The original act passed in January, 1799, was intended to remedy two evils. The first, but not the chief one, was to put a stop to the keeping of accounts, the taking of notes or the making of any kind of contract where payment in money was stipulated for, in pounds, shillings and pence, and to compel the use in all such obligations of the terms dollars and cents; and to more effectually enforce this, the act prohibited courts from rendering judgments, making out bills of costs or issuing executions for anything but dollars and cents. The second evil the act, in its original form and provisions, had forever cut up by the roots was the “specie” account or contract—that is to say, the shrewd keepers of accounts and money-lenders would embody in the account, note or other obligation, where money was stipulated for, the term “specie.” If it was an account, it would be opened something like this: “Spruce McCay, in account with Ephraim Dunlap—specie”; or if a note, due-bill or other obligation, the term “specie” usually followed the “promise to pay” or the statement of the amount contracted to be paid or acknowledged to be due.
To the close student of the methods which are usually employed by the artful and designing, these several acts are amusing—first suspending a particular section, then suspending it again, then repealing part of it, and finally accomplishing the repeal of the whole section. Now, note. The first repealing act excepted from its provisions “merchants, physicians and inn-keepers”; that is, the repealing act was so artfully worded as to leave the original act in full force against the three classes mentioned—about the only people who transacted any business of consequence and who required payment in money at that time. These could not make any contract, or keep an account, for payment in “specie”—they must accept payment in the currency of the times. The system of barter, at this period, between the agricultural class and the blacksmith, cooper, wagonmaker, shoemaker, etc., was such that accounts between them were so kept as to be payable in the products of each, and not in money—no money ever being passed between them or expected. Thus, this first repealing act, stripped of the film that shrouded it, simply left the original act in full force against everybody that it could have affected, except one poor fellow—or one class of poor fellows—the man or men who had a little bit of money to loan on a note with “undoubted personal security” or secured by mortgage.
This first repealing act was “class legislation” so rank and rotten that the poor fellows who had money to loan—and who had it passed—became, no doubt, exceedingly solicitous for the well-being, prosperity and “business interests” of the “merchants, physicians and inn-keepers” and therefore came forward at the next meeting of the general assembly, in 1805, with an act repealing the whole of the second section of the original act; and then they breathed easy and praised the Lord because they had entirely relieved the “merchants, physicians and inn-keepers” of this odious act, which had for its object the prevention of requiring payment in “specie” where money should be stipulated for.
This last full and final repealing act deserves to be further noted, and to be remembered with reverence—so to speak—for the reason that it is the first act passed in Tennessee in which the term “in the year of our Lord” is used. What an intellectual treat it must have been to hear the man (not the member of the general assembly) who prepared this last repealing act, explaining its provisions to the members of the general assembly, and pointing out to them the great benefits that were to accrue to the “merchants, physicians and inn-keepers” of the country by its passage; and also to note with what reverential humility he bowed his head, and with what unction he read, “‘in the year of our Lord,’ who has put it into my mind and heart to prepare this great measure and ask you to pass it”; and (aside) “has also made me a shining light in the church and the community”—while, all the time and every minute, his greedy, covetous little soul was becoming more contracted, and visions of dollars or pounds in “specie” were blinding him to the great truth that it would be easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for such as he ever to enter the domain of “our Lord,” where “specie” is used only to pave streets.
The county court records at Jonesboro show that, early in the nineties of the last century, slave-holders were emancipating their slaves.
On October 2, 1797, an Act was passed by the General Assembly of Tennessee entitled, “An Act to confirm the emancipation of a black man named Jack.” The preamble recites that, “Whereas at July sessions One thousand seven hundred and ninety seven, John Stone, of Knoxville, in the State of Tennessee did apply to the County Court of Knox, for a license to emancipate, and forever set free a certain negro man slave, named Jack,” etc., “which license hath issued to said John Stone, and whereas the said John Stone, on the thirty-first day of August 1797 ... did emancipate, discharge and forever set free from all manner of servitude and slavery whatever, the said negro Jack.” The Act then confirms the emancipation, and confers upon the liberated slave “the name of John Saunders.”
On November 13, 1801, the General Assembly passed an act, entitled “An Act empowering the county courts to emancipate slaves,” the preamble of which recites that, “Whereas the number of petitions presented to this legislature, praying the emancipation of slaves, not only tend to involve the state in serious evils, but are also productive of great expense. For remedy whereof, Be it enacted,” &c. The act then proceeds to confer power and authority upon the county courts generally to emancipate slaves upon the petition and request of the owners, and directs the clerks of such courts to record such proceedings and make out and issue to the emancipated slaves a certificate of emancipation. These old records will explain why it was that, twenty and twenty-five years later, the “Manumission Intelligencer” and “The Emancipator” were published at Jonesboro and the “Genius of Universal Emancipation” at Greeneville. They show another fact, viz., that long before Elihu Embree,[I] Benjamin Lundy, William L. Garrison and Harriet Beecher Stowe began the agitation of the abolition of slavery—in theory—in the public press, these people were not only thinking, but acting, on the subject—the great question that ultimately shook the pillars of the American republic, and earthquaked a continent when the shock of war came—these people were not only teaching but practising emancipation. It would not only be unpatriotic, but filial impiety in the descendants of those people, to allow without protest their fame to diminish, and their views, deeds and accomplishments to be taken from them and credited to others.
LIMESTONE HOUSE, 1780.
Home of Elihu Embree, the founder and editor of the first abolition paper published in the United States. Erected by his brother, Thomas Embree, about five miles west of Jonesboro, now near Telford’s Station, on Southern Railway. From a photograph taken in April, 1897.
It must not be. It was easy indeed, for Embree, Lundy and others to drop in, twenty to twenty-five years later, and join them in the advocacy of the policy of emancipating slaves, when they found, or had heard before coming to the country, that manumission societies had been in existence for near a quarter of a century before, and when the county court records disclosed the fact that these people were practising what they advocated, and when petitions to the general assembly of the state from the various counties “praying the emancipation of slaves” were so numerous that they were about to involve the state in serious evils by turning irresponsible persons loose upon society and also entailing great expense.