ANTI-SLAVERY SENTIMENTS FROM 1833-1860
George Washington Parke Custis, speaking on the 21st of January, 1833, before the American Colonization Society, said:
"Some alarmists tell us that the slave population is to be freed. And, sir, does any one regret that the hope is held out, that with our own consent, we shall one day see an end of slavery? Should this Society be, as I doubt not it will, the happy means of producing this result, it will be renowned as having done one of the greatest and best deeds that have blessed the world."[[138]]
The following extract from a speech of William C. Rives serves not only to illustrate his anti-slavery sentiments, but the rise of the two antagonistic parties—the Abolitionists in the North and the Pro-slavery men in the South. The speech of Dr. Ruffner, delivered ten years later, also indicates the same condition and the fresh difficulties with which the cause of gradual emancipation in Virginia was thus confronted.
William C. Rives, speaking in the United States Senate on the 6th day of February, 1837, after deprecating the action of Mr. Webster in presenting abolition petitions as precipitating controversy over a subject with respect to which Congress had no jurisdiction, then replied to the position of Mr. Calhoun, that slavery was a beneficent institution, as follows:
"But, sir, while I have been thus prepared and determined to defend the constitutional rights of the South at every hazard, I have not felt myself bound to conform my understanding and conscience to the standard of faith that has recently been set up by some gentlemen in regard to the general question of slavery. I have not considered it a part of my duty as a representative from the South, to deny, as has been done by this new school, the natural freedom and equality of man; to contend that slavery is a positive good; that it is inseparable from the condition of man; that it must exist in some form or other in every political community; and that it is even an essential ingredient in Republican government. No, sir, I have not thought it necessary, in order to defend the rights and institutions of the South, to attack the great principles which lie at the foundation of our political system, and to revert to the dogmas of Sir Robert Filmer, exploded a century and a half ago by the immortal works of Sidney and Locke....
"In pursuing this course I have the satisfaction of reflecting that I follow the example of the greatest men and purest patriots who have illustrated the annals of our country—of the Fathers of the Republic itself.
"It never entered into their minds, while laying the foundation of the great and glorious fabric of our free government, to contend that domestic slavery was a positive good—a great good. Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Marshall, the brightest names of my own state, are known to have lamented the existence of slavery as a misfortune and an evil to the country, and their thoughts were often anxiously, however unavailingly, exercised in devising some scheme of safe and practical relief, proceeding always, however, from the states which suffered the evil....
"In following such lights as these, I feel that I sin against no principle of republicanism, and against no safeguard of Southern rights and Southern policy when I frankly say in answer to the interrogatory of the gentleman from South Carolina, that I do regard slavery as an evil—an evil not uncompensated, I know, by collateral effects of high value on the social and intellectual character of my countrymen; but still in the eye of religion, philanthropy and reason, an evil."[[139]]
Charles Fenton Mercer, in his work, An Exposition of the Weakness and Inefficiency of the Government of the United States, published in 1845, said: