William Jay and the Constitutional Movement for the Abolition of Slavery

by Bayard Tuckerman

CONSTITUTIONAL PRINCIPLES—AN HISTORIC PARALLEL.

The part of Jay's life pictured by Mr. Tuckerman not only exhibits these characteristics, but shows the Antislavery Society to have been founded by his care, in 1833, on constitutional principles so just and so clearly defined, that in 1839 sixteen hundred and fifty auxiliary societies had been established on the same basis, educating the rising generation, on whom was to rest the destiny of the country in the near future. It was an education of the quiet and effective influence of which the pro-slavery leaders seemed unconscious, although to some it may recall the thought of Dr. Storrs, when he said:—"When I think of a millennium in our time, in our civilization, my thought rests and fastens on the promise, 'a little child shall lead them.'" The charge had already been made against the opponents of slavery of a disregard of constitutional obligations—of a desire to dissolve the Union and to encourage slave insurrection. The society declared the exclusive right of each slave State to legislate in regard to slavery; the constitutional right of Congress to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, to prohibit it in the Territories and new States, and to control the domestic as well as the foreign slave trade; and it disclaimed the idea of countenancing the slaves in vindicating their rights by resorting to physical force. And here is suggested, by the action and the anticipation of the Slave Power, an interesting historic parallel. The formation of the Antislavery Society in December, 1833, followed closely upon Mr. Calhoun's Nullification in South Carolina in 1832, when, as Mr. Pollard tell us, a medal was struck inscribed, "John C. Calhoun, First President of the C. S. A." A counterpart of this medal in gold is said to exist at Richmond, with the name of Jefferson Davis as the first president of the Southern Confederacy, and "1861" on the reverse side.

These incidents seem to emphasize the fact that the constitutional principles adopted by the Antislavery Society in 1833, and so widely circulated by the press and its auxiliaries before the war, although often assailed, were, in 1854, made the basis of the Republican party, which, as Americans of all sections may now with mutual regard and affection thank God, maintained the Union and abolished slavery. Such a revolution in public opinion is a forcible reminder of the truth that every principle contains within itself the germ of a prophecy, and it is a thought fraught with hope and confidence to reformers even when they seem to be threatened with disaster and defeat.

THE EARLY SCHEME FOR A SOUTHERN CONFEDERACY.

The determination to found a confederacy with slavery as its cornerstone appears as a fundamental feature in the policy of the Slave Power for some thirty years before the outbreak of the Civil War. Mr. Calhoun's idea of secession, apparently suggested by the tariff, General Jackson predicted would be renewed on the question of slavery. The novel of Prof. Beverly Tucker in 1835, entitled, "The Partisan Leader; or, Twenty Years After," foreshadowed the steps at home and abroad which were taken in forming the new confederacy; and in the South Carolina Convention in 1860, Southern politicians like Rhett, Parker, Keith, and Inglis said that the matter had nothing to do with Mr. Lincoln or the Fugitive Law, but had been culminating for a long series of years. The thought of a Southern Confederacy may have stimulated the policy of using the power of the Republic, while it lasted, in the interest of the Confederacy that was to succeed it; supplying a motive for the Texan Rebellion, the War with Mexico, the effort to secure Cuba, the filibustering expeditions to Central America, the determination to reopen the African slave-trade, and the pro-slavery action of the Buchanan administration.

NORTHERN AND EUROPEAN SYMPATHY WITH SLAVERY.

It would be hardly fair to the Southern leaders to assume that they found no reason for their hope of effecting the dissolution of the Union in the sympathy and aid promised from the North and from Europe. The secret conferences with Lord Lyons of Northern sympathizers with slavery were disclosed by the despatches of that eminent diplomatist. Mayor Fernando Wood's proposition that New York should become a free city, independent both of the States and the nation, showed in no slight degree the temper of the citizens whom he represented; while the later appeal of so eminent and popular a leader as Governor Horatio Seymour to the citizens of the State was equally significant when he said, "In the downfall of the nation, and amid its crumbling ruins, we will cling to the fortunes of New York." Such utterances enforced by leaders of the prominence of Franklin Pierce and Vallandingham; the political action of sympathizers with slavery and the anti-draft riots in New York, supplemented by the unfriendliness of European governments; and the escape of the "Alabama"—all these circumstances tended to encourage the hopes that were doomed to disappointment. Nor in considering the antislavery movement should we overlook the effect of the antislavery opinion of our country in ending the danger of European intervention, which had been unwittingly encouraged by Mr. Seward's too hasty assurance to our minister in France (April 22, 1861), that "the revolution was without a cause, without a pretext, and without an object; and that the condition of slavery in the several States would remain just the same, whether it should succeed or fail." The antislavery policy, first of enlistment and then of emancipation, so earnestly urged upon Mr. Lincoln and adopted by him with conscientious caution, enlightened Europe as to the true meaning of the contest in our recognition of the equal right to freedom and the equal dignity of labour, and forbade its rulers to assist in the establishment of a slave confederacy; and the historian Lessing, when alluding to the cordial reception by his holiness the Sovereign Pontiff of the diplomatic agents of Mr. Jefferson Davis, and the Papal letter recognizing and commending "the illustrious President of the Southern Confederacy," remarks that this was "the only official recognition of the chief conspirator by the head of any government." Nor should the right appreciation by the abolitionists of the prospect of freedom for the slaves be forgotten. The fidelity of the negroes during the war, both to the families with whom they lived, to which Vice-President Stephens bore distinct testimony, and to the Northern army, from which they expected emancipation, was no less honourable and conspicuous than the devotion and gallantry they constantly exhibited in the war, as at Fort Hudson and Fort Wagner, at Milliken's Bend and Lake Providence, at Newbern and at Olustee, where their rear-guard saved the army. Their conduct, whether at home or in the field, justified the conviction of their steadfast friends in the safety of immediate emancipation, and added untold force to the sacredness of the pledges so often given during the war, and still, to the national discredit, unfulfilled—of national aid to State education, so as to secure to every child of our coloured citizens the ability to read his Bible and the Constitution, to fulfill his duties and protect his rights.

As time and reflection impress upon the American mind a clear comprehension of the changes, national, social, and political, that a triumph of the Slave Power would have brought to America and its effect as a set-back to the civilization of the world, an increased interest will be felt in the beginnings of the contest, and in the men and causes that shaped its end.

THE LESSON FOR TO-DAY.