SLAVERY AND FOUR YEARS OF WAR
CHAPTER I SLAVERY: ITS POLITICAL HISTORY IN THE UNITED STATES (I.) Introductory—(II.) Introduction of Slavery into the Colonies —(III.) Declaration of Independence—(IV.) Continental Congress: Articles of Confederation—(V.) Ordinance of 1787—(VI.) Constitution of the United States—(VII.) Causes of Growth of Slavery—(VIII.) Fugitive-Slave Law, 1793—(IX.) Slave Trade Abolished—(X.) Louisiana Purchase—(XI.) Florida—(XII.) Missouri Compromise—(XIII.) Nullification—(XIV.) Texas—(XV.) Mexican War, Acquisition of California and New Mexico—(XVI.) Compromise Measures, 1850—(XVII.) Nebraska Act—(XVIII.) Kansas Struggle for Freedom—(XIX.) Dred Scott Case—(XX.) John Brown Raid—(XXI.) Presidential Elections, 1856-1860—(XXII.) Dissolution of the Union—(XXIII.) Secession of States—(XXIV.) Action of Religious Denominations—(XXV.) Proposed Concessions to Slavery—(XXVI.) Peace Conference—(XXVII.) District of Columbia—(XXVIII.) Slavery Prohibited in Territories—(XXIX.) Benton's Summary—(XXX.) Prophecy as to Slavery and Disunion.
I INTRODUCTORY
Slavery is older than tradition—older than authentic history, and doubtless antedates any organized form of human government. It had its origin in barbaric times. Uncivilized man never voluntarily performed labor even for his own comfort; he only struggled to gain a bare subsistence. He did not till the soil, but killed wild animals for food and to secure a scant covering for his body; and cannibalism was common. Tribes were formed for defence, and thus wars came, all, however, to maintain mere savage existence. Through primitive wars captives were taken, and such as were not slain were compelled to labor for their captors. In time these slaves were used to domesticate useful animals and, later, were forced to cultivate the soil and build rude structures for the comfort and protection of their masters. Thus it was that mankind was first forced to toil and ultimately came to enjoy labor and its incident fruits, and thus human slavery became a first step from barbarism towards the ultimate civilization of mankind.
White slavery existed in the English-American colonies antecedent to black or African slavery, though at first only intended to be conditional and not to extend to offspring. English, Scotch, and Irish alike, regardless of ancestry or religious faith, were, for political offenses, sold and transported to the dependent American colonies. They were such persons as had participated in insurrections against the Crown; many of them being prisoners taken on the battle- field, as were the Scots taken on the field of Dunbar, the royalist prisoners from the field of Worcester; likewise the great leaders of the Penruddoc rebellion, and many who were taken in the insurrection of Monmouth.
Of these, many were first sold in England to be afterwards re-sold on shipboard to the colonies, as men sell horses, to the highest bidder.
There was also, in some of the colonies, a conditional servitude, under indentures, for servants, debtors, convicts, and perhaps others. These forms of slavery made the introduction of negro and perpetual slavery easy.
Australasia alone, of all inhabited parts of the globe, has the honor, so far as history records, of never having a slave population.
Egyptian history tells us of human bondage; the patriarch Abraham, the founder of the Hebrew nation, owned and dealt in slaves. That the law delivered to Moses from Mt. Sinai justified and tolerated human slavery was the boast of modern slaveholders.
Moses, from "Nebo's heights," saw the "land of promise," where flowed "milk and honey" in abundance, and where slavery existed. The Hebrew people, but forty years themselves out of bondage, possessed this land and maintained slavery therein.