(123) Hist., etc., Ex., Dred Scott Case, pp. 184-5.
XXX PROPHECY AS TO SLAVERY'S FATE: ALSO AS TO DISUNION
We are approaching the period for the fulfilment of prophecy in relation to the perpetuity of human slavery in the United States.
We summarize a few of the prophecies made by distinguished American statesmen and citizens. George Washington, Patrick Henry, and other Virginia statesmen and slaveholders at the close of the Revolution predicted that slaves would be emancipated, or they would acquire their freedom violently. These patriots advocated emancipation. The stumbling-block to abolition in Virginia at that time was, what to do with the blacks. The white population could not reconcile themselves to the idea of living on an equality with them, as they deemed they must if the blacks were free. As early as 1782 Jefferson expressed his serious forebodings:
"Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free; nor is it less certain that the two races, equally free, cannot live in the same government. . . .
"I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that His justice cannot sleep forever. The way, I hope, is preparing, under the auspices of Heaven, for a total emancipation."
The anti-slavery societies when they first met in annual convention (1804) proclaimed that
"Freedom and slavery cannot long exist together."
John Quincy Adams, in 1843, prophesied:
"I am satisfied slavery will not go down until it goes down in blood."(124)