clarkson, Vol. I. p. 119. 5 Ibid., p. 47. |