| [254] | Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Vol. VI, pp. 140-141. |
XXV
Some of the Almost Insuperable Difficulties
which Embarrassed Every Plan of Emancipation
(Concluded)
"Men are never so likely to settle a question rightly as when they discuss it freely." In these words Lord Macaulay fixes free discussion as a prime requisite to the right solution of problems, however difficult. It was one of the baneful features of slavery and the racial problems attending it that in the period just antedating the Civil War tolerant discussion was almost banished from the arena. As a rule, men of moderate views and sane counsels were driven to the rear, while the Fanatics of the North and the Fire-eaters of the South held the centre of the stage. Virginia was not wholly exempt from these conditions which in her case had their origin and growth in causes arising both within and beyond her borders.
LACK OF FREE DISCUSSION IN STATE
As we have seen, slavery in Virginia existed in certain well-defined localities and was confined in ownership to a small minority of her people. Thus the divergence of interests between the two classes of her white population assumed a sectional character which was, in turn, intensified by reason of an archaic arrangement with respect to representation in her General Assembly. As heretofore explained, the representatives in her Legislature were apportioned among the various cities and counties of the commonwealth not on the basis of their respective white populations, but upon what was known as the "mixed basis"—that is—the quantum of property was taken into account along with the number of white inhabitants. Slaves were assessed and taxed as property and so the white people in the slave-owning sections possessed a representative power in the State Legislature as against their brethren in the non-slave-owning sections far beyond that to which their numbers entitled them. Against this provision of Virginia's constitution the whites of the growing western section, with some assistance from the east, waged perpetual war. In this way slavery in Virginia became involved in a controversy the heat and conflicts of which served to intensify the feeling with respect to its continuance or abolition. In like manner this controversy augmented the power of the friends of slavery by rallying to their ranks the conservative opponents of simple manhood suffrage, the property interests and all those who, like John Randolph of Roanoke, looked, as of old, to the East for light and leading. It was not until the Convention of 1850 that this provision of Virginia's constitution was amended, but as the change was not to be fully effective until 1865 the results of this augmentation of power to the people of the white sections were never made manifest in her laws.
"Slavery is a cancer in your face," declared that master of epigram, John Randolph of Roanoke. The world saw it. The victim of the disease knew it was there. Between the pain of its presence and the dread lest the surgeon's knife might not work a cure, the patient halted and hesitated and, by manifold methods, sought to mitigate its pain or banish the thought of its existence. Thus silence for to-day and hope for to-morrow was his fatuous policy.