Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 22.djvu/158

 142 SLAVERY his first wishes to see some plan adopted by which slavery in his country might be abolished by law," and again he wrote that to this subject his own suffrage should never be wanting. John Adams declared his abhorrence of the practice of slaveholding, and said that " every measure of prudence ought to be assumed for the eventual total extirpation of slavery from the United States." Frank- lin's opinions we have already indicated ; and Madison, Hamilton, and Patrick Henry all reprobated the principle of the system. Jefferson declared that in the presence of the institution "he trembled for his country when he remembered that God was just." The last-named states- man, at the first continental congress after the evacuation by the British forces, proposed a draft ordinance (1st March 1784) for the government of the territory includ- ing the present Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi ceded already or to be ceded by individual States to the United States ; and it was an article of this ordinance that "after the year 1800 there should be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in any of the said States, otherwise than in punishment of crime." This proviso, however, was lost. At the convention of Philadelphia in 1787, where the constitution was settled, the sentiments of the framers were against slavery ; but South Carolina and Georgia insisted on its recognition as a condition of their joining the Union, and even an engagement for the mutual rendition of fugitive slaves was embodied in the federal pact. The words " slave " and " slavery " were, however, excluded from the constitution, " because," as Madison says, " they did not choose to admit the right of property in man " in direct terms ; and it was at the same time provided that Congress might interdict the foreign slave trade after the expiration of twenty years. It must not be forgotten that either before or soon after the formation of the Union the Northern States beginning with Vermont in 1777, and ending with New Jersey in 1804 either abolished slavery or adopted measures to effect its gradual abolition within their boundaries. But the principal opera- tion of (at least) the latter change was simply to transfer Northern slaves to Southern markets. We cannot follow in detail the several steps by which the slave power for a long time persistently increased its influence in the Union. The acquisition of Louisiana including the State so named, Arkansas, Missouri, and Kansas (1803), though not made in its interest, the Missouri compromise (1820), the annexation of Texas (1845), the Fugitive Slave Law (1850), the Kansas- Nebraska bill (1854), the Dred Scott decision (1856), the attempts to acquire Cuba (1854) and to reopen the foreign slave trade (1859-60), were the principal steps only some of them successful in its career of aggression. They roused a determined spirit of opposition, founded on deep-seated convictions. The pioneer of the more recent abolitionist movement was Benjamin Lundy (1789-1839). He was followed by William Lloyd Garrison (1805-1879), Elijah P. Lovejoy (1802-1837) a martyr, if ever there was one Wendell Phillips, Charles Sumner, John Brown (b. 1800, hanged 1859), all of whom were in their several ways leading apostles or promoters of the cause. The best intellect of America outside the region of practical politics has been on the anti-slavery side. William E. Channing, E. W. Emerson, the poets Bryant, Longfellow, pre-eminently Whittier, and more recently Whitman, have spoken on this theme with no uncertain sound. The South, and its partisans in the North, made desperate efforts to prevent the free expression of opinion respecting the institution, and even the Christian churches in the slave States used their influence in favour of the main- tenance of slavery. But in spite of every such effort opinion steadily grew. Public sentiment in the North was deeply stirred by the Uncle Tom's Cabin of Mrs Harriet Beecher Stowe (1852), which, as Senior said, under the disguise of a novel was really a pamphlet against the Fugitive Slave Law. It gradually became apparent that the question could not be settled without an armed con- flict. The designation of Abraham Lincoln as president in November 1860 was the signal for the rising of the South. The North at first took arms simply to maintain the Union ; but the far-sighted politicians from the first, and soon the whole nation, saw that the [real [issue was the continued existence or the total abolition of slavery. See UNITED STATES. The war was closed by the surrender at Appomattox (9th April 1865), but already in 1862 slavery in the Territories had been abolished by Congress; on 22d of September of the same year Lincoln had issued his pro- clamation of freedom to the slaves; and in 1864 a con- stitutional amendment had been passed abolishing and for ever prohibiting slavery throughout the United States. The Spanish slave code, promulgated in 1789, is admitted on Cuba. all hands to have been very humane in its character ; and, in con- sequence of this, after Trinidad had become au English possession, the anti-slavery party resisted and successfully the attempt of the planters (1811) to have the Spanish law in that island replaced by the British. But, notwithstanding this mildness of the code, so habitually and glaringly were its provisions violated in the colonies of Spain, that Dr R. R. Madden, who had personal knowledge of the affairs of Cuba, declared in 1840 that "slavery in Cuba was more destructive to human life, more pernicious to society, degrading to the slave and debasing to the master, more fatal to health and happiness, than in any other slaveholding country on the face of the habitable globe." "It is in Cuba at this day," wrote Cairnes in 1862, "... that we see in the servile class the coarsest fare, the most exhausting and unremitting toil, and even the absolute destruction of a portion of its numbers every year by the slow torture of overwork and insufficient sleep and rest." The slave population of the island was estimated in 1792 at 84,000 ; in 1817 at 179,000 ; in 1827 at 286,000 ; and in 1843 at 436,000. An Act was passed by the Spanish legislature in 1870, providing that every slave who had then passed, or should thereafter pass, the age of sixty should be at once free, and that all yet unborn children of slaves should also bo free. The latter, however, were to be maintained at the expense of the proprietors up to their eighteenth year, and during that time to be kept, as apprentices, to such work as was suitable for their age. This is known as the Moret Law, having been carried through the house of representatives by Senor Moret y Prendergast, then minister for the colonies. By the census of 1867 there was in Cuba a total popula- tion of 1,370,211 persons, of whom 764,750 were whites and 605,461 black or coloured ; and of the latter number 225,938 were free and 379,523 were slaves. In 1873 the Cubans roughly estimated the population at 1,500,000, of whom 500,000, or one-third, were slaves. Mr Crowe, consul-general in the island, has lately (1885) stated that " the institution is rapidly dying, that in a year, or at most two, slavery, even in its present mild form, will be extinct." There was a convention between Great Britain and Brazil in Brazil. 1826 for the abolition of the slave trade, but it was habitually violated in spite of the English cruisers. In 1830 the traffic was declared piracy by the emperor of Brazil. England asserted by the Aberdeen Act (1845) the right of seizing suspected craft in Bra- zilian waters. Yet by the connivance of the local administrative authorities 54,000 Africans continued to be annually imported. In 1850 the trade is said to have been decisively put down. The planters and mine proprietors cried out against this as a national calamity. The closing of the traffic made the labour of the slaves more severe, and led to the employment on the plantations of many who before had been engaged in domestic work ; but the slavery of Brazil has always been lighter than that of the United States. On 28th September 1871 the Brazilian chambers decreed that slavery should be abolished throughout the empire. Though existing slaves were to remain slaves still, with the exception of those possessed by the Government, who were liberated by the Act, facilities for emancipation were given ; and it was provided that all children born of female slaves after the day on which the law passed should be free. They were, however, 'bound to serve the owners of their mothers for a term of 21 years. A clause was inserted to the effect that a certain sum should be annually set aside from fines to aid each province in emancipating slaves by purchase. Seven years before the passing of this Act the emperor, whose influence has always been exerted in favour of freedom, had liberated his private slaves, and many Brazilians after 1 871 followed his example. According to the census of 1835 there were then in