Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 17.djvu/143

 Life, Services and Character of Jefferson Davis, 135

as great sacrifices ; that the Southern Confederacy grew out of them, and only in a subsidiary degree in antagonism to any one of them ; and I shall also maintain that Jefferson Davis is entitled to stand in the Pantheon of the world's great men on a pedestal not less high than those erected for the images of Hampden, Sidney, Cromwell, Burke and Chatham, of the fatherland, and Washington and Ham- ilton, Jefferson and Adams, Madison and Franklin, of the New World, who, however varying in circumstance or in personality, were liberty leaders and representatives of great people, great ideas, and great deeds.

UNITY OF THE SOUTHERN COLONIES AGAINST. SLAVERY.

On what ground will he be challenged ? Did not the Southern folk show originally an aversion to slavery more mSmifestly even than those of the North ? South Carolina protested against it as early as 1727 and as late as 1760. Georgia prohibited it by law. Virginia sternly set her face against it, and levied a tax of ten dollars per head on every negro to prevent it. They were all overridden by the avarice of English merchants and the despotism of English ministers. " Do as you would* be done by " is not yet the maxim of our race, which will push oft on its weaker brethren that it will not itself accept ; and thus slavery was thrust on the South, an uninvited — aye, a forbid- den—guest. Quickly did the South stop the slave trade. Though the Constitution forbade the Congress to prohibit it prior to 1808, when that year came every Southern State had itself prohibited it, Virginia leading the list. When Jefferson Davis was born it was gone altogether, save in one State (South Carolina), where it had been revived under combination between large planters of the South and ship-owners and slave traders of the North.

Fine exhibition, too, was that of unselfish Southern patriotism when in 1787, by Southern votes and Virginia's generosity, and under Jefferson's lead, the great northwestern territory was given to the Union and to freedom.

UNITY OF AMERICAN COLONIES IN YIELDING TO SLAVERY.

But the South yielded to slavery, we are told. Yes ; but did not all America do likewise ? Do we not know that the Pilgrim fathers enslaved both the Indian and African race, swapping young Indians for the more docile blacks lest the red slave might escape to his native forest ?

Listen to his appeal to Governor Winthrop : " Mr. Endicott and