(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. SLA I INTRODUCTORY LAVERY 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 VOL. 1.-1. Ι 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 offences, 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. The advocates of slavery and the slave trade exultingly quoted: 'And I will sell your sons and your daughters into the hands of the children of Judah, and they shall sell them to the Sabeans, to a people far off; for the Lord hath spoken it."-Joel iii., 8. They likewise claimed that St. Paul, while he preached the gospel to slaveholders and slaves alike in Rome, yet used his calling to enable him to return to slavery an escaped human. being-Onesimus.' The advocates of domestic slavery justified it as of scriptural and divine origin. From the Old Testament they quoted other texts, not only to justify the holding of slaves in perpetual bondage, but the continuance of the slave trade with all its cruelties. "And he said, I am Abraham's servant."-Gen. xxiv., 34. "And there was of the house of Saul a servant whose name was Ziba. And when they had called him unto David, the King said unto him, Art thou Ziba? And he said, Thy servant is he. "Then the King called to Ziba, Saul's servant, and said unto him, I have given unto thy master's son all that pertained to Saul, and to all his house. "Thou, therefore, and thy sons, and thy servants shall till the land for him, and thou shalt bring in the fruits, that thy master's son may have food to eat," etc. "Now Ziba had fifteen sons and twenty servants.”. -2 Samuel ix., 2, 9–10. "I got me servants and maidens and had servants born in my house; also I had great possessions of great and small cattle above all that were in Jerusalem before me."-Eccles. ii., 7. 1 1 Epistle to Philemon. |