The company however, reserved the right of nominating and displacing the governor and counsellors at pleasure. Notwithstanding this reservation, the constitution of Virginia thenceforth remained fixed, and its inhabitants, servants of a company as they were, at once changed into freemen and citizens. At this period the company sent to Virginia 160 poor young women of irreproachable character; they were received with eagerness, and married to the young settlers, who payed the expense of their transportation at the rate of 120 lbs. of tobacco for each one.
The rights of the London Company, already weakened by concessions made to the colonists, were soon contemned by king James I. and three years after Virginia passed under the immediate domination of the English government.
The population of Virginia, at first confined to the environs of Jamestown, began gradually to extend over a vast country, following the rivers which fell into the Chesapeake. But their imprudence towards the natives increased with their increase of strength, and they inflicted upon the Indians all sorts of vexations. Powhatan was dead, and the tribes he had governed had elected in his stead a renowned warrior from the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, named Opecancanough. This prince felt a profound hatred of the Europeans, because he foresaw how fatal they would become to his nation; he found it easy to impart his hatred and fears to his countrymen, and induced them to enter into a vast conspiracy against the common enemy. The secret was faithfully kept during four years, and was only betrayed at the moment of execution, by an Indian who was baptised by the English. Notwithstanding this treason, the plot was partially executed, and four hundred settlers fell under the savage tomahawk. The retaliations were cruel, and only suspended by a treaty which concealed the most atrocious design. The Indians, relying with confidence upon the protestations of their enemy, applied themselves without suspicion to their agricultural labours, when the English fell upon them unexpectedly, and committed the most horrible butchery; the feeble remnants of the tribes which escaped this terrible massacre, soon miserably perished in the forests, and disappeared forever. The colonists, thenceforward masters of this great country, could extend themselves at will, but even this advantage was fatal to them, and they would inevitably have fallen under the horrors of famine, if a new reinforcement of settlers and provisions, had not arrived, to replace those destroyed by the Indians. These succours were not sent by the company, as this was dissolved by king James. This violence of the crown against a company which had expended more than three millions for the establishment of the colony, and who in spite of its faults merited encouragement for its astonishing perseverance, at first afflicted the colonists, but eventually turned to their actual advantage. They knew how to defend themselves against the encroachments of the royal government, and obtained the confirmation of all the rights acquired before the extinction of the company.
The colony was peaceful and prosperous until 1651. The troubles produced in England by the decapitation of Charles I. agitated it but slightly, and had no other result than a treaty, in which Cromwell acknowledged in an especial article, the exemption of Virginia from taxes, and impositions of all sorts; nor without the consent of the general assembly, could any charge be laid upon her, forts or castles be built, nor troops be kept in service. But from the year 1652, the colonists began to feel the narrow policy of the commonwealth of England, relative to the commerce of the colonies, during the ten years of Cromwell’s reign; their discontent augmented to such a degree, that when Governor Matthew, who was appointed by the usurper, died, the inhabitants of the colony profiting by this sort of interregnum, overturned the republican authorities, and proclaimed Charles II. who was then sheltered in Holland, and who thus found himself king of Virginia, before he was certain of remounting the throne of England. The death of Cromwell which occurred in 1660, saved the colony from the danger to which its imprudent attachment to the Stuart cause would infallibly have exposed it.
The Virginians soon repented of their devotion to the new king, whose ingratitude was more injurious to them than Cromwell’s tyranny. Charles II. far from abolishing the restrictions, which already shackled the commerce of Virginia, aggravated and perpetuated it by the navigation act. The re-establishment of the Gallacan church with all its intolerance, the violent revocation of all the acts that could perpetuate the memory of the revolution, the spoliations of property to recompense the instruments of the restoration; the constitutional depreciation of the value of tobacco, every thing in a word, concurred to offend the colonists, and dispose to a popular insurrection; an occasion soon offered, and civil war broke out in the colony. A squadron sent by Charles II. to the relief of Governor Berkeley, arrived at the moment Bacon, chief of the insurgents, who were already masters of Jamestown, died; no one feeling possessed of the talents necessary to complete, what this hardy and skilful leader had undertaken, they accepted the amnesty offered by Berkeley; but this attempt at insurrection only angered Charles II. whose despotism soon surpassed all limits. He went so far as to interdict by law all complaint of, or evil speaking against the administration of the governor, under pain of the severest chastisement, and several seditions were quelled by force. However, notwithstanding the violence and injustice of the metropolis, commerce regained some activity, and the population finding daily new resources in its industry, rapidly augmented. In 1688, there were already more than 40,000 souls. But with their increase of strength the colonists increased in hatred to the royal authority; and to the first cries of independence made in the northern colonies, Virginia answered by raising the standard of revolt. From the month of June 1776, the representatives of the people, assembled to the number of one hundred and twelve, at the capitol in Williamsburg, drew up and signed a declaration which forever broke the tyrannical chains which previously bound the colony to the mother country. This declaration, in establishing in a clear and precise manner the rights of every member of the social body, consecrated the principle of the sovereignty of the people, and repelled as a monstrosity, the hereditary principle in the exercise of power. This was soon followed by the publication of the constitution, which triumphantly came out of the revolutionary war. In 1785, the assembly passed the act revising the laws, and establishing religious liberty; finally, in 1788, Virginia completed her revolution, and strengthened her independence, by adopting the confederate constitution of the United States.
The state of Virginia, which on account of its long establishment, the extent and fertility of its soil, and the pleasantness of its climate, should now be the richest and best peopled state in the union, has still but 1,600,000 inhabitants, dispersed over a surface of 40,960,000 acres. That is to say, in proportion to its extent, it has not more than half the population of the state of New York, its cotemporary; and not more than the state of Ohio, whose constitution and existence as a state, are not much more than twenty years old. This difference, which at every step betrays itself to the attentive traveller, by the separation of the towns, the smallness of the villages, and the poverty of the cultivation, will not disappear, until Virginia, comprehending her true interests better, and placing them in harmony with the principles of liberty and equality so clearly established in her declaration of rights, and so vigorously defended by her arms, shall have finally abolished negro slavery.
When we have examined the truly great and liberal institutions of the United States with some attention, well comprehended their action, and admired their happy influence, the soul feels suddenly chilled and the imagination alarmed, in learning that at many points of this vast republic the horrible principle of slavery still reigns with all its sad and monstrous consequences; we demand with astonishment the source of this contradiction between such sublime theories, and a practice so shameful to humanity! This question which for a long time has been always keenly discussed by philanthropists and politicians of both hemispheres, though not always in good faith, we hope will speedily be settled by the well-understood interests of those immediately concerned. In the mean time I shall hazard some observations here, not with the expectation of ending the discussion, but in the hope of establishing in their true condition, some facts which have been misrepresented by the ignorance or bad faith of some writers.
Happily, there is no part of the civilized world in which it is necessary to discuss the justice or injustice of the principle of negro slavery; at the present day every sane man agrees that it is a monstrosity, and it would be altogether inaccurate to suppose that there are in the United States more than elsewhere, individuals sufficiently senseless to seek to defend it, either by their writings or conversation. For myself, who have traversed the 24 states of the union, and in the course of a year have had more than one opportunity of hearing long and keen discussions upon this subject, I declare that I never have found but a single person who seriously defended this principle. This was a young man whose head, sufficiently imperfect in its organization, was filled with confused and ridiculous notions relative to Roman history, and appeared to be completely ignorant of the history of his own country. It would be waste of time to repeat here his crude and ignorant tirade; for every man of good faith, the following I believe are the most essential points for discussion concerning slavery in the United States.
1st. Have the Americans adopted it voluntarily?
2d. Since they have secured their independence have they practically testified their aversion to slavery?