The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921

by Various

To —— ——

June 28, 1831.

But the title in the people of the United States rests on a foundation too just and solid to be shaken by any technical or metaphysical arguments whatever. The known and acknowledged intentions of the parties at the time, with a prescriptive sanction of so many years consecrated by the intrinsic principles of equity, would overrule even the most explicit declarations and terms, as has been done without the aid of that principle in the slaves, who remain such in spite of the declarations that all men are born equally free.[19]

To Matthew Carey

Montpelier, July 7, 1831.

. . . . . . . . .

If the States cannot live together in harmony under the auspices of such a Government as exists, and in the midst of blessings such as have been the fruits of it, what is the prospect threatened by the abolition of a common Government, with all the rivalships, collisions and animosities inseparable from such an event? The entanglements and conflicts of commercial regulations, especially as affecting the inland and other non-importing States, and a protection of fugitive slaves substituted for the obligatory surrender of them, would, of themselves, quickly kindle the passions which are the forerunners of war.[20]

To R. R. Gurley, a promoter of colonization, Madison wrote the following December 28, 1831:

Dear Sir,—I received in due time your letter of the 21 ultimo, and with due sensibility to the subject of it. Such, however, has been the effect of a painful rheumatism on my general condition, as well as in disqualifying my fingers for the use of the pen, that I could not do justice "to the principles and measures of the Colonization Society, in all the great and various relations they sustain in our country and to Africa." If my views of them could have the value which your partiality supposes, I may observe, in brief, that the Society had always my good wishes, though with hopes of its success less sanguine than were entertained by others found to have been the better judges; and that I feel the greatest pleasure at the progress already made by the Society, and the encouragement to encounter the remaining difficulties afforded by the earlier and greater ones already overcome. Many circumstances at the present moment seem to concur in brightening the prospects of the Society, and cherishing the hope that the time will come when the dreadful calamity which has so long afflicted our country, and filled so many with despair, will be gradually removed, and by means consistent with justice, peace, and the general satisfaction; thus giving to our country the full enjoyment of the blessings of liberty, and to the world the full benefit of its great example. I have never considered the main difficulty of the great work as lying in the deficiency of emancipations, but in an inadequacy of asylums for such a growing mass of population, and in the great expense of removing it to its new home. The spirit of private maunmission, as the laws may permit and the exiles may consent, is increasing, and will increase, and there are sufficient indications that the public authorities in slaveholding States are looking forward to interpretations, in different forms, that must have a powerful effect.

With respect to the new abode for the emigrants, all agree that the choice made by the Society is rendered peculiarly appropriate by considerations which need not be repeated, and if other situations should not be found as eligible receptacles for a portion of them, the prospect in Africa seems to be expanding in a highly encouraging degree.

In contemplating the pecuniary resources needed for the removal of such a number to so great a distance, my thought and hopes have long been turned to the rich fund presented in the western lands of the nation, which will soon entirely cease to be under a pledge for another object. The great one in question is truly of a national character, and it is known that distinguished patriots not dwelling in slaveholding States have viewed the object in that light, and would be willing to let the national domain be a resource in effectuating it.

Should it be remarked that the States, although all may be interested in relieving our country from the coloured population, are not equally so, it is but fair to recollect that the sections most to be benefited are those whose cessions created the fund to be disposed of.

I am aware of the constitutional obstacle which has presented itself; but if the general will be reconciled to an application of the territorial fund to the removal of the coloured population, a grant to Congress of the necessary authority could be carried with little delay through the forms of the Constitution.

Sincerely wishing increasing success to the labours of the Society, I pray you to be assured of my esteem, and to accept my friendly salutations.[21]

To Thomas R. Drew

Montpellier, Feby 23, 1833

Dear Sir,—I received, in due time, your letter of the 15th ult. with copies of the two pamphlets; one on the "Restrictive System," the other on the "Slave Question."

The former I have not yet been able to look into, and in reading the latter with the proper attention I have been much retarded by many interruptions, as well as by the feebleness incident to my great age, increased as it is by the effects of an acute fever, preceded and followed by a chronic complaint under which I am still labouring. This explanation of the delay in acknowledging your favor will be an apology, also, for the brevity and generality of the answer. For the freedom of it, none, I am sure, will be required. In the views of the subject taken in the pamphlet, I have found much valuable and interesting information, with ample proof of the numerous obstacles to a removal of slavery from our country, and everything that could be offered in mitigation of its continuance; but I am obliged to say, that in not a few of the data from which you reason, and in the conclusion to which you are led, I cannot concur.

I am aware of the impracticability of an immediate or early execution of any plan that combines deportation with emancipation, and of the inadmissibility of emancipation without deportation. But I have yielded to the expediency of attempting a gradual remedy, by providing for the double operation.

If emancipation was the sole object, the extinguishment of slavery would be easy, cheap, and complete. The purchase by the public of all female children, at their birth, leaving them in bondage till it would defray the charge of rearing them, would, within a limited period, be a radical resort.

With the condition of deportation it has appeared to me, that the great difficulty does not lie either in the expense of emancipation, or in the expense or the means of deportation, but in the attainment—1, of the requisite asylums; 2, the consent of the individuals to be removed; 3, the labour for the vacuum to be created.

With regard to the expense—1, much will be saved by voluntary emancipations, increasing under the influence of example, and the prospect of bettering the lot of the slaves; 2, much may be expected in gifts and legacies from the opulent, the philanthropic, and the conscientious; 3, more still from legislative grants by the States, of which encouraging examples and indications have already appeared; 4, nor is there any room for despair of aid from the indirect or direct proceeds of the public lands held in trust by Congress. With a sufficiency of pecuniary means, the facility of providing a naval transportation of the exiles is shewn by the present amount of our tonnage and the promptitude with which it can be enlarged; by the number of emigrants brought from Europe to N. America within the last year, and by the greater number of slaves which have been, within single years, brought from the coast of Africa across the Atlantic.

In the attainment of adequate asylums, the difficulty, though it may be considerable, is far from being discouraging. Africa is justly the favorite choice of the patrons of colonization; and the prospect there is flattering—1, in the territory already acquired; 2, in the extent of coast yet to be explored, and which may be equally convenient; 3, the adjacent interior into which the littoral settlements can be expanded under the auspices of physical affinities between the new comers and the natives, and of the moral superiorities of the former; 4, the great inland regions now ascertained to be accessible by navigable waters, and opening new fields for colonizing enterprises.

But Africa, though the primary, is not the sole asylum within contemplation; an auxiliary one presents itself in the islands adjoining this continent, where the coloured population is already dominant, and where the wheel of revolution may from time to time produce the like result.

Nor ought another contingent receptable for emancipated slaves to be altogether overlooked. It exists within the territory under the control of the United States, and is not too distant to be out of reach, whilst sufficiently distant to avoid, for an indefinite period, the collisions to be apprehended from the vicinity of people distinguished from each other by physical as well as other characteristics.

The consent of the individuals is another pre-requisite in the plan of removal. At present there is a known repugnance in those already in a state of freedom to leave their native homes, and among the slaves there is an almost universal preference of their present condition to freedom in a distant and unknown land. But in both classes, particularly that of the slaves, the prejudices arise from a distrust of the favorable accounts coming to them through white channels. By degrees truth will find its way to them from sources in which they will confide, and their aversion to removal may be overcome as fast as the means of effectuating it shall accrue.

The difficulty of replacing the labour withdrawn by a removal of the slaves, seems to be urged as of itself an insuperable objection to the attempt. The answer to it is—1, that notwithstanding the emigrations of the whites, there will be an annual and by degrees an increasing surplus of the remaining mass; 2, that there will be an attraction of whites from without, increasing with the demand, and, as the population elsewhere will be yielding a surplus to be attracted; 3, that as the culture of tobacco declines with the contraction of the space within which it is profitable and still more from the successful competition in the West, and as the farming system takes the place of planting, a portion of labour can be spared without impairing the requisite stock; 4, that although the process must be slow, be attended with much inconvenience, and be not even certain in its result, is it not preferable to a torpid acquiescence in a perpetuation of slavery, or an extinguishment of it by convulsions more disastrous in their character and consequences than slavery itself?

In my estimate of the experiment instituted by the Colonization Society, I may indulge too much my wishes and hopes, to be safe from errors. But a partial success will have its virtue, and an entire failure will leave behind a consciousness of the laudable intentions with which relief from the greatest of our calamities was attempted in the only mode presenting a chance of effecting it.

I hope I shall be pardoned for remarking, that in accounting for the depressed condition of Virginia, you seem to allow too little to the existence of slavery, ascribe too much to the tariff laws, and not to have sufficiently taken into view the effect of the rapid settlement of the Western and Southwestern country.

Previous to the Revolution, when, of these causes, slavery alone was in operation, the face of Virginia was, in every feature of improvement and prosperity, a contrast to the Colonies where slavery did not exist, or in a degree only, not worthy of notice. Again, during the period of the tariff laws prior to the latter state of them, the pressure was little, if at all, regarded as a source of the general suffering. And whatever may be the degree in which the extravagant augmentation of the Tariff may have contributed to the depression, the extent of this cannot be explained by the extent of the cause. The great and adequate cause of the evil is the cause last mentioned, if that be indeed an evil which improves the condition of our migrating citizens, and adds more to the growth and prosperity of the whole than it subtracts from a part of the community.

Nothing is more certain than that the actual and prospective depression of Virginia is to be referred to the fall in the value of her landed property, and in that of the staple products of the land. And it is not less certain that the fall in both cases is the inevitable effect of the redundancy in the market of land and of its products. The vast amount of fertile land offered at 125 cents per acre in the West and S. West could not fail to have the effect already experienced, of reducing the land here to half its value; and when the labour that will here produce one hogshead of tobacco and ten barrels of flour will there produce two hhd and twenty barrels, now so cheaply transportable to the destined outlets, a like effect on these articles must necessarily ensue. Already more tobacco is sent to New Orleans than is exported from Virginia to foreign markets; whilst the article of flour, exceeding for the most part the demand for it, is in a course of rapid increase from new sources as boundless as they are productive. The great staples of Virginia have but a limited market, which is easily glutted. They have in fact sunk more in price, and have a more threatening prospect, than the more southern staples of cotton and rice. The case is believed to be the same with her landed property. That it is so with her slaves is proved by the purchases made here for the market there.

The reflections suggested by this aspect of things will be more appropriate in your hands than in mine. They are also beyond the tether of my subject, which I fear I have already overstrained. I hasten, therefore, to conclude, with a tender of the high respect and cordial regards which I pray you to accept.[22]

To Henry Clay

June, 1833.

It is painful to observe the unceasing efforts to alarm the South by imputations against the North of unconstitutional designs on the subject of the slaves. You are right, I have no doubt, in believing that no such intermeddling disposition exists in the body of our Northern brethren. Their good faith is sufficiently guarantied by the interest they have as merchants, as ship-owners, and as manufacturers, in preserving a union with the slaveholding States. On the other hand, what madness in the South to look for greater safety in disunion. It would be worse than jumping out of the frying-pan into the fire; it would be jumping into the fire for fear of the frying-pan. The danger from the alarm is, that the pride and resentment exerted by them may be an overmatch for the dictates of prudence, and favor the project of a Southern Convention, insidiously revived, as promising, by its councils, the best securities against grievances of every sort from the North.[23]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Letters and other Writings of James Madison, III, 138.

[2] Ibid., 170.

[3] Ibid., 239.