CHAPTER IV.
THE EARLY FEDERAL GOVERNMENT.
"The policy to sustain which Mr. Lincoln was elected President in 1860 was first definitely outlined by Jefferson in 1784. It was the policy of forbidding slavery in the National Territory."
John Fiske.
The history of slavery from the opening scenes of the Revolution to the meeting of the First Congress affords a curious example of the direct influence of self-interest upon the opinions of mankind. The opening of the Revolution saw an emphatic and unanimous expression against slavery and the slave trade, and a general spirit of emancipation was abroad. Two years later this had changed, for when the Declaration was promulgated there was no mention of anti-slavery sentiments in it, and as Independence became more and more assured, the feeling against slavery seems to have weakened, and finally, when a serious attempt to perfect the Union was made, the slave question was decided by expediency and not by principle.
In 1773 and 1774, when the colonists spoke their final defiance against Great Britain, and the latter launched her retaliatory measures, the climax was reached. It is to be kept in mind that at this time slavery existed in every one of the Colonies. The First Continental Congress, representing all the Colonies except Georgia (who agreed to concur), met at Philadelphia in September, 1774, to determine what should be done in this grave crisis. It turned out to be largely a Peace Congress, but a protest, several addresses and a non-importation and non-consumption agreement was signed. One of the Articles of this agreement provided that "We will neither import nor purchase any slave imported after the first day of December next, after which time we will wholly discontinue the slave trade, and will neither be concerned in it ourselves, nor will we hire our vessels or sell our commodities or manufactures to those who are concerned in it." This important and far-reaching resolution received the unanimous support of all the Colonies. Would that its spirit had been kept alive!
[Illustration: The White House, Washington, D. C.]
Almost two years after the First Continental Congress met (the Revolution having been started in the meantime) the Declaration of Independence was adopted, but there was no expression in it against slavery or the slave trade. The original draft of that instrument contained a fierce denunciation of England's part in the slave trade:
"He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him; capturing and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur a miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of Infidel Powers, is the warfare of the Christian King of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where men could be bought and sold, he has prostituted his negative by suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce."
These burning words were from the pen of Jefferson, who had been the most active in his opposition to slavery. They were omitted from the Declaration, out of compliance to South Carolina and Georgia, but they voiced unquestionably the sentiment of a large majority of the Continental Congress. This was the first fatal concession to South Carolina and Georgia, and we shall find them again united and influencing the other Southern Colonies to maintain a bold stand for slavery at the most critical period in the nation's history.