Chapter XXIX…

Chapter XXIX

THE NEGRO INTELLECT.--BANNEKER THE ASTRONOMER.[611].--FULLER THE MATHEMATICIAN.--DERHAM THE PHYSICIAN.

STATUTORY PROHIBITION AGAINST THE EDUCATION OF NEGROES.--BENJAMIN BANNEKER, THE NEGRO ASTRONOMER AND PHILOSOPHER.--HIS ANTECEDENTS.--YOUNG BANNEKER AS A FARMER AND INVENTOR.--THE MILLS OF ELLICOTT & Co.--BANNEKER CULTIVATES HIS MECHANICAL GENIUS AND MATHEMATICAL TASTES.--BANNEKER'S FIRST CALCULATION OF AN ECLIPSE SUBMITTED FOR INSPECTION IN 1789.--HIS LETTER TO MR. ELLICOTT.--THE TESTIMONY OF A PERSONAL ACQUAINTANCE OF BANNEKER AS TO HIS UPRIGHT CHARACTER.--HIS HOME BECOMES A PLACE OF INTEREST TO VISITORS.--RECORD OF HIS BUSINESS TRANSACTIONS.--MRS MASON'S VISIT TO HIM.--SHE ADDRESSES HIM IN VERSE.--BANNEKER REPLIES BY LETTER TO HER.--PREPARES HIS FIRST ALMANAC FOR PUBLICATION IN 1792.--TITLE OF HIS ALMANAC.--BANNEKER'S LETTER TO THOMAS JEFFERSON.--THOMAS JEFFERSON'S REPLY.--BANNEKER INVITED TO ACCOMPANY THE COMMISSIONERS TO RUN THE LINES OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.--BANNEKER'S HABITS OF STUDYING THE HEAVENLY BODIES.--MINUTE DESCRIPTION GIVEN TO HIS SISTERS IN REFERENCE TO THE DISPOSITION OF HIS PERSONAL PROPERTY AFTER DEATH..--HIS DEATH..--REGARDED AS THE MOST DISTINGUISHED NEGRO OF HIS TIME.--FULLER THE MATHEMATICIAN, OR "THE VIRGINIA CALCULATOR".--FULLER OF AFRICAN BIRTH, BUT STOLEN AND SOLD AS A SLAVE INTO VIRGINIA.--VISITED BY MEN OF LEARNING.--HE WAS PRONOUNCED TO BE A PRODIGY IN THE MANIPULATION OF FIGURES.--HIS DEATH.--DERHAM THE PHYSICIAN.--SCIENCE OF MEDICINE REGARDED AS THE MOST INTRICATE PURSUIT OF MAN.--DAILY LIFE OF JAMES DERHAM.--HIS KNOWLEDGE OF MEDICINES, HOW ACQUIRED.--HE BECOMES A PROMINENT PHYSICIAN IN NEW ORLEANS.--DR. RUSH GIVES AN ACCOUNT OF AN INTERVIEW WITH HIM.--WHAT THE NEGRO RACE PRODUCED BY THEIR GENIUS IN AMERICA.

From the moment slavery gained a foothold in North America until the direful hour that witnessed its dissolution amid the shock of embattled arms, learning was the forbidden fruit that no Negro dared taste. Positive and explicit statutes everywhere, as fiery swords, drove him away hungry from the tree of intellectual life; and all persons were forbidden to pluck the fruit for him, upon pain of severe penalties. Every yearning for intellectual food was answered by whips and thumb-screws.

But, notwithstanding the state of almost instinctive ignorance in which slavery held the Negro, there were those who occasionally astounded the world with the brightness of their intellectual genius. There were some Negroes whose minds ran the gauntlet of public proscription on one side and repressive laws on the other, and safely gained eminence in astronomy, mathematics, and medicine.

BANNEKER THE ASTRONOMER.

BENJAMIN BANNEKER, the Negro astronomer and philosopher, was born in Maryland, on the 9th of November, 1731. His maternal grandmother was a white woman, a native of England, named Molly Welsh. She came to Maryland in a shipload of white emigrants, who, according to the custom of those days, were sold to pay their passage. She served her master faithfully for seven years, when, being free, she purchased a small farm, at a nominal price. Soon after she bought two Negro slaves from a ship that had come into the Chesapeake Bay, and began life anew. Both of these Negroes proved to be men of more than ordinary fidelity, industry, and intelligence. One of them, it was said, was the son of an African king. She gave him his freedom, and then married him. His name was Banneker.[612] Four children were the fruit of this union; but the chief interest centres in only one,--a girl, named Mary. Following the example of her mother, she also married a native of Africa: but both tradition and history preserve an unbroken silence respecting his life, with the single exception that, embracing the Christian religion, he was baptized "Robert Banneker;" and the record of his death is thus preserved, in the family Bible: "Robert Banneker departed this life, July 'ye 10th 1759." Thus it is evident that he took his wife's surname. Benjamin Banneker was the only child of Robert and Mary Banneker.

Young Benjamin was a great favorite with his grandmother, who taught him to read. She had a sincere love of the Sacred Scriptures, which she did not neglect to inculcate into the youthful heart of her grandson. In the neighborhood,--at that time an almost desolate spot,--a school was conducted where the master admitted several Colored children, with the whites, to the benefits of his instructions. It was a "pay school," and thither young Banneker was sent at a very tender age. His application to his studies was equalled by none. When the other pupils were playing, he found great pleasure in his books. How long he remained in school, is not known.

His father purchased a farm of one Richard Gist, and here he spent the remnant of his days.

When young Banneker had obtained his majority, he gave attention to the various interests of farm-life. He was industrious, intelligent in his labors, scrupulously neat in the management of his grounds, cultivated a valuable garden, was gentle in his treatment of stock,--horses, cows, etc.,--and was indeed comfortably situated. During those seasons of leisure which come to agriculturists, he stored his mind with useful knowledge. Starting with the Bible, he read history, biography, travels, romance, and such works on general literature as he was able to borrow. His mind seemed to turn with especial satisfaction to mathematics, and he acquainted himself with the most difficult problems.

He had a taste also for mechanics. He conceived the idea of making a timepiece, a clock, and about the year 1770 constructed one. With his imperfect tools, and with no other model than a borrowed watch, it had cost him long and patient labor to perfect it, to make the variation necessary to cause it to strike the hours, and produce a concert of correct action between the hour, the minute, and the second machinery. He confessed that its regularity in pointing out the progress of time had amply rewarded all his pains in its construction.[613]

In 1773 Ellicott & Co. built flour-mills in a valley near the banks of the Patapsco River. Banneker watched the mills go up; and, when the machinery was set in motion, looked on with interest, as he had a splendid opportunity of observing new principles of mechanism. He made many visits to the mills, and became acquainted with their proprietors; and, till the day of his death, he found in the Ellicotts kind and helpful friends.

After a short time the Ellicotts erected a store, where, a little later, a post-office, was opened. To this point the farmers and gentlemen, for miles around, used to congregate. Banneker often called at the post-office, where, after overcoming his natural modesty and diffidence, he was frequently called out in conversations covering a variety of topics. His conversational powers, his inexhaustible fund of information, and his broad learning (for those times and considering his circumstances), made him the connoisseur of that section. At times he related, in modest terms, the difficulties he was constrained to encounter in order to acquire the knowledge of books he had, and the unsatisfied longings he still had for further knowledge. His fame as a mathematician was already established, and with the increasing facilities of communication his accomplishments and achievements were occupying the thought of many intelligent people.

"By this time he had become very expert in the solution of difficult mathematical problems, which were then, more than in this century, the amusement of persons of leisure, and they were frequently sent to him from scholars residing in different parts of our country who wished to test his capacity. He is reported to have been successful in every case, and, sometimes, he returned with his answers, questions of his own composition conveyed in rhyme."

The following question was propounded to Mr. George Ellicott, and was solved by Benjamin Hallowell of Alexandria.

"A Cooper and Vintner sat down for a talk, Both being so groggy, that neither could walk, Says Cooper to Vintner, 'I'm the first of my trade, There's no kind of vessel, but what I have made, And of any shape, Sir,--just what you will,-- And of any size, Sir,--from a ton to a gill!' 'Then,' says the Vintner, 'you're the man for me,-- Make me a vessel, if we can agree. The top and the bottom diameter define, To bear that proportion as fifteen to nine; Thirty-five inches are just what I crave, No more and no less, in the depth, will I have; Just thirty-nine gallons this vessel must hold,-- Then I will reward you with silver or gold,-- Give me your promise, my honest old friend?' 'I'll make it to-morrow, that you may depend!' So the next day the Cooper his work to discharge, Soon made the new vessel, but made it too large:-- He took out some staves, which made it too small, And then cursed the vessel, the Vintner and all. He beat on his breast, 'By the Powers!'--he swore, He never would work at his trade any more! Now my worthy friend, find out, if you can, The vessel's dimensions and comfort the man!

"BENJAMIN BANNEKER."

The greater diameter of Banneker's tub must be 24.746 inches; the less diameter, 14.8476 inches.

He was described by a gentleman who had often met him at Ellicott's Mills as "of black complexion, medium stature, of uncommonly soft and gentlemanly manners and of pleasing colloquial powers."

Fortunately Mr. George Ellicott was a gentleman of exquisite literary taste and critical judgment. He discovered in Banneker the elements of a cultivated gentleman and profound scholar. He threw open his library to this remarkable Negro, loaded him with books and astronomical instruments, and gave him the emphatic assurance of sympathy and encouragement. He occasionally made Banneker a visit, when he would urge upon him the importance of making astronomical calculations for almanacs. Finally, in the spring of 1789, Banneker submitted to Mr. Ellicott his first projection of an eclipse. It was found to contain a slight error; and, having kindly pointed it out, Mr. Ellicott received the following reply from Banneker:--

LETTER OF BENJAMIN BANNEKER TO GEORGE ELLICOTT.

"Sir,--I received your letter at the hand of Bell but found nothing strange to me In the Letter Concerning the number of Eclipses, the according to authors the Edge of the penumber only touches the Suns Limb in that Eclips, that I left out of the Number--which happens April 14th day, at 37 minutes past 7 o'clock in the morning, and is the first we shall have; but since you wrote to me, I drew in the Equations of the Node which will cause a small Solar Defet, but as I did not intend to publish, I was not so very peticular as I should have been, but was more intent upon the true method of projecting; a Solar Eclips--It is an easy matter for us when a Diagram is laid down before us, to draw one in resemblance of it, but it is a hard matter for young Tyroes in Astronomy, when only the Elements for the projection is laid down before him to draw his diagram with any degree of Certainty.

"Says the Learned LEADBETTER, the projection, I shall here describe, is that mentioned by Mr. Flamsted. When the sun is in Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio or, Sagitary, the Axes of the Globe must lie to the right hand of the Axes of the Ecliptic, but when the sun is in Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces, Aries, Taurus, or Gemini, then to the left.

"Says the wise author FERGUSON, when the sun is in Capercorn, Aquarius, Pisces, Aries, Taurus, and Gemeni, the Northern half of the Earths Axes lies to the right hand of the Axes of the Ecliptic and to the left hand, whilst the Sun is on the other six signs.

"Now Mr. Ellicott, two such learned gentlemen as the above mentioned, one in direct opposition to the other, stagnates young beginners, but I hope the stagnation will not be of long duration, for this I observe that Leadbetter counts the time on the path of Vertex 1, 2, 3 &c. from the right to the left hand or from the consequent to the antecedent,--But Ferguson on the path of Vertex counts the time 1, 2, 3 &c. from the left to the right hand, according to the order of numbers, so that that is regular, shall compensate for irregularity. Now sir if I can overcome this difficulty I doubt not being able to calculate a Common Almanac--Sir no more

"But remain your faithful friend, "B. BANNEKER.

"Mr. GEORGE ELLICOTT, Oct. 13th, 1789."

His mother, an active, intelligent, slight-built Mulatto, with long black hair, had exercised a tender but positive influence over him. His character, so far as is known, was without blemish, with the single exception of an occasional use of ardent spirits. He found himself conforming too frequently to the universal habit of the times, social drinking. Liquors and wines were upon the tables and sideboards of the best families, and wherever Banneker went it confronted him. He felt his weakness in this regard, and resolved to abstain from the use of strong drink. Some time after returning from a visit to Washington, in company with the commissioners who laid out the District of Columbia, he related to his friends that during the entire absence from home he had abstained from the use of liquors; adding, "I feared to trust myself even with wine, lest it should steal away the little sense I have." On a leaf of one of his almanacs, appears the following in his own handwriting:--

"Evil communications corrupt good manners, I hope to live to hear, that good communication corrects 'bad manners.'"

He had a just appreciation of his own strength. He hated vice of every kind; and, while he did not connect himself to any church, he was deeply attached to the Society of Friends. He was frequently seen in their meeting-house. He usually occupied the rear bench, where he would sit with uncovered head, leaning upon his staff, wrapt in profound meditation. The following letter addressed to Mr. J. Saurin Norris shows that his character was upright:--

"In the year 1800, I commenced my engagements in the store of Ellicott's Mills, where my first acquaintance with Benjamin Banneker began. He often came to the store to purchase articles for his own use; and, after hearing him converse, I was always anxious to wait upon him. After making his purchases, he usually went to the part of the store where George Ellicott was in the habit of sitting to converse with him about the affairs of our Government and other matters. He was very precise in conversation and exhibited deep reflection. His deportment whenever I saw him, appeared to be perfectly upright and correct, and he seemed to be acquainted with every thing of importance that was passing in the country.

"I recollect to have seen his Almanacs in my father's house, and believe they were the only ones used in the neighborhood at the time. He was a large man inclined to be fleshy, and was far advanced in years, when I first saw him, I remember being once at his house, but do not recollect any thing about the comforts of his establishment, nor of the old clock, about which you enquired. He was fond of, and well qualified, to work out abstruse questions in arithmetic. I remember, he brought to the store, one which he had composed himself, and presented to George Ellicott for solution. I had a copy which I have since lost; but the character and deportment of the man being so wholly different from any thing I had ever seen from one of his color, his question made so deep an impression on my mind I have ever since retained a perfect recollection of it, except two lines, which do not alter the sense. I remember that George Ellicott, was engaged in making out the answer, and cannot now say that he succeeded, but have no doubt he did. I have thus, briefly given you my recollections of Benjamin Banneker. I was young when he died, and doubtless many incidents respecting him, have, from the time which has since elapsed, passed from my recollection:

"CHARLES W. DORSEY, of Elkridge."

After the death of his mother, Banneker dwelt alone until the day of his death, having never married, his manners were gentle and engaging, his benevolence proverbial. His home became a place of great interest to visitors, whom he always received cordially, and treated hospitably all who called.

"We found the venerable star-gazer," says the author of the Memoir of Susanna Mason, "under a wide spreading pear tree, leaden with delicious fruit; he came forward to meet us, and bade us welcome to his lowly dwelling. It was built of logs, one story in height, and was surrounded by an orchard. In one corner of the room, was suspended a clock of his own construction, which was a true hearald of departing hours. He was careful in the little affairs of life as well as in the great matters. He kept record of all his business transactions, literary and domestic. The following extracts from his Account Book exhibit his love for detail.

"'Sold on the 2nd of April, 1795, to Buttler, Edwards & Kiddy, the right of an Almanac, for the year 1796, for the sum of 80 dollars, equal to L30.

"'On the 30th of April, 1795, lent John Ford five dollars. L1 17s. 6d.

"'12th of December, 1797, bought a pound of candles at 1s. 8d.

"'Sold to John Collins 2 qts. of dried peaches 6d. "1 qt. mead 4d.

"'On the 26th of March, came Joshua Sanks with 3 or 4 bushels of turnips to feed the cows.

"'13th of April, 1803, planted beans and sowed cabbage seed.'

"He took down from a shelf a little book, wherein he registered the names of those, by whose visits he felt particularly honored, and recorded my mother's name upon the list; he then, diffidently, but very respectfully, requested her acceptance of one of his Almanacs in manuscript."

Within a few days after this visit Mrs. Mason addressed him in a poetical letter, which found its way into the papers of the section, and was generally read. The subjoined portions are sufficient to exhibit the character of the effusion. The admonitory lines at the end doubtless refer to his early addiction to strong drink.

"An Address to BENJAMIN BANNEKER, an African Astronomer, who presented the Author with a Manuscript Almanac in 1796."

"Transmitted on the wings of Fame, Thine eclat sounding with thy name, Well pleased, I heard, ere 'twas my lot To see thee in thy humble cot. That genius smiled upon thy birth, And application called it forth; That times and tides thou could'st presage, And traverse the Celestial stage, Where shining globes their circles run, In swift rotation round the sun; Could'st tell how planets in their way, From order ne'er were known to stray. Sun, moon and stars, when they will rise, When sink below the upper skies, When an eclipse shall veil their light, And hide their splendor from our sight. . . . . . . . . . Some men whom private walks pursue, Whom fame ne'er ushered into view, May run their race, and few observe To right or left, if they should swerve, Their blemishes would not appear, Beyond their lives a single year.-- But thou, a man exalted high, Conspicuous in the world's keen eye, On record now, thy name's enrolled, And future ages will be told,-- There lived a man named BANNEKER, An African Astronomer!-- Thou need'st to have a special care, Thy conduct with thy talent square, That no contaminating vice, Obscure thy lustre in our eyes."

During the following year Banneker sent the following letter to his good friend Mrs. Mason:--

"August 26th, 1797.

"DEAR FEMALE FRIEND:--

"I have thought of you every day since I saw you last, and of my promise in respect of composing some verses for your amusement, but I am very much indisposed, and have been ever since that time. I have a constant pain in my head, a palpitation in my flesh, and I may say I am attended with a complication of disorders, at this present writing, so that I cannot with any pleasure or delight, gratify your curiosity in that particular, at this present time, yet I say my will is good to oblige you, if I had it in my power, because you gave me good advice, and edifying language, in that piece of poetry which you was pleased to present unto me, and I can but love and thank you for the same; and if ever it should be in my power to be serviceable to you, in any measure, your reasonable requests, shall be armed with the obedience of,

"Your sincere friend and well-wisher, "BENJAMIN BANNEKER.

"MRS. SUSANNA MASON.

"N.B. The above is mean writing, done with trembling hands. B.B."

With the use of Mayer's Tables, Ferguson's Astronomy, and Leadbeater's Lunar Tables, Banneker had made wonderful progress in his astronomical investigations. He prepared his first almanac for publication in 1792. Mr. James McHenry became deeply interested in him, and, convinced of his talent in this direction, wrote a letter to the firm of Goddard & Angell, publishers of almanacs, in Baltimore. They became the sole publishers of Banneker's almanacs till the time of his death. In an editorial note in the first almanac, they say,--

"They feel gratified in the opportunity of presenting to the public, through their press, what must be considered as an extraordinary effort of genius; a complete and accurate Ephemeris for the year 1792, calculated by a sable descendant of Africa," etc.

And they further say,--

"That they flatter themselves that a philanthropic public, in this enlightened era, will be induced to give their patronage and support to this work, not only on account of its intrinsic merits, (it having met the approbation of several of the most distinguished astronomers of America, particularly the celebrated Mr. Rittenhouse,) but from similar motives to those which induced the editors to give this calculation the preference,--the ardent desire of drawing modest merit from obscurity, and controverting the long-established illiberal prejudice against the blacks."

The title of his almanac is given below as a matter of historic interest.

"Benjamin Banneker's Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia, and Maryland Almanac and Ephemeris, for the year of our Lord 1792, being Bissextile or leap year, and the sixteenth year of American Independence, which commenced July 4, 1776; containing the motions of the Sun and Moon, the true places and aspects of the Planets, the rising and setting of the Sun, and the rising, setting, and southing, place and age of the Moon, &c. The Lunations, Conjunctions, Eclipses, Judgment of the Weather, Festivals, and remarkable days."

He had evidently read Mr. Jefferson's Notes on Virginia; and touched by the humane sentiment there exhibited, as well as saddened by the doubt expressed respecting the intellect of the Negro, Banneker sent him a copy of his first almanac, accompanied by a letter which pleaded the cause of his race, and in itself, was a refutation of the charge that the Negro had no intellectual outcome.

"MARYLAND, BALTIMORE COUNTY, August 19, 1791.

"SIR,

"I am fully sensible of the greatness of the freedom I take with you on the present occasion; a liberty which seemed scarcely allowable, when I reflected on that distinguished and dignified station in which you stand, and the almost general prejudice which is so prevalent in the world against those of my complexion.

"It is a truth too well attested, to need a proof here, that we are a race of beings, who have long laboured under the abuse and censure of the world; that we have long been looked upon with an eye of contempt; and considered rather as brutish than human, and scarcely capable of mental endowments.

"I hope I may safely admit, in consequence of the report which has reached me, that you are a man far less inflexible in sentiments of this nature, than many others, that you are measurably friendly and well disposed towards us; and that you are willing to lend your aid and assistance for our relief from those many distresses, and numerous calamities, to which we are reduced.

"If this is founded in truth, I apprehend you will embrace every opportunity to eradicate that train of absurd and false ideas and opinions, which so generally prevail with respect to us: and that your sentiments are concurrent with mine, which are, that one universal Father hath given being to us all; that He hath not only made us all of one flesh, but that He hath also, without partiality, afforded us all the same sensations, and endowed us all with the same faculties; and that however variable we may be in society or religion, however diversified in situation or in colour, we are all of the same family, and stand in the same relation to Him.

"If these are sentiments of which you are fully persuaded, you cannot but acknowledge, that it is the indispensable duty of those, who maintain for themselves the rights of human nature, and who profess the obligations of Christianity, to extend their powers and influence to the relief of every part of the human race, from whatever burden or oppression they may unjustly labour under: and this, I apprehend, a full conviction of the truth and obligation of these principles should lead all to.

"I have long been convinced, that if your love for yourselves, and for those inestimable laws which preserved to you the rights of human nature, was founded on sincerity you could not but be solicitous, that every individual, of whatever rank or distinction, might with you equally enjoy the blessings thereof; neither could you rest satisfied short of the most active effusion of your exertions, in order to their promotion from any state of degradation, to which the unjustifiable cruelty and barbarism of men may have reduced them.

"I freely and cheerfully acknowledge, that I am of the African race, and in that colour which is natural to them, of the deepest dye; and it is under a sense of the most profound gratitude to the Supreme Ruler of the Universe, that I now confess to you, that I am not under that state of tyrannical thraldom, and inhuman captivity, to which too many of my brethren are doomed, but that I have abundantly tasted of the fruition of those blessings, which proceed from that free and unequalled liberty with which you are favoured; and which I hope you will willingly allow you have mercifully received, from the immediate hand of that Being from whom proceedeth every good and perfect gift.

"Suffer me to recall to your mind that time, in which the arms of the British crown were exerted, with every powerful effort, in order to reduce you to a state of servitude: look back, I entreat you, on the variety of dangers to which you were exposed; reflect on that period in which every human aid appeared unavailable, and in which even hope and fortitude wore the aspect of inability to the conflict, and you cannot but be led to a serious and grateful sense of your miraculous and providential preservation; you cannot but acknowledge, that the present freedom and tranquility which you enjoy, you have mercifully received, and that it is the peculiar blessing of heaven.

"This, Sir, was a time when you cleary saw into the injustice of a state of Slavery, and in which you had just apprehensions of the horrors of its condition. It was then that your abhorrence thereof was so excited, that you publicly held forth this true and invaluable doctrine, which is worthy to be recorded and remembered in all succeeding ages: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, and that among these are, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.'

"Here, was a time in which your tender feelings for yourselves had engaged you thus to declare; you were then impressed with proper ideas of the great violation of liberty, and the free possession of those blessings, to which you were entitled by nature; but, sir, how pitiable is it to reflect, that although you were so fully convinced of the benevolence of the Father of Mankind, and of his equal and impartial distribution of these rights and privileges which he hath conferred upon them, that you should at the same time counteract his mercies, in detaining by fraud and violence, so numerous a part of my brethren under groaning captivity and cruel oppression, that you should at the same time be found guilty of that most criminal act, which you professedly detested in others, with respect to yourselves.

"Your knowledge of the situation of my brethren is too extensive to need a recital here; neither shall I presume to prescribe methods by which they may be relieved, otherwise than by recommending to you and all others, to wean yourselves from those narrow prejudices which you have imbibed with respect to them, and as Job proposed to his friends, 'put your soul in their soul's stead;' thus shall your hearts be enlarged with kindness and benevolence towards them; and thus shall you need neither the direction of myself or others in what manner to proceed herein.

"And now, sir, although my sympathy and affection for my brethren hath caused my enlargement thus far, I ardently hope, that your candour and generosity will plead with you in my behalf, when I state that it was not originally my design; but having taken up my pen in order to present a copy of an almanac which I have calculated for the succeeding year, I was unexpectedly led thereto.

"This calculation is the production of my arduous study, in my advanced stage of life: for having long had unbounded desires to become acquainted with the secrets of nature, I have had to gratify my curiosity herein through my own assiduous application to astronomical study, in which I need not recount to you the many difficulties and disadvantages which I have had to encounter.

"And although I had almost declined to make my calculation for the ensuing year, in consequence of the time which I had allotted for it being taken up at the federal territory, by the request of Mr. Andrew Ellicott, yet I industriously applied myself thereto, and hope I have accomplished it with correctness and accuracy. I have taken the liberty to direct a copy to you, which I humbly request you will favourably receive; and although you may have the opportunity of perusing it after its publication, yet I desire to send it to you in manuscript previous thereto, that thereby you might not only have an earlier inspection, but that you might also view it in my own handwriting.

"And now, sir, I shall conclude, and subscribe myself, with the most profound respect,

"Your most obedient humble servant, "BENJAMIN BANNEKER."

Mr. Jefferson, who was Secretary of State under President Washington, sent the great Negro the following courteous reply:--

"PHILADELPHIA, Aug. 30, 1791.

"SIR,--I thank you sincerely for your letter of the 19th instant, and for the almanac it contained. Nobody wishes more than I do to see such proofs as you exhibit, that Nature has given to our black brethren talents equal to those of the other colors of men, and that the appearance of a want of them is owing only to the degraded condition of their existence, both in Africa and America. I can add, with truth, that no one wishes more ardently to see a good system commenced for raising the condition, both of their body and mind, to what it ought to be, as fast as the imbecility of their present existence, and other circumstances which cannot be neglected, will admit. I have taken the liberty of sending your almanac to Monsieur de Condorcet, Secretary of the Academy of Sciences, at Paris, and members of the Philanthropic Society, because I considered it a document to which your whole color had a right, for their justification against the doubts which have been entertained of them,

"I am, with great esteem, sir, "Your most obedient servant, "THO. JEFFERSON.

"MR. BENJAMIN BANNEKER, near Ellicott's

Lower Mills, Baltimore county."[614]

The only time Banneker was ever absent from his home any distance was when "the Commissioners to run the lines of the District of Columbia"--then known as the "Federal Territory"--invited him to accompany them upon their mission. Mr. Norris says:--

"Banneker's deportment throughout the whole of this engagement, secured their respect, and there is good authority for believing, that his endowments led the commissioners to overlook the color of his skin, to converse with him freely, and enjoy the clearness and originality of his remarks on various subjects. It is a fact, that they honored him with an invitation to a daily seat at their table; but this, with his usual modesty, he declined. They then ordered a side table laid for him, in the same apartment with themselves. On his return, he called to give an account of his engagements, at the house of one of his friends. He arrived on horseback, dressed in his usual costume;--full suit of drab cloth, surmounted by a broad brimmed beaver hat. He seemed to have been re-animated by the presence of the eminent men with whom he had mingled in the District, and gave a full account of their proceedings."

His habits of study were rather peculiar. At nightfall, wrapped in a great cloak, he would lie prostrate upon the ground, where he spent the night in contemplation of the heavenly bodies. At sunrise he would retire to his dwelling, where he spent a portion of the day in repose. But as he seemed to require less sleep than most people, he employed the hours of the afternoons in the cultivation of his garden, trimming of fruit-trees, or in observing the habits and flight of his bees. When his service and attention were not required out-doors, he busied himself with his books, papers, and mathematical instruments, at a large oval table in his house. The situation of Banneker's dwelling was one which would be admired by every lover of nature, and furnished a fine field for the observation of celestial phenomena. It was about half a mile from the Patapsco River, and commanded a prospect of the near and distant hills upon its banks, which have been so justly celebrated for their picturesque beauty. A never-failing spring issued from beneath a large golden-willow tree in the midst of his orchard.[615] The whole situation was charming, inspiring, and no doubt helped him in the solution of difficult problems.

There is no reliable data to enlighten us as to the day of his death; but it is the opinion of those who lived near him, and their descendants, that he died in the fall of 1804. It was a bright, beautiful day, and feeling unwell he walked out on the hills to enjoy the sunlight and air. During his walk he came across a neighbor, to whom he complained of being sick. They both returned to his house, where, after lying down upon his couch, he became speechless, and died peacefully. During a previous sickness he had charged his sisters, Minta Black and Molly Morten, that, so soon as he was dead, all the books, instruments, etc., which Mr. Ellicott had loaned him, should be taken back to the benevolent lender; and, as a token of his gratitude, all his manuscripts containing all his almanacs, his observations and writings on various subjects, his letter to Thomas Jefferson, and that gentleman's reply, etc., were given to Mr. Ellicott.[616] On the day of his death, faithful to the instructions of their brother, Banneker's sisters had all the articles moved to Mr. Ellicott's house; and their arrival was the first sad news of the astronomer's death. To the promptness of these girls in carrying out his orders is the gratitude of the friends of science due for the preservation of the results of Banneker's labors. During the performance of the last sad rites at the grave, two days after his death, his house was discovered to be on fire. It burnt so rapidly that it was impossible to save any thing: so his clock and other personal property perished in the flames. He had given to one of his sisters a feather-bed, upon which he had slept for many years; and she, fortunately and thoughtfully, removed it when he died, and prized it as the only memorial of her distinguished brother. Some years after, she had occasion to open the bed, when she discovered a purse of money--another illustration of his careful habits and frugality.

Benjamin Banneker was known favorably on two continents, and at the time of his death was the most intelligent and distinguished Negro in the United States.

FULLER THE MATHEMATICIAN.

One of the standing arguments against the Negro was, that he lacked the faculty of solving mathematical problems. This charge was made without a disposition to allow him an opportunity to submit himself to a proper test. It was equivalent to putting out a man's eyes, and then asserting boldly that he cannot see; of manacling his ankles, and charging him with the inability to run. But notwithstanding all the prohibitions against instructing the Negro, and his far remove from intellectual stimulants, the subject to whom attention is now called had within his own untutored intellect the elements of a great mathematician.

Thomas Fuller, familiarly known as the Virginia Calculator, was a native of Africa. At the age of fourteen he was stolen, and sold into slavery in Virginia, where he found himself the property of a planter residing about four miles from Alexandria. He did not understand the art of reading or writing, but by a marvellous faculty was able to perform the most difficult calculations. Dr. Benjamin Rush of Philadelphia, Penn., in a letter addressed to a gentleman residing in Manchester, Eng., says that hearing of the phenomenal mathematical powers of "Negro Tom," he, in company with other gentlemen passing through Virginia, sent for him. One of the gentlemen asked him how many seconds a man of seventy years, some odd months, weeks, and days, had lived, he gave the exact number in a minute and a half. The gentleman took a pen, and after some figuring told Tom he must be mistaken, as the number was too great." 'Top, massa!" exclaimed Tom, "you hab left out de leap-years!" And sure enough, on including the leap-years in the calculation, the number given by Tom was correct.

"He was visited by William Hartshorn and Samuel Coates," says Mr. Needles, "of this city (Philadelphia), and gave correct answers to all their questions such as, How many seconds there are in a year and a half? In two minutes he answered 47,304,000. How many seconds in seventy years, seventeen days, twelve hours? In one minute and a half, 2,110,500,800.[617]

That he was a prodigy, no one will question.[618] He was the wonder of the age. The following appeared in several newspapers at the time of his death:--

"DIED,--Negro Tom, the famous African calculator, aged 80 years. He was the property of Mrs. Elizabeth Cox, of Alexandria. Tom was a very black man. He was brought to this country at the age of fourteen, and was sold as a slave with many of his unfortunate countrymen. This man was a prodigy. Though he could neither read nor write, he had perfectly acquired the use of enumeration. He could give the number of months, days, weeks, hours, minutes, and seconds, for any period of time that a person chose to mention, allowing in his calculations for all the leap years that happened in the time. He would give the number of poles, yards, feet, inches, and barley-corns in a given distance--say, the diameter of the earth's orbit--and in every calculation he would produce the true answer in less time than ninety-nine out of a hundred men would take with their pens. And what was, perhaps, more extraordinary, though interrupted in the progress of his calculations, and engaged in discourse upon any other subject, his operations were not thereby in the least deranged; he would go on where he left off, and could give any and all of the stages through which the calculation had passed.

"Thus died Negro Tom, this untaught arithmetician, this untutored scholar. Had his opportunities of improvement been equal to those of thousands of his fellow-men, neither the Royal Society of London, the Academy of Science at Paris, nor even a Newton himself need have been ashamed to acknowledge him a brother in science."[619]

DERHAM THE PHYSICIAN.

Through all time the science of medicine has been regarded as ranking among the most intricate and delicate pursuits man could follow. Our Saviour was called "the Great Physician," and St. Luke "the beloved physician." No profession brings a man so near to humanity, and no other class of men have a higher social standing than those who are consecrated to the "art of healing." Such a position demands of a man not only profound research in the field of medicine, but the rarest intellectual and social gifts and accomplishments. For a Negro to gain such a position in the nineteenth century would require merit of unusual order. But in the eighteenth century, when slavery had cast its long, dark shadows over the entire life of the nation, for a Negro, born and reared a slave, to obtain fame in medicine second to none on the continent, was an achievement that justly challenged the admiration of the civilized world.

Dr. James Derham was born a slave in Philadelphia in 1762. His master was a physician. James was taught to read and write, and early rendered valuable assistance to his master in compounding medicines. Endowed with more than average intelligence, he took a great liking to the science of medicine, and absorbed all the information that came within his observation. On the death of his master he was sold to the surgeon of the Sixteenth British Regiment, at that time stationed in Philadelphia. At the close of the war he was sold to Dr. Robert Dove of New Orleans, a humane and intelligent man, who employed him as his assistant in a large business. He grew in a knowledge of his profession every day, was prompt and faithful in the discharge of the trusts reposed in him, and thereby gained the confidence of his master. Dr. Dove was so much pleased with him, that he offered him his freedom upon very easy terms, requiring only two or three years' service. At the end of the time designated, Dr. Derham entered into the practice of medicine upon his own account. He acquired the English, French, and Spanish languages so as to speak them fluently, and built up a practice in a short time worth three thousand dollars a year.[620] He married, and attached himself to the Episcopal Church, in 1788, and at twenty-six years of age was regarded as one of the most eminent physicians in New Orleans.

Dr. Rush of Philadelphia, in "The American Museum" for January, 1789, gave an interesting account of this distinguished "Negro physician." Says Dr. Rush,--

"I have conversed with him upon most of the acute and epidemic diseases of the country where he lives. I expected to have suggested some new medicines to him, but he suggested many more to me. He is very modest and engaging in his manners. He speaks French fluently, and has some knowledge of the Spanish."[621]

Phillis Wheatley has been mentioned already. So, in the midst of darkness and oppression, the Negro race in America, without the use of the Christian church, schoolhouse, or printing-press, produced a poetess, an astronomer, a mathematician, and a physician, who, had they been white, would have received monuments and grateful memorials at the hands of their countrymen. But even their color cannot rob them of the immortality their genius earned.

FOOTNOTES:

[611] William Wells Brown, William C Nell, and all the Colored men whose efforts I have seen, have made a number of very serious mistakes respecting Banneker's parentage, age, accomplishments, etc. He was of mixed blood. His mother's name was not Molly Morton, but one of his sisters bore that name.Return to passage

I have used the Memoirs of Banneker, prepared by J.H.B. Latrobe and J. Saurin Norris, and other valuable material from the Maryland Historical Society.

[612] In the most remote records the name was written Banneky.Return to passage

[613] J. Saurin Norris's sketch.Return to passage

[614] Jefferson's Works, vol. iii. p. 291.Return to passage

[615] See Norris, paper on Banneker.Return to passage

[616] All of Banneker's literary remains were published by J.H.B. Latrobe in the Maryland Historical Society, and in the Maryland Colonization Journal in 1845. The Memoir of Banneker was somewhat marred by a too precipitous and zealous attempt to preach the doctrine of colonization.Return to passage

[617] Needles's Hist. Memoir of the Penn. Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, p 32.Return to passage

[618] J.P. Brissot de Warville's Travels in the U.S., vol. i p. 243.Return to passage

[619] Columbian Centinal of Boston, Dec. 29, 1790.Return to passage

[620] Brissot de Warville's New Travels in the U.S., ed. 1794, vol. i. p. 242.Return to passage

[621] For an account of Fuller and Derham, see De la Litterature des Negres, ou Recherches sur leurs Facultes intellectuelles, leurs Qualites morales et leur Litterature; suivies de Notices sur la Vie et les Ouvrages des Negres qui se sont distingues dans les Sciences, les Lettres et les Arts. Par H. GREGOIRE, ancien Eveque de Blois, membre du Senat conservateur, de l'Institut national, de la Societe royale des Sciences de Goettingue, etc. Paris: MDCCCVIII.Return to passage

XXX. SLAVERY DURING THE REVOLUTION

1775-1783.

PROGRESS OF THE SLAVE-TRADE.--A GREAT WAR FOR THE EMANCIPATION OF THE COLONIES, FROM POLITICAL BONDAGE.--CONDITION OF THE SOUTHERN STATES DURING THE WAR.--THE VIRGINIA DECLARATION OF RIGHTS.--IMMEDIATE LEGISLATION AGAINST SLAVERY DEMANDED.--ADVERTISEMENT FROM "THE INDEPENDENT CHRONICLE."--PETITION OF MASSACHUSETTS STATES.--AN ACT PREVENTING THE PRACTICE OF HOLDING PERSONS IN SLAVERY.--ADVERTISEMENT FROM "THE CONTINENTAL JOURNAL."--A LAW PASSED IN VIRGINIA LIMITING THE RIGHTS OF SLAVES.--LAW DEMANDING ALL SLAVES WHO SERVED IN THE ARMY.--NEW YORK PROMISES HER NEGRO SOLDIERS FREEDOM.--A CONSCIENTIOUS MINORITY IN FAVOR OF THE ABOLITION OF THE SLAVE TRADE.--SLAVERY FLOURISHES DURING THE ENTIRE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD.

The thunder of the guns of the Revolution did not drown the voice of the auctioneer. The slave-trade went on. A great war for the emancipation of the colonies from the political bondage into which the British Parliament fain would precipitate them did not depreciate the market value of human flesh. Those whose hearts were not enlisted in the war skulked in the rear, and gloated over the blood-stained shekels they wrung from the domestic slave-trade. While the precarious condition of the Southern States during the war made legislation in support of the institution of slavery impolitic, there were, nevertheless, many severe laws in force during this entire period. In the New England and Middle States there was heard an occasional voice for the oppressed; but it was generally strangled at the earliest moment of its being by that hell-born child, avarice. On the 21st of September, 1776, William Gordon of Roxbury, Mass., wrote,--

The Virginians begin their Declaration of Rights with saying,'that _all _ men are born equally free and independent, and have certain inherent natural rights, of which they cannot, by any compact, deprive themselves or their posterity; among which are the enjoyment of life and liberty.' The Congress declare that they 'hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.' The Continent has rung with affirmations of the like import. If these, Gentlemen, are our genuine sentiments, and we are not provoking the Deity, by acting hypocritically to serve a turn, let us apply earnestly and heartily to the extirpation of slavery from among ourselves. Let the State allow of nothing beyond servitude for a stipulated number of years, and that only for seven or eight, when persons are of age, or till they are of age: and let the descendants of the Africans born among us, be viewed as free-born; and be wholly at their own disposal when one-and-twenty, the latter part of which age will compensate for the expense of infancy, education, and so on."

No one gave heed. Two months later, Nov. 14, there appeared in "The Independent Chronicle" of Boston a plan for gradual emancipation; and on the 28th of the same month, in the same paper there appeared a communication demanding specific and immediate legislation against slavery. But all seemed vain: there were few moral giants among the friends of "liberty for all;" and the comparative silence of the press and pulpit gave the advocates of human slavery an easy victory.

Boston, the home of Warren, and the city that witnessed the first holy offering to liberty, busied herself through all the perilous years of the war in buying and selling human beings. The following are but a few of the many advertisements that appeared in the papers of the city of Boston during the war:--[622]

From "The Independent Chronicle," Oct. 3, 1776:--

"To be SOLD A stout, hearty, likely NEGRO GIRL, fit for either Town or Country. Inquire of Mr. Andrew Gillespie, Dorchester, Octo., 1., 1776."

From the same, Oct. 10:--

"A hearty NEGRO MAN, with a small sum of Money to be given away."

From the same, Nov. 28:--

"To SELL--A Hearty likely NEGRO WENCH about 12 or 13 Years of Age, has had the Small Pox, can wash, iron, card, and spin, etc., for no other Fault but for want of Employ."

From the same, Feb. 27, 1777:--

"WANTED a NEGRO GIRL between 12 and 20 Years of Age, for which a good Price will be given, if she can be recommended."

From "The Continental Journal," April 3, 1777:--

"To be SOLD, a likely Negro Man, twenty-two years old, has had the small-pox, can do any sort of business; sold for want of employment."

To be SOLD, a large, commodious Dwelling House, Barn, and Out-houses, with any quantity of land from 1 to 50 acres, as the Purchaser shall choose within 5 miles of Boston. Also a smart well-tempered NEGRO BOY of 14 years old, not to go out of this State and sold for 15 years only, if he continues to behave well."

From "The Independent Chronicle," May 8, 1777:--

"To be SOLD, for want of employ, a likely strong NEGRO GIRL, about 18 years old, understands all sorts of household business, and can be well recommended."

The strange and trying vicissitudes through which the colonies had passed exposed their hypocrisy, revealed the weakness of their government, and forced them to another attempt at the extirpation of slavery. The valorous conduct of the Negro soldiers in the army had greatly encouraged their friends and emboldened their brethren, who still suffered from the curse of slavery. The latter were not silent when an opportunity presented to claim the rights they felt their due. On the 18th of March, 1777, the following petition was addressed, by the slaves in Boston, to the Legislature:--

"PETITION OF MASSACHUSETTS SLAVES.

"The petition of a great number of negroes, who are detained in a state of slavery in the very bowels of a free and Christian country, humbly showing,--

"That your petitioners apprehend that they have, in common with all other men, a natural and inalienable right to that freedom, which the great Parent of the universe hath bestowed equally on all mankind, and which they have never forfeited by any compact or agreement whatever. But they were unjustly dragged by the cruel hand of power from their dearest friends, and some of them even torn from the embraces of their tender parents,--from a populous, pleasant and plentiful country, and in violation of the laws of nature and of nations, and in defiance of all the tender feelings of humanity, brought hither to be sold like beasts of burthen, and, like them, condemned to slavery for life--among a people possessing the mild religion of Jesus--a people not insensible of the sweets of national freedom, nor without a spirit to resent the unjust endeavors of others to reduce them to a state of bondage and subjection.

"Your Honors need not to be informed that a life of slavery like that of your petitioners, deprived of every social privilege, of every thing requisite to render life even tolerable, is far worse than non-existence.

"In imitation of the laudable example of the good people of these States, your petitioners have long and patiently waited the event of petition after petition, by them presented to the legislative body of this State, and cannot but with grief reflect that their success has been but too similar.

"They cannot but express their astonishment that it has never been considered, that every principle from which America has acted, in the course of her unhappy difficulties with Great Britain, bears stronger than a thousand arguments in favor of your humble petitioners. They therefore humbly beseech Your Honors to give their petition its due weight and consideration, and cause an act of the legislature to be passed, whereby they may be restored to the enjoyment of that freedom, which is the natural right of all men, and their children (who were born in this land of liberty) may not be held as slaves after they arrive at the age of twenty-one years. So may the inhabitants of this State (no longer chargeable with the inconsistency of acting themselves the part which they condemn and oppose in others) be prospered in their glorious struggles for liberty, and have those blessings secured to them by Heaven, of which benevolent minds cannot wish to deprive their fellow men.

"And your petitioners, as in duty bound, shall ever pray:--

LANCASTER HILL, PETER BESS, BRISTER SLENFEN, PRINCE HALL, JACK PIERPONT, [his X mark.] NERO FUNELO, [his X mark.] NEWPORT SUMNER, [his X mark.]"

The following entry, bearing the same date, was made:--

"A petition of Lancaster Hill, and a number of other Negroes praying the Court to take into consideration their state of bondage, and pass an act whereby they may be restored to the enjoyment of that freedom which is the natural right of all men. Read and committed to Judge Sargent, Mr. Dalton, Mr. Appleton, Col. Brooks, and Mr. Story."

There is no record of the action of the committee, if any were ever had; but at the afternoon session of the Legislature, Monday, June 9, 1777, a bill was introduced to prevent "the Practice of holding persons in Slavery." It was "read a first time, and ordered to be read again on Friday next, at 10 o'clock A.M." Accordingly, on the 13th of June, the bill was "read a second time, and after Debate thereon, it was moved and seconded, That the same lie upon the Table, and that Application be made to Congress on the subject thereof; and the Question being put, it passed in the affirmative, and Mr. Speaker, Mr. Wendell, and Col. Orne, were appointed a Committee to prepare a letter to Congress accordingly, and report." The last action, as far as indicated by the journal, was had on Saturday, June 14, when "the Committee appointed to prepare a Letter to Congress, on the subject of the Bill for preventing the Practice of holding Persons in Slavery, reported." It was "Read and ordered to lie."[623] And so it did "lie," for that was the end of the matter.

Judge Sargent, who was chairman of the committee appointed on the 18th of March, 1777, was doubtless the author of the following bill:--

"STATE OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY. IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD, 1777.

"AN ACT for preventing the practice of holding persons in Slavery.

"WHEREAS, 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; wherefore, for preventing such a practice for the future, and establishing to every person residing within the State the invaluable blessing of liberty.

"Be it Enacted, by the Council and House of Representatives, in General Court assembled, and by the authority of the same,--That all persons, whether black or of other complexion, above 21 years of age, now held in Slavery, shall, from and after the ---- day of ---- next, be free from any subjection to any master or mistress, who have claimed their servitude by right of purchase, heirship, free gift, or otherwise, and they are hereby entitled to all the freedom, rights, privileges and immunities that do, or ought of right to belong to any of the subjects of this State, any usage or custom to the contrary notwithstanding.

"And be it Enacted, by the authority aforesaid, that all written deeds, bargains, sales or conveyances, or contracts without writing, whatsoever, for conveying or transferring any property in any person, or to the service and labor of any person whatsoever, of more than twenty-one years of age, to a third person, except by order of some court of record for some crime, that has been, or hereafter shall be made, or by their own voluntary contract for a term not exceeding seven years, shall be and hereby are declared null and void.

"And WHEREAS, divers persons now have in their service negroes, mulattoes or others who have been deemed their slaves or property, and who are now incapable of earning their living by reason of age or infirmities, and may be desirous of continuing in the service of their masters or mistresses,--be it therefore Enacted, by the authority aforesaid, that whatever negro or mulatto, who shall be desirous of continuing in the service of his master or mistress, and shall voluntarily declare the same before two justices of the County in which said master or mistress resides, shall have a right to continue in the service, and to a maintenance from their master or mistress, and if they are incapable of earning their living, shall be supported by the said master or mistress, or their heirs, during the lives of said servants, any thing in this act to the contrary notwithstanding.

"Provided, nevertheless, that nothing in this act shall be understood to prevent any master of a vessel or other person from bringing into this State any persons, not Africans, from any other part of the world, except the United States of America, and selling their service for a term of time not exceeding five years, if twenty-one years of age, or, if under twenty-one, not exceeding the time when he or she so brought into the State shall be twenty-six years of age, to pay for and in consideration of the transportation and other charges said master of vessel or other person may have been at, agreeable to contracts made with the persons so transported, or their patents or guardians in their behalf, before they are brought from their own country."[624]

On the back of the bill the following indorsement was written by some officer of the Legislature: "Ordered to lie till the second Wednesday of the next Session of the General Court." This might have ended the struggle for the extinction of slavery in Massachusetts, had not the people at this time made an earnest demand for a State constitution. As the character of the constitution was discussed, the question of slavery divided public sentiment. If it were left out of the constitution, then the claims of the master would forever lack the force of law; if it were inserted as part of the constitution, it would evidence the insincerity of the people in their talk about the equality of the rights of man, etc. The Legislature--Convention of 1777-78--prepared, debated, and finally approved and submitted to the people, a draught of a constitution for the State, on the 28th of February, 1778. The framers of the constitution seemed to lack the courage necessary to declare in favor of the freedom of the faithful blacks who had rendered such efficient aid to the cause of the colonists. The prevailing sentiment of the people demanded an article in the constitution denying Negroes the right of citizens. It may be fortunate for the fame of the Commonwealth that the record of the debates on the article denying Negroes the right of suffrage has not been preserved. The article is here given:--

"V. Every male inhabitant of any town in this State, being free, and twenty-one years of age, excepting Negroes, Indians and Mulattoes, shall be intitled to vote for a Representative or Representatives, as the case may be," etc.

By this article three classes of inhabitants were excluded from the rights, blessings, and duties of citizenship; and the institution of slavery was recognized as existing by sanction of law. But the constitution was rejected by the people, by an overwhelming majority; not, however, on account of the fifth article, but because the instrument was obnoxious to them on general principles.

The defeat of the constitution did not temper public sentiment on the question of Negro slavery, for the very next year the domestic trade seemed to receive a fresh impetus. The following advertisements furnish abundant proof of the undiminished vigor of the enterprise.

From "The Continental Journal," Nov. 25, 1779:--

"To be SOLD A likely NEGRO GIRL, 16 years of Age, for no fault, but want of employ."

From the same, Dec. 16, 1779:--

"To be SOLD, A Strong likely NEGRO GIRL," etc.

From "The Independent Chronicle," March 9, 1780:--

"To be SOLD, for want of employment, an exceeding likely NEGRO GIRL, aged sixteen."

From the same, March 30 and April 6, 1780:--

"To be SOLD, very Cheap, for no other Reason than for want of Employ, an exceeding Active NEGRO BOY, aged fifteen. Also, a likely NEGRO GIRL, aged seventeen."

From "The Continental Journal," Aug. 17, 1780:--

"To be SOLD, a likely NEGRO BOY."

From the same, Aug. 24 and Sept. 7:--

"To be SOLD or LETT, for a term of years, a strong, hearty, likely NEGRO GIRL."

From the same, Oct. 19 and 26, and Nov. 2:--

"To be SOLD, a likely NEGRO BOY, about eighteen years of Age, fit for to serve a Gentleman, to tend horses or to work in the Country."

From the same, Oct. 26, 1780:--

"To be SOLD, a likely NEGRO BOY, about 13 years old, well calculated to wait on a Gentleman. Inquire of the Printer."

"To be SOLD, a likely young COW and CALF. Inquire of the Printer."

"Independent Chronicle," Dec. 14, 21, 28, 1780:--

"A NEGRO CHILD, soon expected, of a good breed, may be owned by any Person inclining to take it, and Money with it."

"Continental Journal," Dec. 21, 1780, and Jan. 4, 1781:--

"To be SOLD, a hearty, strong NEGRO WENCH, about 29 years of age, fit for town or country."

From "The Continental Journal," March 1, 1781:--

"To be SOLD, an extraordinary likely NEGRO WENCH, 17 years old, she can be warranted to be strong, healthy and good-natured, has no notion of Freedom, has been always used to a Farmer's Kitchen and dairy, and is not known to have any failing, but being with Child, which is the only cause of her being sold."

It is evident, from the wording of the last advertisement quoted, that the Negroes were sniffing the air of freedom that occasionally blew from the victorious battle-fields, where many of their race had distinguished themselves by the most intrepid valor. They began to get "notions of freedom," and this depreciated their market value.

Dr. William Gordon, the steadfast, earnest, and intelligent friend of the Negro, was deposed as chaplain of both branches of the Legislature on account of his vehement protest against the adoption of the fifth article of the constitution by that body. But his zeal was not thereby abated. He continued to address able articles to the public, and wrought a good work upon the public conscience.

In Virginia, notwithstanding Negroes were among the State's most gallant defenders, a law was passed in October, 1776, "declaring tenants of lands or slaves in taille to hold the same in fee simple." Under the circumstances, after the war had begun, and after the declaration by the State of national independence, it was a most remarkable law.

"That any person who now hath, or hereafter may have, any estate in fee taille, general or special, in any lands or slaves in possession, or in the use or trust of any lands or slaves in possession, or who now is or hereafter may be entitled to any such estate taille in reversion or remainder, after the determination of any estate for life or lives, or of any lesser estate, whether such estate taille hath been or shall be created by deeds, will, act of assembly, or by any other ways or means, shall from henceforth, or from the commencement of such estate taille, stand ipso facto seized, possessed, or entitled of, in, or to such lands or slaves, or use in lands or slaves, so held or to be held as aforesaid, in possession, reversion, or remainder, in full and absolute fee simple, in like manner as if such deed, will, act of assembly, or other instrument, had conveyed the same to him in fee simple; any words, limitations, or conditions, in the said deed, will, act of assembly, or other instrument, to the contrary notwithstanding."[625]

But the valor of the Negro soldier had great influence upon the public mind, and inspired the people in many of the States to demand public recognition of deserving Negroes. It has been noted already, that in South Carolina, if a Negro, having been captured by the enemy, made good his escape back into the State, he was emancipated; and, if wounded in the line of duty, was rewarded with his freedom. Rhode Island purchased her Negroes for the army, and presented them with fifty dollars bounty and a certificate of freedom at the close of the war. Even Virginia, the mother of slavery, remembered, at the close of the war, the brave Negroes who had fought in her regiments. In October, 1783, the following Act was passed emancipating all slaves who had served in the army with the permission of their masters. It is to be regretted, however, that all slaves who had served in the army were not rewarded with their freedom.

"I. WHEREAS it hath been represented to the present general assembly, that during the course of the war, many persons in this state had caused their slaves to enlist in certain regiments or corps raised within the same, having tendered such slaves to the officers appointed to recruit forces within the state, as substitutes for free persons, whose lot or duty it was to serve in such regiments or corps, at the same time representing to such recruiting officers that the slaves so enlisted by their direction and concurrence were freemen; and it appearing further to this assembly, that on the expiration of the term of enlistment of such slaves that the former owners have attempted again to force them to return to a state of servitude, contrary to the principles of justice, and to then own solemn promise.

"II. And whereas it appears just and reasonable that all persons enlisted as aforesaid, who have faithfully served agreeable to the terms of their enlistment, and have thereby of course contributed towards the establishment of American liberty and independence, should enjoy the blessings of freedom as a reward for their toils and labours; Be it therefore enacted, That each and every slave who by the appointment and direction of his owner, hath enlisted in any regiment or corps raised within this state, either on continental or state establishment, and hath been received as a substitute for any free person whose duty or lot it was to serve in such regiment or corps, and hath served faithfully during the term of such enlistment, or hath been discharged from such service by some officer duly authorized to grant such discharge, shall from and after the passing of this act, be fully and compleatly emancipated, and shall be held and deemed free in as full and ample a manner as if each and every of them were specially named in this act; and the attorney-general for the commonwealth, is hereby required to commence an action, in forma pauperis, in behalf of any of the persons above described who shall after the passing of this act be detained in servitude by any person whatsoever; and if upon such prosecution it shall appeal that the pauper is entitled to his freedom in consequence of this act, a jury shall be empanelled to assess the damages for his detention."[626]

New York enlisted her Negro soldiers under a statutory promise of freedom. They were required to serve three years, or until regularly discharged. Several other States emancipated a few slaves who had served faithfully in the army; and the recital of the noble deeds of black soldiers was listened to with great interest, had an excellent effect upon many white men after the war, and went far towards mollifying public sentiment on the slavery question.

If Massachusetts were ever moved by the valor of her black soldiers to take any action recognizing their services, the record has not been found up to the present time. After commemorating the 5th of March for a long time, as a day on which to inflame the public zeal for the cause of freedom, her Legislature refused to mark the grave of the first martyr of the Revolution, Crispus Attucks!

Slavery flourished during the entire Revolutionary period. It enjoyed the silent acquiescence of the pulpit, the support of the public journals, the sanction of the courts, and the endorsement of the military establishment. In a free land (?), under the flag of the government Negroes fought, bled, sacrificed, and died to establish, slavery held undisputed sway. The colonial government, built by the cruel and voracious avarice of Britain, crumbled under the master-stroke of men who desired political and religious liberty more than jewelled crowns; but the slave institution stood unharmed by the shock of embattled arms. The colonists asked freedom for themselves and children, but forged chains for Negroes and their children. And while a few individual Negro slaves were made a present of themselves at the close of the war, on account of their gallant service, hundreds of thousands of their brethren were still retained in bondage

FOOTNOTES:

[622] See Slavery in Mass., p. 178.Return to passage

[623] House Journal, pp. 19, 25.Return to passage

[624] Mass. Archives; Revolutionary Resolves, vol. vii. p. 133.Return to passage

[625] Hening, vol. ix. p. 226.Return to passage

[626] Hening, vol. xi pp. 308, 309.Return to passage

XXXI. SLAVERY AS A POLITICAL AND LEGAL PROBLEM

1775-1800.

BRITISH COLONIES IN NORTH AMERICA DECLARE THEIR INDEPENDENCE.--A NEW GOVERNMENT ESTABLISHED.--SLAVERY THE BANE OF AMERICAS CIVILIZATION.--THE TORY PARTY ACCEPT THE DOCTRINE OF PROPERTY IN MAN.--THE DOCTRINE OF THE LOCAL CONSTITUTION IN THE SOUTH.--THE WAR PARTY THE DOMINANT POLITICAL ORGANIZATION IN THE NORTHERN STATES.--SLAVERY RECOGNIZED UNDER THE NEW GOVERNMENT.--ANTI SLAVERY AGITATION IN THE STATES.--ATTEMPTED LEGISLATION AGAINST SLAVERY.--ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION.--THEIR ADOPTION IN 1778.--DISCUSSION CONCERNING THE DISPOSAL OF THE WESTERN TERRITORY.--MR. JEFFERSON'S RECOMMENDATION--AMENDMENT OF MR. SPAIGHT.--CONGRESS IN NEW YORK IN 1787.--DISCUSSION RESPECTING THE GOVERNMENT OF THE WESTERN TERRITORY.--CONVENTION AT PHILADELPHIA TO FRAME THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION.--PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONVENTION.--THE SOUTHERN STATES STILL ADVOCATE SLAVERY.--SPEECHES ON THE SLAVERY QUESTION BY LEADING STATESMEN.--CONSTITUTION ADOPTED BY THE CONVENTION IN 1787.--FIRST SESSION OF CONGRESS UNDER THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION HELD IN NEW YORK IN 1789.--THE INTRODUCTION OF A TARIFF BILL.--AN ATTEMPT TO AMEND IT BY INSERTING A CLAUSE LEVYING A TAX ON SLAVES BROUGHT BY WATER.--EXTINCTION OF SLAVERY IN MASSACHUSETTS.--A CHANGE IN THE PUBLIC OPINION OF THE MIDDLE AND EASTERN STATES ON THE SUBJECT OF SLAVERY.--DR. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN'S ADDRESS TO THE PUBLIC FOR PROMOTING THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY.--MEMORIAL TO THE UNITED STATES CONGRESS.--CONGRESS IN 1790.--BITTER DISCUSSION ON THE RESTRICTION OF THE SLAVE TRADE.--SLAVE POPULATION.--VERMONT AND KENTUCKY ADMITTED INTO THE UNION.--A LAW PROVIDING FOR THE RETURN OF FUGITIVES FROM 'LABOR AND SERVICE.--CONVENTION OF FRIENDS HELD IN PHILADELPHIA.--AN ACT AGAINST THE FOREIGN SLAVE TRADE.--MISSOURI TERRITORY.--CONSTITUTION OF GEORGIA REVISED.--NEW YORK PASSES A BILL FOR THE GRADUAL EXTINCTION OF SLAVERY.--CONSTITUTION OF KENTUCKY REVISED.--SLAVERY AS AN INSTITUTION FIRMLY ESTABLISHED.

The charge that the mother-country forced slavery upon the British colonies in North America held good until the colonies threw off the yoke, declared their independence, and built a new government, on the 4th of July, 1776. After the promulgation of the gospel of human liberty, the United States of America could no longer point to England as the "first man Adam" of the accursed sin of slavery. Henceforth the American government, under the new dispensation of peace and the equality of all men, was responsible for the continuance of slavery, both as a political and legal problem

Slavery did not escheat to the English government upon the expiration of its authority in North America. It became the dreadful inheritance of the new government, and the eyesore of American civilization. Instead of expelling it from the political institutions of the country, it gradually became a factor of great power. Instead of ruling it out of the courts, it was clothed with the ample garments of judicial respectability.

The first article of the immortal Declaration of Independence was a mighty shield of beautifully wrought truths, that the authors intended should protect every human being on the American Continent.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident:--that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness."

It was to be expected, that, after such a declaration of principles, the United States would have abolished slavery and the slave-trade forever. While the magic words of the Declaration of Independence were not the empty "palaver" of a few ambitious leaders, yet the practices of the local and the national government belied the grand sentiments of that instrument. From the earliest moment of the birth of the United-States government, slavery began to receive political support and encouragement. Though it was the cruel and depraved offspring of the British government, it nevertheless was adopted by the free government of America. Political policy seemed to dictate the methods of a political recognition of the institution. And the fact that the slave-trade was prohibited by Congress at an early day, and by many of the colonies also, did not affect the institution in a local sense.

The Tory party accepted the doctrine of property in man, without hesitation or reservation. Their political fealty to the Crown, their party exclusiveness, and their earnest desire to co-operate with the Royal African Company in the establishment of the slave institution in America, made them, as per necessity, the political guardians of slavery. The institution once planted, property in man having been acquired, it was found to be a difficult task to uproot it. Moreover, the loss of the colonies to the British Crown did not imply death to the Tory party. It doubtless suffered organically; but its individual members did not forfeit their political convictions, nor suffer their interest in the slave-trade to abate. The new States were ambitious to acquire political power. The white population of the South was small when compared with that of the North; but the slave population, added to the former, swelled it to alarming proportions.

The local governments of the South had been organized upon the fundamental principles of the Locke Constitution. The government was lodged with the few, and their rights were built upon landed estates and political titles and favors. Slaves in the Carolinas and Virginias answered to the vassals and villeins of England. This aristocratic element in Tory politics was in harmony, even in a republic, with the later wish of the South to build a great political "government upon Slavery as its chief corner-stone." Added to this was the desire to abrogate the law of indenture of white servants, and thus to the odium of slavery to loan the powerful influence of caste,--ranging the Caucasian against the Ethiopian, the intelligent against the ignorant, the strong against the weak.

New England had better ideas of popular government for and of the people, but her practical position on slavery was no better than any State in the South. The Whig party was the dominant political organization throughout the Northern States; but the universality of slavery made dealers in human flesh members of all parties.

The men who wrote the Declaration of Independence deprecated slavery, as they were pronounced Whigs; but nevertheless many of them owned slaves. They wished the evil exterminated, but confessed themselves ignorant of a plan by which to carry their desire into effect. The good desires of many of the people, born out of the early days of the struggle for independent existence, perished in their very infancy; and, as has been shown, all the States, and the Congress of the United States, recognized slavery as existing under the new political government.

But public sentiment changes in a country where the intellect is unfettered. First, on the eve of the Revolutionary War, Congress and nearly all the States pronounced against slavery; a few years later they all recognized the sacredness of slave property; and still later all sections of the United States seemed to have been agitated by anti-slavery sentiments. In 1780 the Legislature of Pennsylvania prohibited the further introduction of slaves, and gave freedom to the children of all slaves born in the State. Delaware resolved "that no person hereafter imported from Africa ought to be held in slavery under any pretense whatever." In 1784 Connecticut and Rhode Island modified their slave-code, and forbade further importations of slaves. In 1778 Virginia passed a law prohibiting the importation of slaves, and in 1782 repealed the law that confined the power of emancipating to the Legislature, only on account of meritorious conduct. Private emancipations became very numerous, and the sentiment in its favor pronounced. But the restriction was re-enacted in about ten years. The eloquence of Patrick Henry and the logic of Thomas Jefferson went far to enlighten public sentiment; but the political influence of the institution grew so rapidly that in 1785, but two years after the war, Washington wrote LaFayette, "petitions for the abolition of slavery, presented to the Virginia Legislature, could scarcely obtain a hearing." Maryland, New York, and New Jersey prohibited the slave-trade; but the institution held its place among the people until 1830. North Carolina attempted to prohibit in 1777, but-failed; but in 1786 declared the slave-trade "of evil consequences and highly impolitic." South Carolina and Georgia refused to act, and the slave-trade continued along their shores.

After the adoption of the Articles of Confederation in 1778, the Continental Congress found itself charged with the responsibility of deciding the conflicting claims of the various States to the vast territory stretching westward from the Ohio River. The war over, the payment of the public debt thus incurred demanded the consideration of the people and of their representatives. Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia laid claim to boundless tracts of lands outside of their State boundaries. But New Hampshire, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware, and South Carolina, making no such claims, and lacking the resources to pay their share of the war debt, suggested that the other States should cede all the territory outside of their State lines, to the United States Government, to be used towards liquidating the entire debt. The proposition was accepted by the States named; but not, however, without some modification. Virginia reserved a large territory beyond the Ohio with which to pay the bounties of her soldiers, while Connecticut retained a portion of the Reserve since so famous in the history of Ohio. The duty of framing an ordinance for the government of the Western territory was referred to a select committee by Congress, consisting of Mr. Jefferson of Virginia (chairman), Mr. Chase of Maryland, and Mr. Howell of Rhode Island. The plan reported by the committee contemplated the whole region included within our boundaries west of the old thirteen States, and as far south as our thirty-first degree north latitude. The plan proposed the ultimate division of this territory into seventeen States; eight of which were to be located below the parallel of the Falls of the Ohio (now Louisville), and nine above it. But the most interesting rule reported by Mr. Jefferson was the following, on the 19th of April, 1784:--

"That after the year 1800, of the Christian era, there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in any part of the said states, otherwise than in punishment of crimes, whereof the part shall have been convicted to be personally guilty."

Mr. Spaight of North Carolina moved to amend the report by striking out the above clause, which was seconded by Mr. Reed of South Carolina. The question, upon a demand for the yeas and nays, was put: "Shall the words moved to be stricken out stand?" The question was lost, and the words were stricken out. The ordinance was further amended, and finally adopted on the 23d of April

The last Continental Congress was held in the city of New York in 1787. The question of the government of the Western territory came up. A committee was appointed on this subject, with Nathan Dane of Massachusetts as chairman On the 11th of July the committee reported "An Ordinance for the government of the Territory of the United States, Northwest of the Ohio." It embodied many of the features of Mr. Jefferson's bill, concluding with six unalterable articles of perpetual compact, the last being the following: "There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory, otherwise than in punishment of crimes, whereof the parties shall be duly convicted." When upon its passage, a stipulation was added for the delivery of fugitives from "labor or service:"[627] and in this shape the entire ordinance passed on the 13th of July, 1787.

Thus it is clear that under the Confederation slavery existed, a part of the political government, as a legal fact. There was no effort made by Congress to abolish it. Mr. Jefferson simply sought to arrest its progress, and confine it to the original thirteen States.

On the 25th of May, 1787, the convention to frame the Federal Constitution met at Philadelphia, although the day appointed was the 14th. George Washington was chosen president, a committee chosen to report rules of proceeding, and a secretary appointed. The sessions were held with closed doors, and all the proceedings were secret. It contained the most eminent men in the United States,--generals of the army, statesmen, lawyers, and men of broad scholarship. The question of congressional apportionment was early before them, and there was great diversity of opinion. But, as there was no census, therefore there could be no just apportionment until an enumeration of the people was taken. Until that was accomplished, the number of delegates was fixed at sixty-five. Massachusetts was the only State in the Union where slavery did not exist. The Northern States desired representation according to the free inhabitants only; while all of the Southern States, where the great mass of slaves was, wanted representation according to the entire population, bond and free. Some of the Northern delegates urged their view with great force and eloquence. Mr. Patterson of New Jersey said he regarded slaves as mere property. They were not represented in the States: why should they be in the general government? They were not allowed to vote: why should they be represented? He regarded it as an encouragement to the slave-trade. Mr. Wilson of Pennsylvania said, "Are they admitted as citizens? then, why not on an equality with citizens? Are they admitted as property? then, why is not other property admitted into the computation?" It was evident that neither extreme view could carry: so the proposition carried to reckon three-fifths of the slaves in estimating taxes, and to make taxation the basis of representation. New Jersey and Delaware voted Nay; Massachusetts and South Carolina were divided; and New York was not represented, her delegates having failed to arrive.

It was apparent during the early stages of the debates, that a constitution had to be made that would be acceptable to the Southern delegates. A clause was inserted relieving the Southern States from duties on exports, and upon the importation of slaves; and that no navigation act should be passed except by a two-thirds vote. By denying Congress the authority of giving preference to American over foreign shipping, it was designed to secure cheap transportation for Southern exports; but, as the shipping was largely owned in the Eastern States, their delegates were zealous in their efforts to prevent any restriction of the power of Congress to enact navigation laws. It has been already shown that all the States, with the exception of North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, had prohibited the importation of slaves. The prohibition of duties on the importation of slaves was demanded by the delegates from South Carolina and Georgia. They assured the Convention that without such a provision they could never give their assent to the constitution. This declaration dragooned some Northern delegates into a support of the restriction, but provoked some very plain remarks concerning slavery. Mr. Pinckney said, that, "If the Southern States were let alone, they would probably of themselves stop importations. He would himself, as a citizen of South Carolina, vote for it."

Mr. Sherman remarked that "the abolition of slavery seemed to be going on in the United States, and that the good sense of the several states would probably by degrees complete it;" and Mr. Ellsworth thought that "slavery, in time, will not be a speck in our country." Mr. Madison said "he thought it wrong to admit in the Constitution the idea of property in men."

Slavery, notwithstanding the high-sounding words just quoted, was recognized in and by three separate clauses of the Constitution The word "slave" was excluded, but the language does not admit of any doubt.

"Art. I. Sect. 2.... Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective numbers; which 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.[628] ...

"Art I. Sect. 9. The migration or importation of such persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight; but a tax or duty may be imposed on such importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each person....

"Art. IV. Sect. 2.... No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due."

The debate on the above was exciting and interesting, as the subject of slavery was examined in all its bearings. Finally the Constitution was submitted to Gouverneur Morris of Pennsylvania, to receive the finishing touches of his facile pen. On the 8th of August, 1787, during the debate, he delivered the following speech:--

"He never would concur in upholding domestic slavery. It was a nefarious institution. It was the curse of Heaven on the States where it prevailed. Compare the free regions of the Middle States, where a rich and noble cultivation marks the prosperity and happiness of the people, with the misery and poverty which overspread the barren wastes of Virginia, Maryland, and the other States having slaves. Travel through the whole continent, and you behold the prospect continually varying with the appearance and disappearance of slavery. The moment you leave the Eastern States, and enter New York, the effects of the institution become visible. Passing through the Jerseys, and entering Pennsylvania, every criterion of superior improvement witnesses the change. Proceed southwardly, and every step you take through the great regions of slaves presents a desert, increasing with the increasing proportion of these wretched beings. Upon what principle it is that the slaves shall be computed in the representation? Are they men? Then make them citizens, and let them vote. Are they property? Why, then, is no other property included? The houses in this city (Philadelphia) are worth more than all the wretched slaves who cover the rice-swamps of South Carolina. The admission of slaves into the representation, when fairly explained, comes to this,--that the inhabitant of Georgia and South Carolina, who goes to the coast of Africa, and, in defiance of the most sacred laws of humanity, tears away his fellow-creatures from their dearest connections, and damns them to the most cruel bondage, shall have more votes in a government instituted for the protection of the rights of mankind than the citizen of Pennsylvania or New Jersey, who views with a laudable horror so nefarious a practice. He would add, that domestic slavery is the most prominent feature in the aristocratic countenance of the proposed Constitution. The vassalage of the poor has ever been the favorite offspring of aristocracy. And what is the proposed compensation to the Northern States for a sacrifice of every principle of right, of every impulse of humanity? They are to bind themselves to march their militia for the defence of the Southern States, for their defence against those very slaves of whom they complain. They must supply vessels and seamen in case of foreign attack. The Legislature will have indefinite power to tax them by excises and duties on imports, both of which will fall heavier on them than on the Southern inhabitants; for the bohea tea used by a Northern freeman will pay more tax than the whole consumption of the miserable slave, which consists of nothing more than his physical subsistence and the rag that covers his nakedness. On the other side, the Southern States are not to be restrained from importing fresh supplies of wretched Africans, at once to increase the danger of attack and the difficulty of defence: nay, they are to be encouraged to it by an assurance of having their votes in the National Government increased in proportion: and are, it the same time, to have their exports and their slaves exempt from all contributions for the public service. Let it not be said that direct taxation is to be proportioned to representation. It is idle to suppose that the General Government can stretch its hand directly into the pockets of the people scattered over so vast a country. They can only do it through the medium of exports, imports, and excises. For what, then, are all the sacrifices to be made? He would sooner submit himself to a tax for paying for all the negroes in the United States than saddle posterity with such a Constitution."[629]

Mr. Rufus King of Massachusetts in the same debate said,--

"The admission of slaves was a most grating circumstance to his mind, and he believed would be so to a great part of the people of America. He had not made a strenuous opposition to it heretofore, because he had hoped that this concession would have produced a readiness, which had not been manifested, to strengthen the General Government, and to mark a full confidence in it. The report under consideration had, by the tenor of it, put an end to all those hopes. In two great points, the hands of the Legislature were absolutely tied. The importation of slaves could not be prohibited. Exports could not be taxed. Is this reasonable? What are the great objects of the general system? First, defence against foreign invasion; secondly, against internal sedition. Shall all the States, then, be bound to defend each, and shall each be at liberty to introduce a weakness which will render defence more difficult? Shall one part of the United States be bound to defend another part, and that other part be at liberty, not only to increase its own danger, but to withhold the compensation for the burden? If slaves are to be imported, shall not the exports produced by their labor supply a revenue, the better to enable the General Government to defend their masters? There was so much inequality and unreasonableness in all this, that the people of the Northern States could never be reconciled to it. No candid man could undertake to justify it to them. He had hoped that some accommodation would have taken place on this subject; that, at least, a time would have been limited for the importation of slaves. He never could agree to let them be imported without limitation, and then be represented in the National Legislature. Indeed, he could so little persuade himself of the rectitude of such a practice, that he was not sure he could assent to it under any circumstances. At all events, either slaves should not be represented, or exports should be taxable."

Mr. Roger Sherman of Connecticut,--

"Regarded the slave-trade as iniquitous: but the point of representation having been settled after much difficulty and deliberation, he did not think himself bound to make opposition; especially as the present article, as amended, did not preclude any arrangement whatever on that point, in another place of the report."[630]

Mr. Luther Martin of Maryland, in the debate, Tuesday, Aug. 21,--

"Proposed to vary Art. 7, Sect. 4, so as to allow a prohibition or tax on the importation of slaves. In the first place, as five slaves are to be counted as three free men in the apportionment of representatives, such a clause would leave an encouragement to this traffic. In the second place, slaves weakened one part of the Union, which the other parts were bound to protect: the privilege of importing them was therefore unreasonable. And, in the third place, it was inconsistent with the principles of the Revolution, and dishonorable to the American character, to have such a feature in the Constitution.

"Mr. RUTLEDGE did not see how the importation of slaves could be encouraged by this section. He was not apprehensive of insurrections, and would readily exempt the other States from the obligation to protect the Southern against them. Religion and humanity had nothing to do with this question: interest alone is the governing principle with nations. The true question at present is, whether the Southern States shall or shall not be parties to the Union. If the Northern States consult their interest, they will not oppose the increase of slaves, which will increase the commodities of which they will become the carriers.

"Mr. ELLSWORTH was for leaving the clause as it stands. Let every State import what it pleases. The morality or wisdom of slavery are considerations belonging to the States themselves. What enriches a part enriches the whole, and the States are the best judges of their particular interest. The old Confederation had not meddled with this point; and he did not see any greater necessity for bringing it within the policy of the new one.

"Mr. PINCKNEY. South Carolina can never receive the plan if it prohibits the slave trade. In every proposed extension of the powers of Congress, that State has expressly and watchfully excepted that of meddling with the importation of Negroes, If the States be all left at liberty on this subject, South Carolina may perhaps, by degrees, do of herself what is wished, as Virginia and Maryland have already done.

"Adjourned.

"WEDNESDAY, Aug. 22.

"In Convention.--Art. 7, Sect. 4, was resumed.

"Mr. SHERMAN was for leaving the clause as it stands. He disapproved of the slave-trade; yet, as the States were now possessed of the right to import slaves, as the public good did not require it to be taken from them, and as it was expedient to have as few objections as possible to the proposed scheme of government, he thought it best to leave the matter as we find it. ... He urged on the Convention the necessity of despatching its business.

"Col. MASON. This infernal traffic originated in the avarice of British merchants. The British Government constantly checked the attempts of Virginia to put a stop to it. The present question concerns, not the importing States alone, but the whole Union. The evil of having slaves was experienced during the late war. Had slaves been treated as they might have been by the enemy, they would have proved dangerous instruments in their hands. But their folly dealt by the slaves as it did by the Tories. He mentioned the dangerous insurrections of the slaves in Greece and Sicily, and the instructions given by Cromwell to the commissioners sent to Virginia,--to arm the servants and slaves, in case other means of obtaining its submission should fail. Maryland and Virginia, he said, had already prohibited the importation of slaves expressly. North Carolina had done the same in substance. All this would be in vain, if South Carolina and Georgia be at liberty to import. The Western people are already calling out for slaves for their new lands; and will fill that country with slaves, if they can be got through South Carolina and Georgia. Slavery discourages arts and manufactures. The poor despise labor when performed by slaves. They prevent the emigration of whites, who really enrich and strengthen a country. They produce the most pernicious effect on manners. Every master of slaves is born a petty tyrant. They bring the judgment of heaven on a country. As nations cannot be rewarded or punished in the next world, they must be in this. By an inevitable chain of causes and effects, Providence punishes national sins by national calamities. He lamented that some of our Eastern brethren had, from a lust of gain, embarked in this nefarious traffic. As to the States being in possession of the right to import, this was the case with many other rights, now to be properly given up. He held it essential, in every point of view, that the General Government should have power to prevent the increase of slavery.

"Mr. ELLSWORTH, as he had never owned a slave, could not judge of the effects of slavery on character. He said, however, that, if it was to be considered in a moral light, we ought to go further, and free those already in the country. As slaves also multiply so fast in Virginia and Maryland, that it is cheaper to raise than import them, whilst in the sickly rice-swamps foreign supplies are necessary, if we go no further than is urged, we shall be unjust towards South Carolina and Georgia. Let us not intermeddle. As population increases, poor laborers will be so plenty as to render slaves useless. Slavery, in time, will not be a speck in our county. Provision is already made in Connecticut for abolishing it; and the abolition has already taken place in Massachusetts. As to the danger of insurrections from foreign influence, that will become a motive to kind treatment of the slaves.

"Gen. PINCKNEY declared it to be his firm opinion, that if himself and all his colleagues were to sign the Constitution, and use their personal influence, it would be of no avail towards obtaining the assent of their constituents. South Carolina and Georgia cannot do without slaves. As to Virginia, she will gain more by stopping the importations. Her slaves will rise in value, and she has more than she wants. It would be unequal to require South Carolina and Georgia to confederate on such unequal terms. He said, the royal assent, before the Revolution, had never been refused to South Carolina as to Virginia. He contended, that the importation of slaves would be for the interest of the whole Union. The more slaves, the more produce to employ the carrying-trade: the more consumption also; and, the more of this, the more revenue for the common treasury. He admitted it to be reasonable, that slaves should be dutied like other imports; but should consider a rejection of the clause as an exclusion of South Carolina from the Union.

"Mr. BALDWIN had conceived national objects alone to be before the Convention: not such as, like the present, were of a local nature. Georgia was decided on this point. That State has always hitherto supposed a General Government to be the pursuit of the Central States, who wished to have a vortex for every thing; that her distance would preclude her from equal advantage; and that she could not prudently purchase it by yielding national powers. From this it might be understood in what light she would view an attempt to abridge one of her favorite prerogatives. If left to herself, she may probably put a stop to the evil. As one ground for this conjecture, he took notice of the sect of ----, which, he said, was a respectable class of people, who carried their ethics beyond the mere equality of men,--extending their humanity to the claims of the whole animal creation.

"Mr. WILSON observed, that, if South Carolina and Georgia were themselves disposed to get rid of the importation of slaves in a short time, as had been suggested, they would never refuse to unite because the importation might be prohibited. As the section now stands, all articles imported are to be taxed. Slaves alone are exempt. This is, in fact, a bounty on that article.

"Mr. GERRY thought we had nothing to do with the conduct of the States as to slaves, but ought to be careful not to give any sanction to it.

"Mr. DICKINSON considered it as inadmissible, on every principle of honor and safety, that the importation of slaves should be authorized to the States by the Constitution. The true question was, whether the national happiness would be promoted or impeded by the importation; and this question ought to be left to the National Government, not to the States particularly interested. If England and France permit slavery, slaves are, at the same time, excluded from both those kingdoms. Greece and Rome were made unhappy by their slaves. He could not believe that the Southern States would refuse to confederate on the account apprehended; especially as the power was not likely to be immediately exercised by the General Government.

"Mr. WILLIAMSON stated the law of North Carolina on the subject; to wit, that it did not directly prohibit the importation of slaves. It imposed a duty of L5 on each slave imported from Africa, L10 on each from elsewhere, and L50 on each from a State licensing manumission. He thought the Southern States could not be members of the Union, if the clause should be rejected: and it was wrong to force any thing down not absolutely necessary, and which any State must disagree to.

"Mr. KING thought the subject should be considered in a political light only. If two States will not agree to the Constitution, as stated on one side, he could affirm with equal belief, on the other, that great and equal opposition would be experienced from the other States. He remarked on the exemption of slaves from duty, whilst every other import was subjected to it, as an inequality that could not fail to strike the commercial sagacity of the Northern and Middle States.

"Mr. LANGDON was strenuous for giving the power to the General Government. He could not, with a good conscience, leave it with the States, who could then go on with the traffic, without being restrained by the opinions here given, that they will themselves cease to import slaves.

"Gen. PINCKNEY thought himself bound to declare candidly, that he did not think South Carolina would stop her importations of slaves in any short time; but only stop them occasionally, as she now does. He moved to commit the clause, that slaves might be made liable to an equal tax with other imports, which he thought right, and which would remove one difficulty that had been started.

"Mr. RUTLEDGE. If the Convention thinks that North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia will ever agree to the plan, unless their right to import slaves be untouched, the expectation is vain. The people of those States will never be such fools as to give up so important an interest. He was strenuous against striking out the section, and seconded the motion of Gen. Pinckney for a commitment.

"Mr. GOUVERNEUR MORRIS wished the whole subject to be committed, including the clauses relating to taxes on export and to a navigation act. These things may form a bargain among the Northern and Southern States.

"Mr. BUTLER declared, that he never would agree to the power of taxing exports.

"Mr. SHERMAN said it was better to let the Southern States import slaves than to part with them, if they made that a sine qua non. He was opposed to a tax on slaves imported, as making the matter worse, because it implied they were property. He acknowledged, that, if the power of prohibiting the importation should be given to the General Government, it would be exercised. He thought it would be its duty to exercise the power.

'Mr. READ was for the commitment, provided the clause concerning taxes on exports should also be committed.

"Mr. SHERMAN observed, that that clause had been agreed to, and therefore could not be committed.

"Mr. RANDOLPH was for committing, in order that some middle ground might, if possible, be found. He could never agree to the clause as it stands. He would sooner risk the Constitution. He dwelt on the dilemma to which the Convention was exposed. By agreeing to the clause, it would revolt the Quakers, the Methodists, and many others in the States having no slaves. On the other hand, two States might be lost to the Union. Let us then, he said, try the chance of a commitment."[631]

Three days later (Saturday, Aug. 25) the debate on the subject was resumed, and the report of the committee of eleven was taken up. It was in the following words:--

"Strike out so much of the fourth section as was referred to the Committee, and insert 'The migration or importation of such persons as the several States, now existing, think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Legislature prior to the year 1800; but a tax or duty may be imposed on such migration or importation, at a rate not exceeding the average of the duties laid on imports.'

* * * * *

"Gen. PINCKNEY moved to strike out the words 'the year eighteen hundred' as the year limiting the importation of slaves, and to insert the words 'the year eighteen hundred and eight.'

"Mr. GORHAM seconded the motion.

"Mr. MADISON. Twenty years will produce all the mischief that can be apprehended from the liberty to import slaves. So long a term will be more dishonorable to the American character than to say nothing about it in the Constitution.

"On the motion, which passed in the affirmative,--

"New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, ay,--7, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia, no,--4.

"Mr. GOUVERNOUR MORRIS was for making the clause read at once,--

"'The importation of slaves into North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, shall not be prohibited,' &c. This, he said, would be most fair, and would avoid the ambiguity by which, under the power with regard to naturalization, the liberty reserved to the States might be defeated. He wished it to be known, also, that this part of the Constitution was a compliance with those States. If the change of language, however, should be objected to by the members from those States, he should not urge it.

"Col. MASON was not against using the term 'slaves,' but against naming North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, lest it should give offence to the people of those States.

"Mr. SHERMAN liked a description better than the terms proposed, which had been declined by the old Congress, and were not pleasing to some people.

"Mr. CLYMER concurred with Mr. Sherman.

"Mr. WILLIAMSON said, that, both in opinion and practice, he was against slavery; but thought it more in favor of humanity, from a view of all circumstances, to let in South Carolina and Georgia on those terms, than to exclude them from the Union.

"Mr. GOUVERNEUR MORRIS withdrew his motion.

"Mr. DICKINSON wished the clause to be confined to the States which had not themselves prohibited the importation of slaves; and, for that purpose, moved to amend the clause so as to read.--

"'The importation of slaves into such of the States as shall permit the same shall not be prohibited by the Legislature of the United States until the year 1808;'--

"which was disagreed to, nem. con.

"The first part of the Report was then agreed to, amended as follows:--

"'The migration or importation of such persons as the several States now existing shall think proper to admit shall not be prohibited by the Legislature prior to the year 1808.'

"New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, ay,--7; New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia, no,--4."[632]

* * * * *

The above specimens of the speeches on the slavery question, during the debate, are sufficient to furnish a fair idea of the personal opinion of the great thinkers of that time on slavery. It is clear that it was the wish of the great majority of the Northern delegates to abolish the institution, in a domestic as well as in a foreign sense; but they were not strong enough to resist the temptation to compromise their profoundest convictions on a question as broad and far-reaching as the Union that they were met to launch anew. Thus by an understanding, or, as Gouverneur Morris called it, "a bargain," between the commercial representatives of the Northern States and the delegates of South Carolina and Georgia, and in spite of the opposition of Maryland and Virginia, the unrestricted power of Congress to enact navigation-laws was conceded to the Northern merchants; and to the Carolina rice-planters, as an equivalent, twenty years' continuance of the African slave-trade. This was the third great "compromise" of the Constitution. The other two were the concession to the smaller States of an equal representation in the Senate; and, to the slaveholders, the counting three-fifths of the slaves in determining the ratio of representation. If this third compromise differed from the other two by involving not merely a political but a moral sacrifice, there was this partial compensation about it, that it was not permanent like the others, but expired, by limitation, at the end of twenty years.[633]

The Constitution was adopted by the Convention, and signed, on the 17th of September, 1787. It was then forwarded to Congress, then in session in New-York City, with the recommendation that that body submit it to the State conventions for ratification; which was accordingly done. Delaware adopted it on the 7th of December, 1787; Pennsylvania, Dec. 12; New Jersey, Dec. 18; Georgia, Jan. 2, 1788; Connecticut, Jan. 9; Massachusetts, Feb. 7; Maryland, April 28; South Carolina, May 23; New Hampshire, June 21 (and, being the ninth ratifying, gave effect to the Constitution); Virginia ratified June 27; New York, July 26. North Carolina gave a conditional ratification on the 7th of August, but Congress did not receive it until January, 1790; nor that of Rhode Island, until June of the same year.

At the conclusion of the deliberations of the convention that framed the Constitution, it was voted that its journal be intrusted to the custody of George Washington. He finally deposited it in the State Department, and it was printed in 1818 by order of Congress.

The first session of Congress, under the new Constitution, was held in the city of New York, in 1789. A quorum was obtained on the 6th of April; and the first measure brought up for consideration was a tariff-bill which Mr. Parker of Virginia sought to amend by inserting a clause levying an impost-tax of ten dollars upon every slave brought by water. "He was sorry the Constitution prevented Congress from prohibiting the importation altogether. It was contrary to revolution principles, and ought not to be permitted." Thus the question of slavery made its appearance early at the first session of the first Congress under the present Constitution. At that time Georgia was the only State in the Union that seemed to retain a pecuniary interest in the importation of slaves. Even South Carolina had passed an Act prohibiting for one year the importation of slaves. In this, as on several occasions before, she was actuated on account of the low prices of produce,--too low to be remunerative. But, notwithstanding this, Mr. Smith, the member from the Charleston district, grew quite captious over the proposition of the gentleman from Virginia. He

'Hoped that such an important and serious proposition would not be hastily adopted. It was rather a late moment for the first introduction of a subject so big with serious consequences. No one topic had been yet introduced so important to South Carolina and the welfare of the Union."

Mr. Sherman got the floor, and said he

"Approved the object of the motion, but did not think it a fit subject to be embraced in this bill. He could not reconcile himself to the insertion of human beings, as a subject of impost, among goods, wares, and merchandise. He hoped the motion would be withdrawn for the present, and taken up afterwards as an independent subject."

Mr. Jackson of Georgia

"Was not surprised, however others might be so, at the quarter whence this motion came. Virginia, as an old settled State, had her complement of slaves, and the natural increase being sufficient for her purpose, she was careless of recruiting her numbers by importation. But gentlemen ought to let their neighbors get supplied before they imposed such a burden. He knew this business was viewed in an odious light at the Eastward, because the people there were capable of doing their own work, and had no occasion for slaves. But gentlemen ought to have some feeling for others. Surely they do not mean to tax us for every comfort and enjoyment of life, and, at the same time, to take from us the means of procuring them! He was sure, from the unsuitableness of the motion to the business now before the house, and the want of time to consider it, the gentleman's candor would induce him to withdraw it. Should it ever be brought forward again, he hoped it would comprehend the white slaves as well as the black, imported from all the jails of Europe; wretches convicted of the most flagrant crimes, who were brought in and sold without any duty whatever. They ought to be taxed equally with Africans, and he had no doubt of the equal constitutionality and propriety of such a course."

Mr. Parker of Virginia obtained the floor again, and proceeded to reply to the remarks offered upon his amendment by Sherman, Jackson, and Smith. He declared,--

"That, having introduced the motion on mature reflection, he did not like to withdraw it. The gentleman from Connecticut had said that human beings ought not to be enumerated with goods, wares, and merchandise. Yet he believed they were looked upon by African traders in that light. He hoped Congress would do all in their power to restore to human nature its inherent privileges; to wipe off, if possible, the stigma under which America labored; to do away with the inconsistence in our principles justly charged upon us; and to show, by our actions, the pure beneficence of the doctrine held out to the world in our Declaration of Independence."

Mr. Ames of Massachusetts

"Detested slavery from his soul; but he had some doubts whether imposing a duty on their importation would not have an appearance of countenancing the practice."

Mr. Madison made an eloquent speech in support of Mr. Parker's amendment. He said,--

"The confounding men with merchandise might be easily avoided by altering the title of the bill; it was, in fact, the very object of the motion to prevent men, so far as the power of Congress extended, from being confounded with merchandise. The clause in the Constitution allowing a tax to be imposed, though the traffic could not be prohibited for twenty years, was inserted, he believed, for the very purpose of enabling Congress to give some testimony of the sense of America with respect to the African trade. By expressing a national disapprobation of that trade, it is to be hoped we may destroy it, and so save ourselves from reproaches, and our posterity from the imbecility ever attendant on a country filled with slaves. This was as much the interest of South Carolina and Georgia as of any other States. Every addition they received to their number of slaves tended to weakness, and rendered them less capable of self-defence. In case of hostilities with foreign nations, their slave population would be a means, not of repelling invasions, but of inviting attack. It was the duty of the general government to protect every part of the Union against danger, as well internal as external. Every thing, therefore, which tended to increase this danger, though it might be a local affair, yet, if it involved national expense or safety, became of concern to every part of the Union, and a proper subject for the consideration of those charged with the general administration of the government."

Mr. Bland approved the position taken by Mr. Madison, while Mr. Burke of South Carolina charged the gentlemen with having wasted the time of Congress upon a useless proposition. He contended, that, while slaves were not mentioned in the Constitution, they would come under the general five per cent ad valorem duty on all unenumerated articles, which would be equivalent to the proposition of the gentleman from Virginia. Mr. Madison replied by saying, that no collector of customs would presume to apply the terms "goods," "wares," and "merchandise" to persons. Mr. Sherman followed him in the same strain, and denied that persons were anywhere recognised as property in the Constitution. Finally, at the suggestion of Mr. Madison, Mr. Parker consented to withdraw his motion with the understanding that a separate bill should be brought in. A committee was appointed to discharge that duty, but the noble resolve found a quiet grave in the committee-room.

The failure of this first attempt, under the new Constitution, to restrict slavery, did not lame the cause to any great extent. It was rather accelerated. The manner and spirit of the debate on the subject quickened public thought, animated the friends of the Negro, and provoked many people to good works. Slavery had ceased to exist in Massachusetts. Several suits, entered by slaves against their masters for restraining their liberty, had been won. The case of Elizabeth Freeman, better known as "Mum Bet," was regarded as the first-fruits of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights in the new Constitution of 1780. The Duke de la Rochefoucault Laincort gives the following interesting account of the extinction of slavery in Massachusetts:--

"In 1781, some negroes, prompted by private suggestion, maintained that they were not slaves: they found advocates, among whom was Mr. Sedgwick, now a member of the Senate of the United States; and the cause was carried before the Supreme Court. Their counsel pleaded, 1 deg.. That no antecedent law had established slavery, and that the laws which seemed to suppose it were the offspring of error in the legislators, who had no authority to enact them;--2 deg., That such laws, even if they had existed, were annulled by the new Constitution. They gained the cause under both aspects: and the solution of this first question that was brought forward set the negroes entirely at liberty, and at the same time precluded their pretended owners from all claim to indemnification, since they were proved to have possessed and held them in slavery without any right. As there were only a few slaves in Massachusetts, the decision passed without opposition, and banished all further idea of slavery."[634]

Mr. Nell gives an account of the legal death of slavery in Massachusetts, but unfortunately does not cite any authority. John Quincey Adams, in reply to a question put by John C. Spencer, stated that, "a note had been given for the price of a slave in 1787. This note was sued, and the Court ruled that the maker had received no consideration, as a man could not be sold. From that time forward, slavery died in the Old Bay State." There were several suits instituted by slaves against their reputed masters in 1781-82; but there are strong evidences that slavery died a much slower death in Massachusetts than many are willing to admit. James Sullivan wrote to Dr. Belknap in 1795:--

"In 1781, at the Court in Worcester County, an indictment was found against a white man named Jennison for assaulting, beating, and imprisoning Quock Walker, a black. He was tried at the Supreme Judicial Court in 1783. His defence was, that the black was his slave, and that the beating, etc., was the necessary restraint and correction of the master. This was answered by citing the aforesaid clause in the declaration of rights. The judges and jury were of opinion that he had no right to imprison or beat the negro. He was found guilty and fined 40 shillings. This decision put an end to the idea of slavery in Massachusetts."[635]

There are two things in the above that throw considerable uncertainty about the subject as to the precise date of the end of slavery in the Commonwealth. First, the suit referred to was tried in 1783, three years after the adoption of the new Constitution. Second, the good doctor does not say that the decision sealed the fate of slavery, but only that it "was a mortal wound to slavery in Massachusetts."

From 1785-1790, there was a wonderful change in the public opinion of the Middle and Eastern States on the subject of slavery. Most of them had passed laws providing for gradual emancipation. The Friends of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania began to organize a crusade against domestic slavery. In the fall of 1789, while the Congressional debates were still fresh in the minds of the people, the venerable Dr. Benjamin Franklin, as president of the "Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery," etc., issued the following letter:--

"AN ADDRESS TO THE PUBLIC.

From the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, and the Relief of Free Negroes unlawfully held in Bondage.

It is with peculiar satisfaction we assure, the friends of humanity, that, in prosecuting the design of our association, our endeavors have proved successful, far beyond our most sanguine expectations.

"Encouraged by this success, and by the daily progress of that luminous and benign spirit of liberty which is diffusing itself throughout the world, and humbly hoping for the continuance of the divine blessing on our labors, we have ventured to make an important addition to our original plan; and do therefore earnestly solicit the support and assistance of all who can feel the tender emotions of sympathy and compassion, or relish the exalted pleasure of beneficence.

"Slavery is such an atrocious debasement of human nature, that its very extirpation, if not performed with solicitous care, may sometimes open a source of serious evils.

"The unhappy man, who has long been treated as a brute animal, too frequently sinks beneath the common standard of the human species. The galling chains that bind his body do also fetter his intellectual faculties, and impair the social affections of his heart. Accustomed to move like a mere machine, by the will of a master, reflection is suspended; he has not the power of choice; and reason and conscience have but little influence over his conduct, because he is chiefly governed by the passion of fear. He is poor and friendless; perhaps worn out by extreme labor, age, and disease.

"Under such circumstances, freedom may often prove a misfortune to himself, and prejudicial to society.

"Attention to emancipated black people, it is therefore to be hoped, will become a branch of our national police; but, as far as we contribute to promote this emancipation, so far that attention is evidently a serious duty incumbent on us, and which we mean to discharge to the best of our judgement and abilities.

"To instruct, to advise, to qualify those who have been restored to freedom, for the exercise and enjoyment of civil liberty; to promote in them habits of industry; to furnish them with employments suited to their age, sex, talents, and other circumstances; and to procure their children an education calculated for their future situation in life,--these are the great outlines of the annexed plan which we have adopted, and which we conceive will essentially promote the public good, and the happiness of these our hitherto too much neglected fellow-creatures.

"A plan so extensive cannot be carried into execution without considerable pecuniary resources, beyond the present ordinary funds of the Society. We hope much from the generosity of enlightened and benevolent freemen, and will gratefully receive any donations or subscriptions for this purpose which may be made to our Treasurer, James Starr, or to James Pemberton, Chairman of our Committee of Correspondence.

"Signed by order of the Society, "B. FRANKLIN, President.

"Philadelphia, 9th of November, 1789."

And as his last public act, Franklin gave his signature to the subjoined memorial to the United States Congress:--

"The memorial respectfully showeth,--

"That, from a regard for the happiness of mankind, an association was formed several years since in this State, by a number of her citizens, of various religious denominations, for promoting the abolition of slavery, and for the relief of those unlawfully held in bondage. A just and acute conception of the true principles of liberty, as it spread through the land, produced accessions to their numbers, many friends to their cause, and a legislative co-operation with their views, which, by the blessing of Divine Providence, have been successfully directed to the relieving from bondage a large number of their fellow-creatures of the African race. They have also the satisfaction to observe, that, in consequence of that spirit of philanthropy and genuine liberty which is generally diffusing its beneficial influence, similar institutions are forming at home and abroad.

"That mankind are all formed by the same Almighty Being, alike objects of his care, and equally designed for the enjoyment of happiness, the Christian religion teaches us to believe, and the political creed of Americans fully coincides with the position. Your memorialists, particularly engaged in attending to the distresses arising from slavery, believe it their indispensable duty to present this subject to your notice. They have observed, with real satisfaction, that many important and salutary powers are vested in you for 'promoting the welfare and securing the blessings of liberty to the people of the United States'; and as they conceive that these blessings ought rightfully to be administered, without distinction of color, to all descriptions of people, so they indulge themselves in the pleasing expectation, that nothing which can be done for the relief of the unhappy objects of their care, will be either omitted or delayed.

"From a persuasion that equal liberty was originally the portion, and is still the birth-right, of all men; and influenced by the strong ties of humanity, and the principles of their institution, your memorialists conceive themselves bound to use all justifiable endeavors to loosen the bands of slavery, and promote a general enjoyment of the blessings of freedom. Under these impressions, they earnestly entreat your serious attention to the subject of slavery; that you will be pleased to countenance the restoration of liberty to those unhappy men, who alone, in this land of freedom, are degraded into perpetual bondage, and who, amidst the general joy of surrounding freemen, are groaning in servile subjection; that you will devise means for removing this inconsistency from the character of the American people; that you will promote mercy and justice towards this distressed race; and that you will step to the very verge of the power vested in you for discouraging every species of traffic in the persons of our fellow-men.

"BENJ. FRANKLIN, President.

"PHILADELPHIA, February 3, 1790."

The session of Congress held in 1790 was stormy. The slavery question came back to haunt the members. On the 12th of February, the memorial from the Pennsylvania society was read. It provoked fresh discussion, and greatly angered many of the Southern members. As soon as its reading was completed, the "Quaker Memorial," that had been read the day previous, was called up; and Mr. Hartley moved its commitment. A long and spirited debate ensued. It was charged that the memorial was "a mischievous attempt, an improper interference, at the best, an act of imprudence;" and that it "would sound an alarm and blow the trumpet of sedition through the Southern States." Mr. Scott of Pennsylvania replied by saying, "I cannot entertain a doubt that the memorial is strictly agreeable to the Constitution. It respects a part of the duty particularly assigned to us by that instrument." Mr. Sherman was in favor of the commitment of the memorial, and gave his reasons in extenso. Mr. Smith of South Carolina said, "Notwithstanding all the calmness with which some gentlemen have viewed the subject, they will find that the mere discussion of it will create alarm. We have been told that, if so, we should have avoided discussion by saying nothing. But it was not for that purpose we were sent here. We look upon this measure as an attack upon property; it is, therefore, our duty to oppose it by every means in our power. When we entered into a political connection with the other States, this property was there. It had been acquired under a former government conformably to the laws and constitution, and every attempt to deprive us of it must be in the nature of an ex post facto law, and, as such, forbidden by our political compact." Following the unwise and undignified example set by the gentlemen who had preceded him on that side of the question, he slurred the Quakers. "His constituents wanted no lessons in religion and morality, and least of all from such teachers."

Madison, Gerry, Boudinot, and Page favored commitment. Upon the question to commit, the yeas and nays being demanded, the reference was made by a vote of forty-three to eleven. Of the latter, six were from Georgia and South Carolina, two from Virginia, two from Maryland, and one from New York. A special committee was announced, to whom the memorial was referred, consisting of one member from each of the following States: New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. At the end of a month, the committee made the following report to Congress:--

"1st. That the general government was expressly restrained, until the year 1808, from prohibiting the importation of any persons whom any of the existing states might till that time think proper to admit. 2d. That, by a fair construction of the constitution, congress was equally restrained from interfering to emancipate slaves within the states, such slaves having been born there, or having been imported within the period mentioned. 3d. That congress had no power to interfere in the internal regulation of particular states relative to the instruction of slaves in the principles of morality and religion, to their comfortable clothing, accommodation, and subsistence, to the regulation of marriages or the violation of marital rights, to the separation of children and parents, to a comfortable provision in cases of age or infirmity, or to the seizure, transportation, and sale of free negroes; but entertained the fullest confidence in the wisdom and humanity of the state legislature that, from time to time, they would revise their laws, and promote these and all other measures tending to the happiness of the slaves. The fourth asserted that congress had authority to levy a tax of ten dollars, should they see fit to exact it, upon every person imported under the special permission of any of the states. The fifth declared the authority of congress to interdict or to regulate the African slave-trade, so far as it might be carried on by citizens of the United States for the supply of foreign countries, and also to provide for the humane treatment of slaves while on their passage to any ports of the United States into which they might be admitted. The sixth asserted the right of congress to prohibit foreigners from fitting out vessels in the United States to be employed in the supply of foreign countries with slaves from Africa. The seventh expressed an intention on the part of congress to exercise their authority to its full extent to promote the humane objects aimed at in the Quaker's memorial."

Mr. Tucker took the floor against the report of the committee, and, after a bitter speech upon the unconstitutionality of meddling with the slavery question in any manner, moved a substitute for the whole, in which he pronounced the recommendations of the committee "as unconstitutional, and tending to injure some of the States of the Union." Mr. Jackson seconded the motion in a rather intemperate speech, which was replied to by Mr. Vining. The substitute of Mr. Tucker was declared out of order. Mr. Benson moved to recommit in hopes of getting rid of the subject, but the motion was overwhelmingly voted down. The report was taken up article by article. The three first resolutions (those relating to the authority of Congress over slavery in the States) were adopted; while the second and third were merged into one, stripped of its objectionable features. But on the fourth the debate was carried to a high pitch. This one related to the ten-dollar tax. Mr. Tucker moved to amend by striking out the fourth resolution. Considerable discussion followed; and, upon the question being put, it was carried by one vote. The fifth resolution, affirming the power of Congress to regulate the slave-trade, drew the fire of Jackson, Smith, and Tucker. Mr. Madison offered to modify it somewhat. It was argued by the opponents of this resolution, that Congress, under the plea of regulating the trade, might prohibit it entirely. Mr. Vining of Delaware, somewhat out of patience with the demands of the Southern members, told those gentlemen very plainly that they ought to be satisfied with the changes already made to gratify them; that they should show some respect to the committee; that all the States from Virginia to New Hampshire had passed laws prohibiting the slave-trade; and then delivered an eloquent defence of the Quakers. The resolution, as modified by Mr. Madison, carried.

The sixth resolution, relating to the foreign slave-trade carried on from ports of the United States, received considerable attention. Mr. Scott made an elaborate speech upon it, in which he claimed, that, if it were a question as to the power of Congress to regulate the foreign slave-trade, he had no doubts as to the authority of that body. "I desire," said that gentleman, "that the world should know, I desire that those people in the gallery, about whom so much has been said, should know, that there is at least one member on this floor who believes that Congress have ample powers to do all they have asked respecting the African slave-trade. Nor do I doubt that Congress will, whenever necessity or policy dictates the measure, exercise those powers." Mr. Jackson attempted to reply. He started out with a labored argument showing the divine origin of slavery, quoting Scriptures; showed that the Greeks and Romans had held slaves, etc. He was followed and supported by Smith of South Carolina. Boudinot obtained the floor, and, after defending the Quakers and praising Franklin, declared that there was nothing unreasonable in the memorial; that it simply requested them "to go to the utmost verge of the Constitution," and not beyond it. Further debate was had, when the sixth resolution was adopted.

The seventh resolution, pledging Congress to exert their full powers for the restriction of the slave-trade--and, as some understood it, to discountenance slavery--was struck out. The committee then arose and reported the resolutions to the house. The next day, the 23d March, 1790, after some preliminary business was disposed of, a motion was made to take up the report of the committee. Ames, Madison, and others thought the matter, having occupied so much of the time of the house, should be left where it was; or rather, as Mr. Madison expressed it, simply entered on the Journals as a matter of public record. After some little discussion, this motion prevailed by a vote of twenty-nine to twenty-five. The entry was accordingly made as follows:--

"That the migration or importation of such persons as any of the states now existing shall think proper to admit, can not be prohibited by congress prior to the year 1808.

"That congress have no right to interfere in the emancipation of slaves, or in the treatment of them, in any of the states, it remaining with the several states alone to provide any regulations therein which humanity and true policy require.

"That congress have authority to restrain the citizens of the United States from carrying on the African slave-trade for the purpose of supplying foreigners with slaves, and of providing by proper regulations for the humane treatment, during their passage, of slaves imported by the said citizens into the said states admitting such importation.

"That congress have also authority to prohibit foreigners from fitting out vessels in any port of the United States for transporting persons from Africa to any foreign port."

The census of 1790 gave the slave population of the States as follows:--

SLAVE POPULATION.--CENSUS OF 1790.

Connecticut 2,759 Delaware 8,887 Georgia 29,264 Kentucky 11,830 Maryland 103,036 New Hampshire 158 New Jersey 11,423 New York 21,324 North Carolina 100,572 Pennsylvania 3,737 Rhode Island 952 South Carolina 107,094 Vermont 17 Virginia 293,427 Territory south of Ohio 3,417

Aggregate, 697,897.

Vermont was admitted into the Union on the 18th of February, 1791; and the first article of the Bill of Rights declared that "no male person born in this country, or brought from over sea, ought to be bound by law to serve any person as a servant, slave, or apprentice after he arrives at the age of twenty-one years, nor female, in like manner, after she arrives at the age of twenty-one years, unless they are bound by their own consent after they arrive at such age, or are bound by law for the payment of debts, damages, fines, costs, or the like." This provision was contained in the first Constitution of that State, and, therefore, it was the first one to abolish and prohibit slavery in North America.

On the 4th of February, 1791, Kentucky was admitted into the Union by Act of Congress, though it had no Constitution. But the next year a Constitution was framed. By it the Legislature was denied the right to emancipate slaves without the consent of the owner, nor without paying the full price of the slaves before emancipating them; nor could any laws be passed prohibiting emigrants from other states from bringing with them persons deemed slaves by the laws of any other states in the Union, so long as such persons should be continued as slaves in Kentucky. The Legislature had power to prohibit the bringing into the state slaves for the purpose of sale. Masters were required to treat their slaves with humanity, to properly feed and clothe them, and to abstain from inflicting any punishment extending to life and limb. Laws could be passed granting owners the right to emancipate their slaves, but requiring security that the slaves thus emancipated should not become a charge upon the county.

During the session of Congress in 1791, the Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery presented another memorial, calling upon Congress to exercise the powers they had been declared to possess by the report of the committee which had been spread upon the Journals of the house. Thus emboldened, other anti-slavery societies, of Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Virginia, and a few local societies of Maryland, presented memorials praying for the suppression of slavery in the United States. They were referred to a select committee; and, as they made no report, New Hampshire and Massachusetts, the next year, called the attention of Congress to the subject. On the 24th of November, 1792, a Mr. Warner Mifflin, an anti-slavery Quaker from Delaware, addressed a memorial to Congress on the general subject of slavery, which was read and laid upon the table without debate. On the 26th of November, Mr. Stute of North Carolina offered some sharp remarks upon the presumption of the Quaker, and moved that the petition be returned to the petitioner, and that the clerk be instructed to erase the entry from the Journal. This provoked a heated discussion; but at length the petition was returned to the author, and the motion to erase the record from the Journal was withdrawn by the mover.

In 1793 a law was passed providing for the return of fugitives from justice and from service, "In case of the escape out of any state or territory of any person held to service or labor under the laws thereof, the person to whom such labor was due, his agent, or attorney, might seize the fugitive and carry him before any United States judge, or before any magistrate of the city, town, or county in which the arrest was made; and such judge or magistrate, on proof to his satisfaction, either oral or by affidavit before any other magistrate, that the person seized was really a fugitive, and did owe labor as alleged, was to grant a certificate to that effect to the claimant, this certificate to serve as sufficient warrant for the removal of the fugitive to the state whence he had fled. Any person obstructing in any way such seizure or removal, or harboring or concealing any fugitive after notice, was liable to a penalty of $500, to be recovered by the claimant."

In 1794 an anti-slavery convention was held in Philadelphia, in which nearly all of the abolition societies of the country were represented. A memorial, carefully avoiding constitutional objections, was drawn and addressed to Congress to do whatever they could toward the suppression of the slave-trade. This memorial, with several other petitions, was referred to a special committee. In due time they reported a bill, which passed without much opposition. It was the first act of the government toward repressing the slave-trade, and was as mild as a summer's day. On Wednesday, the 7th of January, 1795, another meeting was held in Philadelphia, the second, to consider anti-slavery measures. The Act of Congress was read.

"An Act to prohibit the carrying on the Slave-trade from the United States to any foreign place or country.

"SECTION I. BE it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, That no citizen or citizens of the United States, or foreigner, or any other person coming into, or residing within the same, shall, for himself or any other person whatsoever, either as master, factor or owner, build, fit, equip, load or otherwise prepare any ship or vessel, within any port or place of the said United States, nor shall cause any ship or vessel to sail from any port or place within the same, for the purpose of carrying on any trade or traffic in slaves, to any foreign country; or for the purpose of procuring, from any foreign kingdom, place or country, the inhabitants of such kingdom, place or country, to be transported to any foreign country, port or place whatever, to be sold or disposed of, as slaves: And if any ship or vessel shall be so fitted out, as aforesaid, for the said purposes, or shall be caused to sail, so as aforesaid, every such ship or vessel, her tackle, furniture, apparel and other appurtenances, shall be forfeited to the United States; and shall be liable to be seized, prosecuted and condemned, in any of the circuit courts or district court for the district, where the said ship or vessel may be found and seized.

"SECTION II. And be it further enacted, That all and every person, so building, fitting out, equipping, loading, or otherwise preparing, or sending away, any ship or vessel, knowing, or intending, that the same shall be employed in such trade or business, contrary to the true intent and meaning of this act, or any ways aiding or abetting therein, shall severally forfeit and pay the sum of two thousand dollars, one moiety thereof, to the use of the United States, and the other moiety thereof, to the use of him or her, who shall sue for and prosecute the same.

"SECTION III. And be it further enacted, That the owner, master or factor of each and every foreign ship or vessel, clearing out for any of the coasts or kingdoms of Africa, or suspected to be intended for the slave-trade, and the suspicion being declared to the officer of the customs, by any citizen, on oath or affirmation, and such information being to the satisfaction of the said officer, shall first give bond with sufficient sureties, to the Treasurer of the United States, that none of the natives of Africa, or any other foreign country or place, shall be taken on board the said ship or vessel, to be transported, or sold as slaves, in any other foreign port or place whatever, within nine months thereafter.

"SECTION IV. And be it further enacted, That if any citizen or citizens of the United States shall, contrary to the true intent and meaning of this act, take on board, receive or transport any such persons, as above described, in this act, for the purpose of selling them as slaves, as aforesaid, he or they shall forfeit and pay, for each and every person, so received on board, transported, or sold as aforesaid, the sum of two hundred dollars, to be recovered in any court of the United States proper to try the same; the one moiety thereof, to the use of the United States, and the other moiety to the use of such person or persons, who shall sue for and prosecute the same.

"FREDERICK AUGUSTUS MUHLENBERG, Speaker of the House of Representatives.

"JOHN ADAMS, _Vice-President of the United States, and President of the Senate_.

"Approved--March the twenty-second, 1794. G'o: WASHINGTON, President of the United States."

In 1797 Congress again found themselves confronted by the dark problem of slavery, that would not down at their bidding. The Yearly Meeting of the Quakers of Philadelphia sent a memorial to Congress, complaining that about one hundred and thirty-four Negroes, and others whom they knew not of, having been lawfully emancipated, were afterwards reduced to bondage by an ex post facto law passed by North Carolina, in 1777, for that cruel purpose. After considerable debate, the memorial went to a committee, who subsequently reported that the matter complained of was purely of judicial cognizance, and that Congress had no authority in the premises.

During the same session a bill was introduced creating all that portion of the late British Province of West Florida, within the jurisdiction of the United States, into a government to be called the Mississippi Territory. It was to be conducted in all respects like the territory north-west of the Ohio, with the single exception that slavery should not be prohibited. During the discussion of this section of the bill, Mr. Thatcher of Massachusetts moved to amend by striking out the exception as to slavery, so as to make it conform to the ideas expressed by Mr. Jefferson a few years before in reference to the Western Territory. But, after a warm debate, Mr. Thatcher's motion was lost, having received only twelve votes. An amendment of Mr. Harper of South Carolina, offered a few days later, prohibiting the introduction of slaves into the new Mississippi Territory, from without the limits of the United States, carried without opposition.

Georgia revised her Constitution in 1798, and prohibited the importation of slaves "from Africa or any foreign place." Her slave-code was greatly moderated. Any person maliciously killing or dismembering a slave was to suffer the same punishment as if the act had been committed upon a free white person, except in case of insurrection, or "unless such death should happen by accident, in giving such slave moderate correction." But, like Kentucky, the Georgia constitution forbade the emancipation of slaves without the consent of the individual owner; and encouraged emigrants to bring slaves into the State.

In 1799, after three failures, the Legislature of New York passed a bill for the gradual extinction of slavery. It provided that all persons in slavery at the time of the passage of the bill should remain in bondage for life, but all their children, born after the fourth day of July next following, were to be free, but were required to remain under the direction of the owner of their parents, males until twenty-eight, and females until twenty-five. Exportation of slaves was disallowed; and if the attempt were made, and the parties apprehended, the slaves were to be free instanter. Persons moving into the State were not allowed to bring slaves, except they had owned them for a year previous to coming into the State.

In 1799 Kentucky revised her Constitution to meet the wants of a growing State. An attempt was made to secure a provision providing for gradual emancipation. It was supported by Henry Clay, who, as a young lawyer and promising orator, began on that occasion a brilliant political career that lasted for a half-century. But not even his magic eloquence could secure the passage of the humane amendment, and in regard to the question of slavery the Constitution received no change.

As the shadows gathered about the expiring days of the eighteenth century, it was clear to be seen that slavery, as an institution, had rooted itself into the political and legal life of the American Republic. An estate prolific of evil, fraught with danger to the new government, abhorred and rejected at first, was at length adopted with great political sagacity and deliberateness, and then guarded by the solemn forms of constitutional law and legislative enactments.

FOOTNOTES:

[627] St. Clair Papers, vol. i. p. 120.Return to passage

[628] The clause "three fifths of all other persons" refers to Negro slaves. The Italics are our own. The Negro is referred to as person all through the Constitution.Return to passage

[629] Madison Papers, Elliot, vol. v. pp. 392, 393.Return to passage

[630] Ibid., vol. v pp. 391, 392.Return to passage

[631] Madison Papers, Elliot, vol. v. pp. 457-461.Return to passage

[632] Madison Papers, Elliot, vol. v. pp. 477, 478.Return to passage

[633] Examine Hildreth and the Secret Debates on the subject of the "compromises."Return to passage

[634] Travels, etc., vol. ii. p. 166.Return to passage

[635] M.H.S. Coll., 5th Series, III., p. 403.Return to passage

Part I

PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS.

I. THE UNITY OF MANKIND

In Acts xvii. 26 the apostle says, "And God hath made of one blood all nations of men to dwell on the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation." In Mark xvi. 15, 16, is recorded that remarkable command of our Saviour, "GO YE INTO ALL THE WORLD, and preach the gospel TO EVERY CREATURE. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned." (See also Matt. xxviii. 18, 20.) Now there is a very close connection between the statement here made by the apostle, and the command here given by our Lord Jesus Christ; for it was in obedience to this command that the apostle was at that time at Athens. There, amid the proud and conceited philosophers of Greece, in the centre of their resplendent capital, surrounded on every hand by their noblest works of art and their proudest monuments of learning, the apostle proclaims the equality of ALL MEN, their common origin, guilt, and danger, and their universal obligations to receive and embrace the gospel. The Athenians, like other ancient nations, and like them, too, in opposition to their own mythology, regarded themselves as a peculiar and distinct race, created upon the very soil which they inhabited, and pre-eminently elevated above the barbarians of the earth,--as they regarded the other races of men. Paul, however, as an inspired and infallible teacher, authoritatively declares that "God who made the world and all things therein," "hath made of one blood," and caused to descend from one original pair the whole species of men, who are now by His providential direction so propagated as to inhabit "all the face of the earth," having marked out in his eternal and unerring counsel the determinate periods for their inhabiting, and the boundaries of the regions they should inhabit.

The apostle in this passage refers very evidently to the record of the early colonization and settling of the earth contained in the books of Moses. Some Greek copies preserve only the word [Greek: enos], leaving out [Greek: aimatos], a reading which the vulgar Latin follows. The Arabic version, to explain both, has ex homine, or as De Dieu renders it, ex Adamo uno, there being but the difference of one letter in the Eastern languages between dam and adam, the one denoting blood, and the other man. But if we take this passage as our more ordinary copies read it, [Greek: exenos aimatos], it is still equally plain that the meaning is not that all mankind were made of the same uniform matter, as the author of the work styled Pre-Adamites weakly imagined, for on that ground, not only mankind, but the whole world might be said to be ex henos haimatos, i.e., of the same blood, since all things in the world were at first formed out of the same matter. The word [Greek: aima] therefore must be here rendered in the same sense as that in which it occurs in the best Greek authors--the stock out of which men come Thus Homer says,--

"[Greek: Ei eteon g emos esti kai aimtos emeteroio]".

In like manner those who are near relations, are called by Sophocles [Greek: oi pros aimatos]. And hence the term consanguinity, employed to denote nearness of relation. Virgil uses sanguis in the same sense.

"Trojano a sanguine duci."

So that the apostle's meaning is, that however men now are dispersed in their habitations, and however much they differ in language and customs from each other, yet they were all originally of the same stock, and derived their succession from the first man whom God created, that is, from Adam, from which name the Hebrew word for blood--i.e.--dam--is a derivative.

Neither can it be conceived on what account Adam in the Scripture is called "the first man," and said to be "made a living soul," and "of the earth earthy," unless it is to denote that he was absolutely the first of his kind, and was, therefore, designed to be the standard and measure of all the races of men. And thus when our Saviour would trace up all things to the beginning, he illustrates his doctrine by quoting those words which were pronounced after Eve was formed. "But from the beginning of the creation, God made them male and female, for this cause shall a man leave father and mother and cleave unto his wife" Now nothing can be more plain and incontrovertible than that those of whom these words were spoken, were the first male and female which were made in "the beginning of the creation." It is equally evident that these words were spoken of Adam and Eve for "Adam said, This is now bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh; therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife" If the Scriptures then of the New Testament be true, it is most plain and evident that all mankind are descended from Adam.[636]

* * * * *

THE CURSE OF CANAAN.

It is not necessary--nay, it is not admissible--to take the words of Noah, as to Shem and Japheth, as prophetic We shall presently see that, as prophetic, they have failed. Let us not, in expounding Scripture, introduce the supernatural when the natural is adequate. Noah had now known the peculiarities of his sons long enough, and well enough, to be able to make some probable conjecture as to their future course, and then success or failure in life. It is what parents do now a-days. They say of one son, He will succeed,--he is so dutiful, so economical, so industrious. They say of another, This one will make a good lawyer--he is so sharp in an argument. Of another, they say, We will educate him for the ministry, for he has suitable qualifications While of another they may be constrained to predict that he will not succeed, because he is indolent, and selfish, and sensual. Does it require special inspiration for a father, having ordinary common sense, to discover the peculiar talents and dispositions of his children, and to predict the probable future of each of them? Some times they hit it sometimes they miss it. Shall it not be conceded to Noah that he could make as probable a conjecture, as to his sons, as your father made as to you, or as you think yourselves competent to make for either of your sons? Noah made a good hit. What he said as to the future of his sons, and of their posterity, has turned out, in some respects, as he said it would, but not exactly,--not so exactly as to authorize our calling his words an inspired prophecy, as we shall presently show.

But, if we set out to establish or to justify slavery upon these words of Noah, on the assumption GOD spake by Noah as to the curse and blessings here recorded, we have a right to expect to find the facts of history to correspond. If the facts of history do not correspond with these words of Noah, then God did not speak them by Noah as his own. Let us face this matter. It is said, by those who interpret the curse of Canaan as divine authority for slavery, that God has hereby ordained that the descendants of Ham shall be slaves. The descendants of Shem are not, of course, doomed to that curse. Now, upon the supposition that these are the words of God, and not the denunciations of an irritated father just awaking from his drunkenness, we ought not to find any of Canaan's descendants out of a condition of slavery, nor any of the descendants of Shem in it. If we do, then either these are not God's words, or God's words have not come true.

But it is a fact that not all of Ham's entire descendants, nor even of Canaan's descendants (on whom alone, and not at all on Ham, nor on his three other sons, Noah's curse fell), are now, nor ever have been, as a whole, in a state of bondage. The Canaanites were not slaves, but free and powerful tribes, when the Hebrews entered their territory. The Carthaginians, it is generally admitted, were descended from Canaan. They certainly were free and powerful when, in frequent wars, they contended, often with success, against the formidable Romans. If the curse of Noah was intended for all the descendants of Ham, it signally failed in the case of the first military hero mentioned in the Bible, who was the founder of a world-renowned city and empire. I refer to Nimrod, who was a son of Cush, the oldest son of Ham. Of this Nimrod the record is, "He began to be a mighty one in the earth: he was a mighty hunter before the Lord: and the beginning of his Kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. Out of that land went forth Asshur and builded Nineveh, and the city Rehoboth, and Calah, and Resen, between Nineveh and Calah; the same is a great city." This is Bible authority, informing us that the grandson of Ham (Nimrod, the son of Cush) was a mighty man--the great man of the world, in his day--the founder of the Babylonian empire, and the ancestor of the founder of the city of Nineveh, one of the grandest cities of the ancient world. We are not led to conclude, from these wonderful achievements by the posterity of Cush (who was the progenitor of the Negroes), that this line of Ham's descendants was so weak in intellect as to be unable to set up and maintain a government.[637]

FOOTNOTES

[636] The Unity of the Human Races, pp. 14-17.Return to passage

[637] Curse of Canaan, pp. 5-7. By Rev. C.H. Edgar.Return to passage

* * * * *

III. NEGRO CIVILIZATION

DR. WISEMAN has also shown that both Aristotle and Herodotus describe the Egyptians--to whom Homer, Lycurgus, Solon, Pythagoras, and Plato resorted for wisdom--as having the black skin, the crooked legs, the distorted feet and the woolly hair of the Negro, from which we do not wish, or feel it necessary to infer that the Egyptians were Negroes, but first that the ideas of degradation and not-human, associated with the dark-colored African races of people now, were not attached to them at an early period of their history; and secondly, that while depicted as Negroes, the Egyptians were regarded by these profound ancients--the one a naturalist and the other a historian--as one of the branches of the human family, and as identified with a nation of whose descent from Ham there is no question.[638] Egyptian antiquity, not claiming priority of social existence for itself, often pointed to the regions of Habesh, or high African Ethiopia, and sometimes to the North, for the seat of the gods and demigods, because both were the intermediate stations of the progenitor tribes.[639]

There is, therefore, every reason to believe that the primitive Egyptians were conformed much more to the African than to the European form and physiognomy, and therefore that there was a time when learning, commerce, arts, manufactures, etc., were all associated with a form and character of the human race now regarded as the evidence only of degradation and barbarous ignorance.

But why question this fact when we can refer to the ancient and once glorious kingdoms of Meroe, Nubia, and Ethiopia, and to the prowess and skill of other ancient and interior African Nations? And among the existing nations of interior Africa, there is seen a manifold diversity as regards the blackest races. The characteristics of the most truly Negro race are not found in all, nor to the same degree in many.

Clapperton and other travellers among the Negro tribes of interior Africa, attest the superiority of the pure Negroes above the mixed races around them, in all moral characteristics, and describe also large and populous kingdoms with numerous towns, well cultivated fields, and various manufactures, such as weaving, dyeing, tanning, working in iron and other metals, and in pottery.[640]

From the facts we have adduced it seems to follow, that one of the earliest races of men of whose existence, civilization and physiognomy, we have any remaining proofs, were dark or black colored. "We must," says Prichard, "for the present look upon the black races as the aborigines of Kelaenonesia, or Oceanica,--that is as the immemorial and primitive inhabitants. There is no reason to doubt that they were spread over the Austral island long before the same or the contiguous regions were approached by the Malayo-Polynesians. We cannot say definitely how far back this will carry us, but as the distant colonizations of the Polynesians probably happened before the island of Java received arts and civilization from Hindustan, it must be supposed to have preceded by some ages the Javan era of Batara Guru, and therefore to have happened before the Christian era."

The Negro race is known to have existed 3,345 years, says Dr. Morton, 268 years later than the earliest notice of the white race, of which we have distinct mention B.C. 2200. This makes the existence of a Negro race certain about 842 years after the flood, according to the Hebrew chronology, or 1650 years after the flood, according to the Septuagint chronology, which may very possibly have been the original Hebrew chronology. There is thus ample time given for the multiplication and diffusion of man over the earth, and for the formation--either by natural or supernatural causes, in combination with the anomalous and altogether extraordinary condition of the earth--of all the various races of men.

It is also apparent from the architecture, and other historical evidences of their character, that dark or black races, with more or less of the Negro physiognomy, were in the earliest period of their known history cultivated and intelligent, having kingdoms, arts, and manufactures. And Mr. Pickering assures us that there is no fact to show that Negro slavery is not of modern origin. The degradation of this race of men therefore, must be regarded as the result of external causes, and not of natural, inherent and original incapacity.[641]

FOOTNOTES:

[638] See Dr. Wiseman's Lectures on the connection between Science and Revealed Religion, Am. ed., pp. 95-98Return to passage

[639] See Nat. Hist. Human Species p. 373.Return to passage

[640] See British Encyclopaedia, vol. ii. pp. 237, 238Return to passage

[641] Tiedeman, on the Brain of the Negro, in the Phil. Trans., 1838, p. 497Return to passage

* * * * *

VI. NEGRO TYPE

It has often been said that, independently of the woolly hair and the complexion of the Negroes, there are sufficient differences between them and the rest of mankind to mark them as a very peculiar tribe. This is true, and yet the principal differences are perhaps not so constant as many persons imagine. In our West Indian colonies very many Negroes, especially females, are seen, whose figures strike Europeans as remarkably beautiful. This would not be the case if they deviated much from the idea prevalent in Europe, or from the European standard of beauty. Yet the slaves in the colonies, particularly in those of England, were brought from the west coast of intertropical Africa, where the peculiarities of figure, which in our eyes constitute deformity in the Negro, are chiefly prevalent. The black people imported into the French and to some of the Portuguese colonies, from the eastern coast of the African continent, and from Congo, are much better made. The most degraded and savage nations are the ugliest. Among the most improved and the partially civilized, as the Ashantees, and other interior States, the figure and the features of the native people approach much more to the European. The ugliest Negro tribes are confined to the equatorial countries; and on both sides of the equator, as we advance towards the temperate zones, the persons of the inhabitants are most handsome and well formed.

In a later period of this work I shall cite authors who have proved that many races belonging to this department of mankind are noted for the beauty of their features, and their fine stature and proportions. Adanson has made this observation of the Negroes on the Senegal. He thus describes the men. "Leur taille est pour l'ordinaire au-dessus de la mediocre, bien prise et sans defaut. Ils sont forts, robustes, et d'un temperament propre a la fatigue. Ils ont les yeux noirs et bien fendus, peu de barbe, les traits du visage assez agreables." They are complete Negroes, for it is added that their complexion is of a fine black, that their hair is black, frizzled, cottony, and of extreme fineness. The women are said to be of nearly equal stature with the men, and equally well made. "Leur visage est d'une douceur extreme. Elles ont les yeux noirs, bien fendus, la bouche et les levres petites, et les traits du visage bien proportionnes. Il s'en trouve plusieurs d'une beaute parfaite." Mr. Rankin, a highly intelligent traveller, who reports accurately and without prejudice the results of his personal observation, has recently given a similar testimony in regard to some of the numerous tribes of northern Negro-land, who frequent the English colony of Sierra Leone. In the skull of the more improved and civilized nations among the woolly-haired blacks of Africa, there is comparatively slight deviation from the form which may be looked upon as the common type of the human head. We are assured, for example, by M. Golberry, that the Ioloffs, whose colour is a deep transparent black, and who have woolly hair, are robust and well made, and have regular features. Their countenances, he says, are ingenuous, and inspire confidence: they are honest, hospitable, generous, and faithful. The women are mild, very pretty, well made, and of agreeable manners. On the other side of the equinoctial line, the Congo Negroes, as Pigafetta declares, have not thick lips or ugly features; except in colour they are very like the Portuguese. Kafirs in South Africa frequently resemble Europeans, as many late travellers have declared. It has been the opinion of many that the Kafirs ought to be separated from the Negroes as a distinct branch of the human family. This has been proved to be an error. In the conformation of the skull, which is the leading character, the Kafirs associate themselves with the great majority of woolly African nations.[642]

THE NEGROES.

The Negroes inhabit Africa from the southern margin of the Sahara as far as the territory of the Hottentots and Bushmen, and from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean, although the extreme east of their domain has been wrested from them by intrusive Hamites and Semites. Most negroes have high and narrow skulls. According to Welcker the average percentage of width begins at 68 and rises to 78. The variations are so great that, among eighteen heads from Equatorial Africa, Barnard Davis found no less than four brachyrephals. In the majority dolichocephalism is combined with a prominence of the upper jaw and an oblique position of the teeth, yet there are whole nations which are purely mesognathous. It is to be regretted that in the opinion of certain mistaken ethnologists, the negro was the ideal of every thing barbarous and beast-like. They endeavoured to deny him any capability of improvement, and even disputed his position as a man. The negro was said to have an oval skull, a flat forehead, snout-like jaws, swollen lips, a broad flat nose, short crimped hair, falsely called wool, long arms, meagre thighs, calfless legs, highly elongated heels, and flat feet. No single tribe, however, possesses all these deformities. The colour of the skin passes through every gradation, from ebony black, as in the Joloffers, to the light tint of the mulattoes, as in the Wakilema, and Barth even describes copper-coloured negroes in Marghi. As to the skull in many tribes, as in the above mentioned Joloffers, the jaws are not prominent, and the lips are not swollen. In some tribes the nose is pointed, straight, or hooked; even "Grecian profiles" are spoken of, and travellers say with surprise that they cannot perceive anything of the so-called negro type among the negroes.

According to Paul Broca, the upper limbs of the negro are comparatively much shorter than the lower, and therefore less ape-like than in Europeans, and, although in the length of the femur the negro may approximate to the proportions of the ape, he differs from them by the shortness of the humerus more than is the case with Europeans. Undoubtedly narrow and more or less high skulls are prevalent among the negroes. But the only persistent character which can be adduced as common to all is greater or less darkness of skin, that is to say, yellow, copper-red, olive, or dark brown, passing into ebony black. The colour is always browner than that of Southern Europe. The hair is generally short, elliptic in section, often split longitudinally, and much crimped. That of the negroes of South Africa, especially of the Kaffirs and Betshuans, is matted into tufts, although not in the same degree as that of the Hottentots. The hair is black, and in old age white, but there are also negroes with red hair, red eye-brows, and eye-lashes, and among the Monbuttoo, on the Uelle, Schweinfurth even discovered negroes with ashy fair hair. Hair on the body and beards exist, though not abundantly; whiskers are rare although not quite unknown.

The negroes form but a single race, for the predominant as well as the constant characters recur in Southern as well as in Central Africa, and it was therefore a mistake to separate the Bantu negroes into a peculiar race. But, according to language, the South Africans can well be separated, as a great family, from the Soudan negroes.[643]

FOOTNOTES:

[642] Prichard's Physical History of Mankind, vol. i. pp. 247-249.Return to passage

* * * * *

THE RELATION OF PHYSICAL CHARACTER TO CLIMATE.

We shall now find, on comparing these several departments with each other, that marked differences of physical character, and particularly of complexion, distinguished the human races which respectively inhabit them, and that these differences are successive or by gradations.

First, Among the people of level countries within the Mediterranean region, including Spaniards, Italians, Greeks, Moors, and the Mediterranean islanders, black hair with dark eyes is almost universal, scarcely, one person in some hundreds presenting an exception to this remark with this colour of the hair and eyes is conjoined a complexion of brownish white, which the French call the colour of brunettes. We must observe, that throughout all the zones into which we have divided the European region, similar complexions to this of the Mediterranean countries are occasionally seen The qualities, indeed, of climate are not so diverse, but that even the same plants are found sporadically, in the North of Europe as in the Alps and Pyrenees. But if we make a comparison between the prevalent colours of great numbers, we can easily trace a succession of shades or of different hues.

Secondly, In the southernmost of the three zones, to the northward of the Pyreno-Alpine line, namely, in the latitude of France, the prevalent colour of the hair is a chestnut brown, to which the complexion and the colour of the eyes bear a certain relation.

Thirdly, In the northern parts of Germany, England, in Denmark, Finland and a great part of Russia, the xanthous variety, strongly marked, is prevalent The Danes have always been known as a people of florid complexion, blue eyes, and yellow hair The Hollanders were termed by Silius Italicus, "Auricomi Batavi," the golden haired Batavians, and Linnaeus has defined the Finns as a tribe distinguished by "capillis flavis prolixis."

Fourthly, In the northern division we find the Norwegians and Swedes to be generally tall, white haired men, with light gray eyes characters so frequent to the northward of the Baltic, that Linnaeus has specified them in a definition of the inhabitants of Swedish Gothland. We have then to the northward of Mount Atlas, four well marked varieties of human complexion succeeding each other, and in exact accordance with the gradations of latitude and of climate from south to north. The people are thus far nearly white in the colour of their skin, but in the more southerly of the three regions above defined, with a mixture of brown, or of the complexion of brunettes, or such as we term swarthy or sallow persons.

Fifthly, In the next region, to the southward of Atlas, the native inhabitants, are the "gentes sub fusci coloris" of Leo, and the immigrant Arabs in the same country are, as we have seen by abundant testimonies, of a similar high brown hue, but varying between that and a perfect black.

Sixthly, With the tropic and the latitude of the Senegal, begins the region of predominant and almost universal black, and this continues, if we confine ourselves to the low and plain countries, through all inter tropical Africa.

Seventhly, Beyond this is the country of copper coloured and red people, who, in Kafirland, are the majority, while in inter-tropical Africa there are but few such tribes, and those in countries of mountainous elevation.

Lastly, Towards the Cape are the tawny Hottentots, scarcely darker than the Mongoles, whom they resemble in many other particulars besides colour.

It has long been well known, that as travellers ascend mountains, in whatever region, they find the vegetation at every successive level altering its character, and assuming a more northern aspect, thus indicating that the state of the atmosphere, temperature and physical agencies in general, assimilate as we approach alpine regions, to the peculiarities locally connected with high latitudes. If therefore, complexions and other bodily qualities belonging to races of men depend upon climate and external conditions, we should expect to find them varying in reference to elevation of surface, and if they should be found actually to undergo such variations, this will be a strong argument that these external characters do, in fact, depend upon local conditions. Now, if we inquire respecting the physical characters of the tribes inhabiting high tracts within either of the regions above marked out, we shall find that they coincide with those which prevail in the level or low parts of more northern tracts. The Swiss, in the high mountains above the plains of Lombardy, have sandy or brown hair. What a contrast presents itself to the traveller who descends into the Milanese, where the peasants have black hair and eyes, with strongly-marked Italian and almost Oriental features. In the higher parts of the Biscayan country, instead of the swarthy complexion and black hair of the Castilians, the natives have a fair complexion with light-blue eyes and flaxen or auburn hair. And in Atlantica, while the Berbers of the plains are of brown complexion with black hair, we have seen that the Shuluh mountaineers are fair, and that the inhabitants of the high tracts of Mons Aurasius are completely xanthous, having red or yellow hair and blue eyes, which fancifully, and without the shadow of any proof, they have been conjectured to have derived from the Vandal troops of Genseric.

Even in the inter-tropical region, high elevations of surface, as they produce a cooler climate, seem to occasion the appearance of light complexions. In the high parts of Senegambia, which front the Atlantic, and are cooled by winds from the Western Ocean, where, in fact, the temperature is known to be moderate and even cool at times, the light copper-coloured Frelahs are found surrounded on every side by Negro nations inhabiting lower districts; and nearly in the same parallel, but at the opposite side of Africa, are the high plains of Enarea and Kaffa, where the inhabitants are said to be fairer than the natives of southern Europe. The Galla and the Abyssinians themselves are, in proportion to the elevation of the country inhabited by them, fairer than the natives of low countries; and lest an exception should be taken to a comparison of straight-haired races with woolly Negroes or Shungalla, they bear the same comparison with the Danakil, Hazorta, and the Bishari tribes, resembling them in their hair and features, who inhabit the low tracts between the mountains of Tigre and the shores of the Red Sea, and who are equally or nearly as black as Negroes.

We may find occasion to observe that an equally decided relation exists between local conditions and the existence of other characters of human races in Africa. Those races who have the Negro character in an exaggerated degree, and who may be said to approach to deformity in person--the ugliest blacks with depressed foreheads, flat noses, crooked legs--are in many instances inhabitants of low countries, often of swampy tracts near the sea-coast, where many of them, as the Papels, have scarcely any other means of subsistence than shell fish, and the accidental gifts of the sea. In many places similar Negro tribes occupy thick forests in the hollows beneath high chains of mountains, the summits of which are inhabited by Abyssinian or Ethiopian races. The high table-lands of Africa are chiefly, as far as they are known, the abode or the wandering places of tribes of this character, or of nations who, like the Kafirs, recede very considerably from the Negro type. The Mandingos are, indeed, a Negro race inhabiting a high region; but they have neither the depressed forehead nor the projecting features considered as characteristic of the Negro race.[644]

FOOTNOTES:

[643] Peschel, The Races of Man, pp. 462-464.Return to passage

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VII. CITIES OF AFRICA

Carthage. The foundation of this celebrated city is ascribed to Elissa, a Tyrian princess, better known as Dido; it may therefore be fixed at the year of the world 3158; when Joash was king of Judah; 98 years before the building of Rome, and 846 years before Christ. The king of Tyre, father of the famous Jezebel, called in Scripture Ethbaal, was her great grandfather. She married her near relation Acerbas, also called Sicharbas, or Sichaeus, an extremely rich prince, Pygmalion, king of Tyre, was her brother. Pygmalion put Sichaeus to death in order that he might have an opportunity to seize his immense treasures, but Dido eluded her brother's cruel avarice, by secretly conveying away her deceased husband's possessions. With a large train of followers she left her country, and after wandering some time, landed on the coast of the Mediterranean, in Africa, and located her settlement at the bottom of the gulf, on a peninsula, near the spot where Tunis now stands. Many of the neighboring people, allured by the prospect of gain, repaired thither to sell to those foreigners the necessities of life, and soon became incorporated with them. The people thus gathered from different places soon grew very numerous. And the citizens of Utica, an African city about fifteen miles distant, considering them as their countrymen, as descended from the same common stock, advised them to build a city where they had settled. The other natives of the country, from their natural esteem and respect for strangers, likewise encouraged them to the same object. Thus all things conspiring with Dido's views, she built her city, which was appointed to pay in annual tribute to the Africans for the ground it stood upon, and called it Carthage--a name that in the Phoenician and Hebrew languages, [which have a great affinity,] signifies the "New City." It is said that in digging the foundation, a horse's head was found, which was thought to be a good omen, and a presage of the future warlike genius of that people. Carthage had the same language and national character as its parent state--Tyre. It became at length, particularly at the period of the Punic War, one of the most splendid cities in the world, and had under its dominion 300 cities bordering upon the Mediterranean. From the small beginning we have described, Carthage increased till her population numbered 700,000, and the number of her temples and other public buildings was immense. Her dominion was not long confined to Africa. Her ambitious inhabitants extended their conquest into Europe, by invading Sardinia, seizing a great part of Sicily, and subduing almost all of Spain. Having sent powerful colonies everywhere, they enjoyed the empire of the seas for more than six hundred years and formed a State which was able to dispute pre-eminence with the greatest empire of the world, by their wealth, their commerce, their numerous armies, their formidable fleets, and above all by the courage and ability of their commanders, and she extended her commerce over every part of the known world. A colony of Phoenicians or Ethiopians, known in Scripture as Canaanites, settled in Carthage. The Carthaginians settled in Spain and Portugal. The first inhabitants of Spain were the Celts, a people of Gaul, after them the Phoenicians possessed themselves of the most southern parts of the country, and may well be supposed to have been the first civilizers of this kingdom, and the founders of the most ancient cities. After these, followed the Grecians, then the Carthaginians.

Portugal was anciently called Lusitania, and inhabited by tribes of wandering people, till it became subject to the Carthaginians and Phoenicians, who were dispossessed by the Romans 250 years before Christ. (ROLLIN.)

The Carthaginians were masters of all the coast which lies on the Mediterranean, and all the country as far as the river Iberus. Their dominions, at the time when Hannibal the Great set out for Italy, all the coast of Africa from the Arae Phileanorum, by the great Syrtis, to the pillars of Hercules was subject to the Carthaginians, who had maintained three great wars against the Romans. But the Romans finally prevailed by carrying the war into Africa, and the last Punic war terminated with the overthrow of Carthage (NEPOS, in Vita Annibalis, liv.)

The celebrated Cyrene was a very powerful city, situated on the Mediterranean, towards the greater Syrtis, in Africa, and had been built by Battus, the Lacedaemonian. (ROLLIN.)

Cyrene--(Acts xi. 20.) A province and city of Libya. There was anciently a Phoenician colony called Cyrenaica, or "Libya, about Cyrene." (Acts ii. 10.).

Cyrene--A country west of Egypt, and the birthplace of Callimachus the poet, Eratosthenes the historian, and Simon who bore the Saviour's cross. Many Jews from hence were at the Pentecost, and were converted under Peter's sermon (Acts ii.). The region, now under the Turkish power, and has become almost a desert. It is now called Cairoan. Some of the Cyrenians were among the earliest Christians (Acts xi. 20); and one of them, it is supposed, was a preacher at Antioch (Acts xiii. 1). We find also, that among the most violent opposers of Christianity were the Cyrenians, who had a synagogue at Jerusalem, as had those of many other nations. It is said there were four hundred and eighty synagogues in Jerusalem.

Lybia, or Libya (Acts ii. 10), was anciently among the Greeks, a general name for Africa, but properly it embraced only so much of Africa as lay west of Egypt, on the southern coast of the Mediterranean. Profane geographers call it Libya Cyrenaica, because Cyrene was its capitol. It was the country of the Lubims (2 Chron. xii. 3), or Lehabims, of the Old Testament, from which it is supposed to have derived its name.

The ancient city of Cyrene is now called Cyreune, Cairoan, or Cayran and lies in the dominion of Tripoli. This district of the earth has lately occasioned much interest among Italian and French geographers. Great numbers of Jews resided here (Matt. xxvii. 32).

Libya, a part of Africa, bordering on Egypt, famous for its armed chariots and horses (2 Chron. xvi. 8).

Ophir, the son of Joktan, gave name to a country in Africa, famous for gold, which was renowned even in the time of Job (Job xxi. 24, xxviii. 16); and from the time of David to the time of Jehoshaphat the Hebrews traded with it, and Uzziah revived this trade when he made himself master of Elath, a noted port on the Red Sea. In Solomon's time, the Hebrew fleet took up three years in their voyage to Ophir, and brought home gold, apes, peacocks, spices, ivory, ebony and almug-trees (1 Kings ix. 28, x. 11, xxii. 48, 2 Chron. ix. 10).

Tarshish (Isa. xxiii. 1), or Tharsish (1 Kings x. 22). It is supposed that some place of this name existed on the eastern coast of Africa or among the southern ports of Asia, with which the ships of Hiram and Solomon traded in gold and silver, ivory, and apes and peacocks (2 Chron. ix. 21). It is said that once in every three years these ships completed a voyage, and brought home their merchandise. Hence, it is inferred, the place with which they traded must have been distant from Judea.

The vessels given by Hiram to Solomon, and those built by Jehoshaphat, to go to Tarshish, were all launched at Eziongeber, it the northern extremity of the eastern gulf of the Red Sea, now called the Gulf of Ahaba (2 Chron xx. 36). The name of Tarshish was from one of the sons of Javan (Gen. x. 4).

Phut (Gen. x. 6), or Put (Nah. iii. 9), was the third son of Ham, and his descendants, sometimes called Libyans, are supposed to be the Mauritanians, or Moors of modern times. They served the Egyptians and Tyrians as soldiers (Jer. xlvi. 9; Ezek. xxvii. 10, xxx. 5, xxxviii. 5).

Pul. A district in Africa, thought by Bochart to be an island in the Nile, not far from Syene (Isa. lxvi. 19).

Seba (Isa. xliii. 3) A peninsular district of African Ethiopia, deriving its name from the eldest son of Cush (Gen. x. 7), who is supposed to have been the progenitor of the Ethiopians. It is called Seba by the Hebrews.

FOOTNOTES:

[644] Prichard. vol. ii pp. 334-338.

CITIES OF ETHIOPIA

Ethiopian is a name derived from the "land of Ethiopia," the first settled country before the flood. "The second river that went out of Eden, to water the garden, or earth, was Gihon; the same that encompasseth the whole land, or country, of Ethiopia" (Gen. ii. 13). Here Adam and his posterity built their tents and tilled the ground (Gen. iii. 23, 24).

The first city was Enoch, built before the flood in the land of Nod on the east of Eden,--a country now called Arabia. Cain the son of Adam, went out of Eden and dwelt in the land of Nod. We suppose, according to an ancient custom he married his sister and she bare Enoch. And Cain built a city and called the name of the city after the name of his son, Enoch, (Gen. iv. 16, 17). We know there must have been more than Cain and his son Enoch in the land of Nod to build a city but who were they?... (MALCOM'S Bible Dictionary.)

The first great city described in ancient and sacred history was built by the Cushites, or Ethiopians. They surrounded it with walls which, according to Rollin, were eighty-seven feet in thickness, three hundred and fifty feet in height and four hundred and eighty furlongs in circumference. And even this stupendous work they shortly after eclipsed by another, of which Diodorus says, "Never did any city come up to the greatness and magnificence of this."

It is a fact well attested by history, that the Ethiopians once bore sway, not only in all Africa, but over almost all Asia; and it is said that even two continents, could not afford field enough for the expansion of their energies.

"They found their way into Europe, and built a city on the western coast of Spain, called by them Iberian Ethiopia." "And," says a distinguished writer, "wherever they went, they were rewarded for their wisdom."

THE TOWER OF BABEL--Nimrod, the son of Cush, an Ethiopian, attempted to build the Tower of Babel (Gen. x. 8-10 xi. 4-9). One hundred and two years after the flood, in the land of Shinar--an extensive and fertile plain, lying between Mesopotamia on the west and Persia on the east, and watered by the Euphrates,--mankind being all of one language, one color, and one religion,--they agree to erect a tower of prodigious extent and height. Their design was not to secure themselves against a second deluge, or they would have built their tower on a high mountain, but to get themselves a famous character, and to prevent their dispersion by the erection of a monument which should be visible from a great distance. No quarries being found in that alluvial soil, they made bricks for stone, and used slime for mortar. Their haughty and rebellious attempt displeased the Lord; and after they had worked, it is said, twenty-two years, he confounded their language. This effectually stopped the building, procured it the name of Babel, or Confusion, and obliged some of the offspring of Noah to disperse themselves and replenish the world. The tower of Babel was in sight from the great city of Babylon. Nimrod was a hunter and monarch of vast ambition. When he rose to be king of Babylon he re-peopled Babel, which had been desolate since the confusion of tongues, but did not dare to attempt the finishing of the tower. The Scriptures inform us, he became "mighty upon earth;" but the extent of his conquests is not known. (MALCOM'S Bible Dictionary.)

The private houses, in most of the ancient cities, were simple in external appearance, but exhibited, in the interior, all the splendor and elegance of refined luxury. The floors were of marble; alabaster and gilding were displayed on every side. In every great house there were several fountains, playing in magnificent basins. The smallest house had three pipes,--one for the kitchen, another for the garden, and a third for washing. The same magnificence was displayed in the mosques, churches, and coffee houses. The environs presented, at all seasons of the year, a pleasing verdure, and contained extensive series of gardens and villas.

THE GREAT AND SPLENDID CITY OF BABYLON.--This city was founded by Nimrod, about 2,247 years B.C., in the land of Shinar, or Chaldea, and made the capital of his kingdom. It was probably an inconsiderable place, until it was enlarged and embellished by Semiramis; it then became the most magnificent city in the world, surpassing even Nineveh in glory. The circumference of both these cities was the same, but the walls which surrounded Babylon were twice as broad as the walls of Nineveh, and having a hundred brass gates. The city of Babylon stood on the river Euphrates, by which it was divided into two parts, eastern and western; and these were connected by a cedar bridge of wonderful construction, uniting the two divisions. Quays of beautiful marble adorned the banks of the river; and on one bank stood the magnificent Temple of Belus, and on the other the Queen's Palace. These two edifices were connected by a passage under the bed of the river. This city was at least forty-five miles in circumference; and would, of course, include eight cities as large as London and its appendages. It was laid out in six hundred and twenty five squares, formed by the intersection of twenty-five streets at right angles The walls, which were of brick, were three hundred and fifty feet high, and eighty-seven feet broad. A trench surrounded the city, the sides of which were lined with brick and waterproof cement. This city was famous for its hanging gardens, constructed by one of its kings, to please his queen. She was a Persian, and was desirous of seeing meadows on mountains, as in her own country. She prevailed on him to raise artificial gardens, adorned with meadows and trees. For this purpose, vaulted arches were raised from the ground, one above another, to an almost inconceivable height, and of a magnificence and strength sufficient to support the vast weight of the whole garden Babylon was a great commercial city, and traded to all parts of the earth then known, in all kinds of merchandise, and she likewise traded in slaves, and the souls of men. For her sins she has been blotted from existence,--even her location is a matter of supposition. Great was Babylon of old; in merchandise did she trade, and in souls. For her sins she thus became blotted from the sight of men.

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THE ETHIOPIAN KINGS OF EGYPT.

1. Menes was the first king of Egypt. We have accounts of but one of his successors--Timans, during the first period, a space of more than two centuries.

2. Shishak was king of Ethiopia, and doubtless of Egypt. After his death

3. Zerah the son of Judah became king of Ethiopia, and made himself master of Egypt and Libya; and intending to add Judea to his dominions made war upon Asa king of Judea. His army consisted of a million of men, and three hundred chariots of war (2 Chron. xiv. 9).

4. Sabachus, an Ethiopian, king of Ethiopia, being encouraged by an oracle, entered Egypt with a numerous army, and possessed himself of the country. He reigned with great clemency and justice. It is believed, that this Sabachus was the same with Solomon, whose aid was implored by Hosea king of Israel, against Salmanaser king of Assyria.

5. Sethon reigned fourteen years. He is the same with Sabachus, or Savechus the son of Sabacan or Saul the Ethiopian who reigned so long over Egypt.

6. Tharaca, an Ethiopian, joined Sethon, with an Ethiopian army to relieve Jerusalem. After the death of Sethon, who had filled the Egyptian throne fourteen years, Tharaca ascended the throne and reigned eight years over Egypt.

7. Sesach or Shishak was the king of Egypt to whom Jeroboam fled to avoid death at the hands of king Solomon. Jeroboam was entertained till the death of Solomon, when he returned to Judea and was made king of Israel. (2 Chron. xi. and xii.)

This Sesach, in the fifth year of the reign of Rehoboam marched against Jerusalem, because the Jews had transgressed against the Lord. He came with twelve hundred chariots of war, and sixty thousand horses. He had brought numberless multitudes of people, who were all Libyans, Troglodytes, and Ethiopians. He seized upon all the strongest cities of Judah, and advanced as far as Jerusalem. Then the king, and the princes of Israel, having humbled themselves, and implored the protection of the God of Israel, he told them, by his prophet Shemaiah, that, because they humbled themselves, he would not utterly destroy them, as they had deserved but that they should be the servants of Sesach, in order that they might know the difference of his service, and the service of the kingdoms of the country. Sesach retired from Jerusalem, after having plundered the treasures of the house of the Lord, and of the king's house, he carried off every thing with him, and even also the three hundred shields of gold which Salomon had made.

The following are the kings of Egypt mentioned in Scripture by the common appellation of Pharaoh:--

8. Psammetichus.--As this prince owed his preservation to the Ionians and Carians, he settled them in Egypt, from which all foreigners hitherto had been excluded; and, by assigning them sufficient lands and fixed revenues, he made them forget their native country. By his order, Egyptian children were put under their care to learn the Greek tongue; and on this occasion, and by this means, the Egyptians began to have a correspondence with the Greeks, and, from that era, the Egyptian history, which till then had been intermixed with pompous fables, by the artifice of the priests, begins, according to Herodotus, to speak with greater truth and certainty.

As soon as Psammetichus was settled on the throne, he engaged in a war against the king of Assyria, on account of the limits of the two empires. This war was of long continuance. Ever since Syria had been conquered by the Assyrians, Palestine, being the only country that separated the two kingdoms, was the subject of continual discord; as afterwards it was between the Ptolemies and the Seleucidae. They were perpetually contending for it, and it was alternately won by the stronger. Psammetichus, seeing himself the peaceable possessor of all Egypt, and having restored the ancient form of government, thought it high time for him to look to his frontiers, and to secure them against the Assyrian, his neighbour, whose power increased daily. For this purpose he entered Palestine at the head of an army.

Perhaps we are to refer to the beginning of this war, an incident related by Diodorus; that the Egyptians, provoked to see the Greeks posted on the right wing by the king himself in preference to them, quitted the service, being upwards of two hundred thousand men, and retired into Ethiopia, where they met with an advantageous settlement

Be this as it will, Psammetichus entered Palestine, where his career was stopped by Azotus, one of the principal cities of the country, which gave him so much trouble, that he was forced to besiege it twenty nine years before he could take it. This is the longest siege mentioned in ancient history. Psammetichus died in the 24th year of the reign of Josiah king of Judah; and was succeeded by his son Nechoa or Necho--in Scriptures frequently called Pharaoh Necho.

9. Nechao or Pharaoh-Necho reigned sixteen years king of Egypt, (2 Chron. xxxv. 20,) whose expeditions are often mentioned in profane history

The Babylonians and Medes having destroyed Nineveh, and with it the empire of the Assyrians, were thereby become so formidable, that they drew upon themselves the jealousy of all their neighbours. Nechao, alarmed at the danger, advanced to the Euphrates, at the head of a powerful army, in order to check their progress. Josiah, king of Judah, so famous for his uncommon piety, observing that he took his route through Judea, resolved to oppose his passage. With this view he raised all the forces of his kingdom, and posted himself in the valley of Megiddo (a city on this side of Jordan, belonging to the tribe of Manasseh, and called Magdolus by Herodotus). Nechao informed him by a herald, that his enterprise was not designed against him; that he had other enemies in view, and that he had undertaken this war in the name of God, who was with him; that for this reason he advised Josiah not to concern himself with this war for fear it otherwise should turn to his disadvantage. However, Josiah was not moved by these reasons; he was sensible that the bare march of so powerful an army through Judea would entirely ruin it. And besides, he feared that the victor, after the defeat of the Babylonians, would fall upon him and dispossess him of part of his dominions. He therefore marched to engage Nechao; and was not only overthrown by him, but unfortunately received a wound of which he died at Jerusalem, whither he had ordered himself to be carried.

Nechao, animated by this victory, continued his march and advanced towards the Euphrates. He defeated the Babylonians; took Carchemish, a large city in that country; and securing to himself the possession of it by a strong garrison, returned to his own kingdom after having been absent three months.

Being informed in his march homeward, that Jehoaz had caused himself to be proclaimed king at Jerusalem, without first asking his consent, he commanded him to meet him at Riblah in Syria. The unhappy prince was no sooner arrived there than he was put in chains by Nechao's order, and sent prisoner to Egypt, where he died. From thence, pursuing his march, he came to Jerusalem, where he gave the sceptre to Eliakim (called by him Jehoiakim), another of Josiah's sons, in the room of his brother; and imposed an annual tribute on the land, of a hundred talents of silver, and one talent of gold. This being done, he returned in triumph to Egypt.

Herodotus, mentioning this king's expedition, and the victory gained by him at Magdolus, (as he calls it,) says that he afterwards took the city Cadytis, which he represents as situated in the mountains of Palestine, and equal in extent to Sardis, the capital at that time not only of Lydia, but of all Asia Minor. This description can suit only Jerusalem, which was situated in the manner above described, and was then the only city in those parts that could be compared to Sardis. It appears besides, from Scripture, that Nechao, after his victory, made himself master of this capital of Judea; for he was there in person, when he gave the crown to Jehoiakim. The very name Cadytis, which in Hebrew, signifies the holy, points clearly to the city of Jerusalem, as is proved by the learned dean Prideaux.

10. Psammis.--His reign was but of six years' duration, and history has left us nothing memorable concerning him, except that he made an expedition into Ethiopia.

11. Apries.--In Scripture he is called Pharaoh-Hophra; and, succeeding his father Psammis, reigned twenty-five years.

During the first year of his reign, he was as happy as any of his predecessors. He carried his arms into Cyprus; besieged the city of Sidon by sea and land; took it, and made himself master of all Phoenicia and Palestine.

So rapid a success elated his heart to a prodigious degree, and, as Herodotus informs us, swelled him with so much pride and infatuation, that he boasted it was not in the power of the gods themselves to dethrone him; so great was the idea he had formed to himself of the firm establishment of his own power. It was with a view to these arrogant conceits, that Ezekiel put the vain and impious words following into his mouth: My river is mine own, and I have made it for myself. But the true God proved to him afterwards that he had a master, and that he was a mere man; and he had threatened him long before, by his prophets, with all the calamities he was resolved to bring upon him, in order to punish him for his pride.

12. Amasis.--After the death of Apries, Amasis became peaceable possessor of Egypt, and reigned over it forty years. He was, according to Plato, a native of the city of Sais.

As he was but of mean extraction, he met with no respect, and was contemned by his subjects in the beginning of his reign. He was not insensible of this; but nevertheless thought it his interest to subdue their tempers by an artful carriage, and to win their affection by gentleness and reason. He had a golden cistern, in which himself, and those persons who were admitted to his table, used to wash their feet, he melted it down, and had it cast into a statue, and then exposed the new god to public worship. The people hastened in crowds to pay their adorations to the statue. The king, having assembled the people, informed them of the vile uses to which this statue had once been put, which nevertheless was now the object of their religious prostrations; the application was easy, and had the desired success; the people thenceforward paid the king all the respect that is due to majesty.

He always used to devote the whole morning to public affairs, in order to receive petitions, give audience, pronounce sentences, and hold his councils; the rest of the day was given to pleasure, and as Amasis, in hours of diversion, was extremely gay, and seemed to carry his mirth beyond due bounds, his courtiers took the liberty to represent to him the unsuitableness of such a behaviour; when he answered that it was impossible for the mind to be always serious and intent upon business, as for a bow to continue always bent.

It was this king who obliged the inhabitants of every town to enter their names in a book kept by the magistrates for that purpose, with their profession and manner of living. Solon inserted this custom among his laws.

He built many magnificent temples, especially at Sais the place of his birth. Herodotus admired especially a chapel there, formed of one single stone, and which was twenty-one cubits in front, fourteen in depth, and eight in height; its dimensions within were not quite so large; it had been brought from Elephantina, and two thousand men were employed three years in conveying it along the Nile.

Amasis had a great esteem for the Greeks. He granted them large privileges; and permitted such of them as were desirous of settling in Egypt to live in the city of Naucratis, so famous for its harbour. When the rebuilding of the temple of Delphi, which had been burnt, was debated on, and the expense was computed at three hundred talents, Amasis furnished the Delphians with a very considerable sum towards discharging their quota, which was the fourth part of the whole charge.

He made an alliance with the Cyrenians, and married a wife from among them. He is the only king of Egypt who conquered the island of Cyprus, and made it tributary. Under his reign Pythagorus came into Egypt, being recommended to that monarch by the famous Polycrates, tyrant of Samos, who had contracted a friendship with Amasis, and will be mentioned hereafter. Pythagoras, during his stay in Egypt, was initiated in all the mysteries of the country, and instructed by the priests in whatever was most abstruse and important in their religion. It was here he imbibed his doctrine of the metempsychosis, or transmigration of souls.

In the expedition in which Cyrus conquered so great a part of the world, Egypt doubtless was subdued, like the rest of the provinces, and Xenophon positively declares this in the beginning of his Cyropaedia, or institution of that prince. Probably, after that the forty years of desolation, which had been foretold by the prophet, were expired, Egypt beginning gradually to recover itself, Amasis shook off the yoke, and recovered his liberty.

Accordingly we find, that one of the first cares of Cambyses, the son of Cyrus, after he had ascended the throne, was to carry his arms into Egypt. On his arrival there, Amasis was just dead, and succeeded by his son Psammetus.

13. Rameses Miamun, according to Archbishop Usher, was the name of this king, who is called Pharaoh in Scripture. He reigned sixty-six years, and oppressed the Israelites in a most grievous manner. He set over them taskmasters, to afflict them with their burdens, and they built for Pharaoh treasure cities, Pithon and Raamses. And the Egyptians made the children of Israel serve with rigour, and they made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in mortar and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field; all their service wherein they made them serve, was with rigour. This king had two sons, Amenophis and Busiris.

14. Amenophis, the eldest, succeeded him. He was the Pharaoh under whose reign the Israelites departed out of Egypt, and who was drowned in his passage through the Red Sea. Archbishop Usher says, that Amenophis left two sons, one called Sesothis, or Seaostris, and the other Armais. The Greeks call him Belus, and his two sons, Egyptus and Danaus.

15. Sesostris was not only one of the most powerful kings of Egypt, but one of the greatest conquerors that antiquity boasts of. He was at an advanced age sent by his father against the Arabians, in order that, by fighting with them, he might acquire military knowledge. Here the young prince learned to bear hunger and thirst, and subdued a nation which till then had never been conquered. The youth educated with him, attended him in all his campaigns.

Accustomed by this conquest to martial toils he was next sent by his father to try his fortune westward. He invaded Libya, and subdued the greatest part of that vast continent.

His army consisted of six hundred thousand foot, and twenty thousand horse, besides twenty thousand armed chariots.

He invaded Ethiopia, and obliged the nations of it to furnish him annually with a certain quantity of ebony, ivory, and gold.

He had fitted out a fleet of four hundred sail, and ordering it to sail to the Red Sea, made himself master of the isles and cities lying on the coast of that sea. After having spread desolation through the world for nine years, he returned, laden with the spoils of the vanquished nations. A hundred famous temples, raised as so many monuments of gratitude to the tutelar gods of all the cities, were the first, as well as the most illustrious testimonies of his victories.

16. Pheron succeeded Sesostris in his kingdom, but not in his glory. He probably reigned fifty years.

17. Proteus was son of Memphis, and according to Herodotus, must have succeeded the first--since Proteus lived at the time of the siege of Troy, which, according to Usher, was taken An. Mun. 2820.

18. Rhampsinitus who was richer than any of his predecessors, built a treasury. Till the reign of this king, there had been some shadow at least of justice and moderation in Egypt; but, in the two following reigns, violence and cruelty usurped their place.

19, 20. Cheops and Cephrenus, reigned in all one hundred and six years. Cheops reigned fifty years, and his brother Cephrenus fifty-six years after him. They kept the temples closed during the whole time of their long reign; and forbid the offerings of sacrifice under the severest penalties. They oppressed their subjects.

21. Mycerinus the son of Cheops, reigned but seven years. He opened the temples; restored the sacrifices; and did all in his power to comfort his subjects, and make them forget their past miseries.

22. Asychis one of the kings of Egypt. He valued himself for having surpassed all his predecessors, by building a pyramid of brick, more magnificent, than any hitherto seen.

23. Busiris, built the famous city of Thebes, and made it the seat of his empire. This prince is not to be confounded with Busirus, so infamous for his cruelties.

24. Osymandyas, raised many magnificent edifices, in which were exhibited sculptures and paintings of exquisite beauty.

25. Uchoreus, one of the successors of Osymandyas, built the city of Memphis. This city was 150 furlongs, or more than seven leagues in circumference, and stood at the point of the Delta, in that part where the Nile divides itself into several branches or streams. A city so advantageously situated, and so strongly fortified, became soon the usual residence of the Egyptian kings.

26. Thethmosis or Amosis, having expelled the Shepherd kings, reigned in Lower Egypt.[645]

FOOTNOTES:

[645] Rollin, vol. i. pp. 129-147.Return to passage

* * * * *

VIII. AFRICAN LANGUAGES

In the language of the Kafirs, for example, not only the cases but the numbers and genders of nouns are formed entirely by prefixes, analogous to articles. The prefixes vary according to number, gender and case, while the nouns remain unaltered except by a merely euphonic change of the initial letters. Thus, in Coptic, from sheri, a son, comes the plural neu-sheri, the sons; from sori, accusation, hau-sori, accusations. Analogous to this we have in the Kafir ama marking the plural, as amakosah the plural of kosah, amahashe the plural of ihashe, insana the plural of usana. The Kafir has a great variety of similar prefixes; they are equally numerous in the language of Kongo, in which, as in the Coptic and the Kafir, the genders, numbers, and cases of nouns are almost solely distinguished by similar prefixes.

"The Kafir language is distinguished by one peculiarity which immediately strikes a student whose views of language have been formed upon the examples afforded by the inflected languages of ancient and modern Europe. With the exception of a change of termination in the ablative case of the noun, and five changes of which the verb is susceptible in its principal tenses, the whole business of declension, conjugation, &c., is carried on by prefixes, and by the changes which take place in the initial letters or syllables of words subjected to grammatical government."[646]

Resources are not yet in existence for instituting a general comparison of the languages of Africa. Many years will probably elapse before it will be possible to produce such an analysis of these languages, investigated in their grammatical structure, as it is desirable to possess, or even to compare them by extensive collections of well-arranged vocabularies, after the manner of Klaproth's Asia Polyglotta. Sufficient data however are extant, and I trust that I have adduced evidence to render it extremely probable that a principle of analogy in structure prevails extensively among the native idioms of Africa. They are probably allied, not in the manner or degree in which Semitic or Indo-European idioms resemble each other, but by strong analogies in their general principles of structure, which may be compared to those discoverable between the individual members of two other great classes of languages, by no means connected among themselves by what is called family relation. I allude to the monosyllabic and the polysynthetic languages, the former prevalent in Eastern Asia, the latter throughout the vast regions of the New World. If we have sufficient evidence for constituting such a class of dialects under the title of African languages, we have likewise reason--and it is equal in degree--for associating in this class the language of the ancient Egyptians.[647]

That the written Abyssinian language, which we call Ethiopick, is a dialect of old Chaldean, and sister of Arabick and Hebrew; we know with certainty, not only from the great multitude of identical words, but (which is a far stronger proof) from the similar grammatical arrangement of the several idioms: we know at the same time, that it is written like all the Indian characters, from the left hand to the right, and that the vowels are annexed, as in Devanagari, to the consonants; with which they form a syllabick system extremely clear and convenient, but disposed in a less artificial order than the system of letters now exhibited in the Sanscrit grammars; whence it may justly be inferred, that the order contrived by PANINI or his disciples is comparatively modern; and I have no doubt, from a cursory examination of many old inscriptions on pillars and in caves, which have obligingly been sent to me from all parts of India, that the Nagari and Ethiopean letters had at first a similar form. It has long been my opinion, that the Abyssinians of the Arabian stock, having no symbols of their own to represent articulate sounds, borrowed those of the black pagans, whom the Greeks call Troglodytes, from their primeval habitations in natural caverns, or in mountains excavated by their own labour: they were probably the first inhabitants of Africa, where they became in time the builders of magnificent cities, the founders of seminaries for the advancement of science and philosophy, and the inventors (if they were not rather the importers) of symbolical characters. I believe on the whole, that the Ethiops of Meroe were the same people with the first Egyptians, and consequently, as it might easily be shown, with the original Hindus. To the ardent and intrepid MR. BRUCE, whose travels are to my taste, uniformally agreeable and satisfactory, though he thinks very differently from me on the language and genius of the Arabs, we are indebted for more important, and, I believe, more accurate information concerning the nations established near the Nile, from its fountains to its mouths, than all Europe united could before have supplied; but, since he has not been at the pains to compare the seven languages, of which he has exhibited a specimen, and since I have not leisure to make the comparison, I must be satisfied with observing, on his authority, that the dialects of the Gafots and the Gallas, the Agows of both races, and the Falashas, who must originally have used a Chaldean idiom, were never preserved in writing, and the Amharick only in modern times: they must, therefore, have been for ages in fluctuation, and can lead, perhaps, to no certain conclusion as to the origin of the several tribes who anciently spoke them. It is very remarkable, as MR. BRUCE and MR. BRYAN have proved, that the Greeks gave the appellation of Indians both to the southern nations of Africk and to the people, among whom we now live; nor is it less observable, that, according to EPHORUS, quoted by STRABO, they called all the southern nations in the world Ethiopians, thus using Indian and Ethiop as convertible terms: but we must leave the gymnosophists of Ethiopia, who seemed to have professed the doctrines of BUDDHA, and enter the great Indian ocean, of which their Asiatick and African brethren were probably the first navigators.[648]

FOOTNOTES:

[646] Kafir Grammar, p. 3.Return to passage

[647] Prichard, vol. ii. pp. 216, 217.Return to passage

* * * * *

SHERBRO MISSION-DISTRICT, WESTERN AFRICA.

Western Africa is one of the most difficult mission-fields in the entire heathen world. The low condition of the people, civilly, socially, and religiously, and the deadly climate to foreigners, make it indeed a hard field to cultivate. I am fully prepared to indorse what Rev. F. Fletcher, in charge of Wesleyan District, Gold Coast, wrote a few months ago in the following language: "The Lord's work in western Africa is as wonderful as it is deadly. In the last forty years more than 120 missionaries have fallen victims to that climate; but to-day the converts to Christianity number at least 30,000, many of whom are true Christians. In this district we have 6,000 church members, and though they are poor, last year they gave over 5,000 dollars for evangelistic and educational work.

"Sherbro Mission now has four stations and chapels and over forty appointments, 112 church members, 164 seekers of religion, 75 acres of clear land, with carpenter, blacksmith, and tailor shops, in and upon which, twenty five boys are taught to labor, and where eleven girls are taught to do all ordinary house work and sewing, with its four day and Sunday schools, 212 in the former and more than that number in the latter, and with an influence for good that now reaches the whole Sherbro tribe, embracing a country at least fifty miles square and containing about 15,000 people. The seed sown is taking deep root there, and the harvest is rapidly ripening, when thousands of souls will be garnered for heaven. Surely we ought to thank God for past success and resolve to do much more for that needy country in the future.

"We now have Revs. Corner, Wilberforce, Evans, and their wives, all excellent missionaries, from America; then Revs. Sawyer, Hero, Pratt, and their wives, Mrs. Lucy Caulker, and other native laborers, all of whom are doing us good service. With these six ordained ministers, and twice that number of teachers and helpers, who are devoting all their time to the mission, the work is going forward gloriously. Still, there should be new stations opened and more laborers sent out immediately."[649]

FOOTNOTES:

[648] Asiatic Researches, vol. iii. pp. 4, 5.Return to passage

[649] Twenty fifth Annual Report, United Brethren, 1881.Return to passage

* * * * *

Part II

SLAVERY IN THE COLONIES.