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us such slaves as had escaped from our coast to her cruisers, during the progress of the war.' And, under this treaty, after a tedious controversy, Great Britain—refusing, of course, to surrender persons who had fled from her enemies to her protectionwas compelled, in 1818, on the award of Alexander I. of Russia to pay over to us no less than twelve hundred thousand dollars, to be divided among our bereft slaveholders. Before this sum was received (1826-7), our Government had made application to the British for a mutual stipulation, by treaty, to return fugitives from labor. But, though Great Britain, through her colonies, was then a slave-holding nation, she peremptorily declined the proposed reciprocity. The first application for such a nice arrangement was made by Mr. Gallatin, our Minister at London, under instructions from Mr. Clay, as Secretary of State, dated June 19, 1826. On the 5th of July, 1827, Mr. Gallatin communicated to his Government the final answer of the British Minister, that "it was utterly impossible for them to agree to the stipulation for the surrender of fugitive slaves;" and, when the application was renewed through our next Minister, Mr. James Barbour, the British Minister conclusively replied that "the law of Parliament gives freedom to every slave who effects his landing on British ground." Yet a Democratic House of Representatives, in 1828, (May 10), requested the President

"To open a negotiation with the British Government, in the view to obtain an ar

7" ART. I. All territory, places, and possessions whatever, taken from either party by the other, during the war, or which may be taken after the signing of this treaty, shall be restored without delay; and without causing any de

rangement, whereby fugitive slaves, who have taken refuge in the Canadian provinces of that Government, may be surrendered by the functionaries thereof to their masters, upon making satisfactory proof of their ownership of said slaves."

A Presidential Election was then imminent, and neither party willing to provoke the jealousy of the Slave Power: so this disgraceful resolve passed the House without a division.

In 1826, Joel R. Poinsett, our Minister to Mexico, acting under instructions from Mr. Clay, negotiated with the Mexican Government a treaty for the mutual restoration of runaway slaves, but the Mexican Senate refused to. ratify it. In 1831 (January 3), the brig Comet, a regular slaver from the District of Columbia, on her voyage to New Orleans, with a cargo of 164 slaves, was lost off the island of Abaco. The slaves were saved, and carried into New Providence, a British port, whose authorities immediately set them at liberty. And in 1833 (February 4), the brig Encomium, from Charleston to New Orleans with 45 slaves, was also wrecked near Abaco, and the slaves, in like manner, carried into New Providence, and there declared free. In February, 1835, the Enterprise, another slaver from the Federal District, proceeding to Charleston with 78 slaves, was driven in distress into Bermuda, where the slayes were immediately set at liberty. After long and earnest efforts on the part of our Government, the British Cabinet reluctantly consented to pay for the cargoes of the Comet and Encomium, expressly on the grounds that Slavery

struction or the carrying away of the artillery, or other public property originally captured in said forts or places, and which shall remain up. on the exchange of the ratifications of this trea ty, or any slaves, or other private property."

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DESTRUCTION OF A FORT IN FLORIDA.

still existed in the British West In-
dies at the time their slaves were lib-
erated; but refused to pay for those
of the Enterprise, or any other slaver
that might be brought on British soil
subsequently to the passage of her
Emancipation act. Importunity and
menace were alike exhausted by our
diplomatists down to a recent period,
but to no purpose.
Great Britain
stubbornly refused either to unite
with us in a reciprocal surrender of
fugitive slaves to their masters, or in
paying for such as, by their own ef-
forts, or through the interposition of
Providence, might emerge from Amer.
ican bondage into British liberty.

Our repeated invasions of Florida, while a Spanish colony, our purchase of that colony from Spain, and our unjust, costly, and discreditable wars upon her Aboriginal tribes, were all prompted by a concern for the interests and security of the slaveholders of southern Georgia and Alabama, whose chattels would persist in following each other out of Christian bondage into savage freedom. Gen. Jackson, in 1816, wrote to Gen. Gaines with respect to a fort in Florida, then a Spanish possession:

"If the fort harbors the negroes of our citizens, or of friendly Indians living within our territory, or holds out inducements to the slaves of our citizens to desert from

their owners' service, it must be destroyed. Notify the Governor of Pensacola of your advance into his territory, and for the express purpose of destroying these lawless banditti."

177

"Three hundred negroes, men, women, and children, and about twenty Indians, were in the fort; of these two hundred and seventy were killed, and the greater part of the rest mortally wounded."

Commodore Patterson, in his official letter to the Secretary of the Navy, expressly justifies the destruction of this fort on the ground of its affording a harbor "for runaway slaves and disaffected Indians:" adding, "they have no longer a place to fly to, and will not be so liable to abscond."

The resistance interposed by Gen. Cass, our Minister at Paris in 184041, to the treaty negotiated between the Great Powers, conceding a mutual right to search on the slave-coast of Africa, with a view to the more effectual suppression of the SlaveTrade, though cloaked by a jealousy of British maritime preponderance, was really a bid for the favor of the Slave Power. The concession, by our Government, of the right to search, since that Government has passed out of the hands of the devotees of Slavery, is suggestive. was American Slavery, not American commerce, that dreaded the visitation of our vessels on the western coast of central Africa by National cruisers, intent on the punishment of a crime which had already been pronounced piracy by the awakened conscience of Christendom.

It

In fact, so long as more than one hundred members of Congress were Gen. Gaines, for some reason, did chosen to represent, to advance, and not execute this order; but a gun- to guard, before all else, the interests boat, sent up the Apalachicola river of Slavery, and one hundred electoby our Commodore Patterson, on the ral votes were controlled, primarily, 27th of July, attacked and destroyed by that interest, it was morally imposthe fort by firing red-hot shot, explo-sible that our Government should not ding its magazine. The result is thus be warped into subserviency to our summed up in the official report: National cancer. A 'peculiar insti

tution,' creating and upholding the title to a species of property valued at Four Thousand Millions of dollars, could hardly fail to make itself respected and influential in every department of the public service, and through every act of the Federal authorities calculated to affect its stability, its prosperity, or its power. But, up to this time, Slavery had sought and obtained the protection and championship of the Federal Government expressly as a domestic institution as an important interest of a certain portion of the American

people. In the Annexation of Texas, and in the reasons officially adduced therefor, it challenged the regard of mankind and defied the consciences of our own citizens as a great National interest, to the protection of which, at all hazards and under all circumstances, our Government was inflexibly committed, and with whose fortunes those of our country were inextricably blended. For the first time, our Union stood before the nations, not merely as an upholder, but as a zealous, unscrupulous propagandist of Human Slavery.

XIII.

THE MISSION OF SAMUEL HOAR. THE Federal Constitution (Art. iv. § 2) provides that "The citizens "of each State shall be entitled to all "the privileges and immunities of "citizens in the several States."

This is plainly condensed from the corresponding provision of the Articles of Confederation, adopted in 1778, and thenceforth our bond of Union, until superseded in 1787-8 by the Federal Constitution aforesaid. That provision is as follows:

"Art. 4. The better to secure and perpetuate mutual friendship and intercourse among the people of the different States in the Union, the free inhabitants of each State-paupers, vagabonds, and fugitives from justice excepted shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of free citizens in the several States; and the people of each State shall have free ingress and egress to and from any other State, and shall enjoy therein all the privileges of trade and commerce, subject to the same duties, impositions, and restrictions, as the inhab itants thereof respectively."

only

When this Article was under consideration, the delegates from South Carolina moved to amend by inserting the word "white" between "free" and "inhabitants;" which was emphatically negatived two States voting for it: so it was determined that States had, or might have, citizens who were not "white," and that these should be entitled to all the privileges of citizens in every other State.

We have seen' that Congress, in 1821, resisted the attempt of Missouri to prohibit the immigration. of free colored persons, deeming it a palpable violation of that requirement of the Federal Constitution above quoted; and would not ad mit that State into the Union until, by a second compromise, she was required to pledge herself that her 1 Page 80.

SOUTH CAROLINA IMPRISONING SEAMEN.

179

Legislature should pass no act "by North Carolina allowed her free "which any of the citizens of either negroes, who possessed the requisite "of the States should be excluded qualifications in other respects, to "from the enjoyment of the privi- vote, regardless of their color, down "leges and immunities to which they to about 1830. Their habit of vot"are entitled under the Constitution ing for the Federal or Whig candi"of the United States." There was dates, and against the Democratic, no question pending, no proscription was a subject of frequent and jocular or exclusion meditated, but that af remark-the Whigs insisting that fecting colored persons only; and the instincts of the negro impelled Congress, by the above action, clear-him uniformly to associate, so far as ly affirmed their right, when citizens practicable, with the more gentleof any State, to the privileges and manly portion of the white race. immunities of citizens in all other States.

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3 The following is a portion of the act in question:

"II. And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That it shall not be lawful for any free negro, or person of color, to come into this State, on board any vessel, as a cook, steward, or mariner, or in any other employment on board such vessel; and, in case any vessel shall arrive in any port or harbor of this State, from any other State or foreign port, having on board any free negro or person of color, employed on board such vessel as a cook, steward, or mariner, or in any other employment, it shall be the duty of the sheriff of the district in which such port or harbor is situated, immediately on the arrival of such vessel, to apprehend such free negro or person of color, so arriving contrary to this Act, and to confine him or her closely in jail, until such vessel shall be hauled off from the wharf, and ready to proceed to sea. And that, when said vessel is ready to sail, the captain of the said vessel shall be bound to carry away such free negro or person of color, and to pay the expenses of his or her detention. And

2

In the year 1835, the Legislature of South Carolina saw fit to pass an act, whereby any and every colored person found on board of any vessel entering one of her ports was to be forthwith seized by her municipal officers, and lodged in jail; there to remain until the vessel should be cleared for departure, when said colored person or persons should be restored to said vessel, on payment of the cost and charges of arrest, detention, and subsistence.3

This act necessarily bore with great hardship on the colored sea

in every such case it shall be the duty of the sheriff aforesaid, immediately on the apprehension of any free negro or person of color, to cause said captain to enter into a recognizance, with good and sufficient security, in the sum of one thousand dollars, for such free negro or slave so brought into this State, that he will comply with the requisitions of this act; and that, on his neglect, or refusal, or disability to do the same, he shall be compelled by the sheriff aforesaid to haul said vessel into the stream, one hundred yards distant from the shore, and remain until said vessel shall proceed to sea. And if said vessel shall not be hauled off from the shore as aforesaid on the order of the sheriff aforesaid, the captain or commanding officer of said vessel shall be indicted therefor, and, on conviction, forfeit and pay one thousand dollars, and suffer imprisonment not exceeding six months.

"III. And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That whenever any free negro or person of color shall be apprehended or committed to jail, as having arrived in any vessel in the capacity of cook, steward, mariner, or otherwise, contrary to this Act, it shall be the duty of the

4

men, cooks, etc., of Northern vessels the fact, and stating the purpose of trading to Charleston. Massachu- his mission to be, "the collecting setts, therefore, at length resolved, and transmission of accurate informathrough the action of her Legisla- tion respecting the number and the ture, to test its constitutionality by names of citizens of Massachusetts, instituting legal proceedings, which who have heretofore been, or may should bring it ultimately to an ad- be, during the period of the engagejudication by the Supreme Court of ment of the agent, imprisoned withthe United States. To this end, out the allegation of any crime." Gov. Briggs appointed Hon. Sam- He further stated that he was auuel Hoar-one of her most emi- thorized to bring and prosecute one nent and venerable citizens, who had or more suits in behalf of any citizen served her with honor in many im- so imprisoned, for the purpose of portant trusts, including a seat in having the legality of such imprisonCongress to proceed to Charleston, ment tried and determined in the and there institute the necessary pro- Supreme Court of the United States. ceedings, in order to bring the matter to judgment. Mr. Hoar accepted this new duty, and left home accordingly in November, 1844, for Charleston; reaching that city on the 28th of that month. So utterly unsuspecting was he of giving offense, or provoking violence, that his young daughter accompanied him.

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sheriff, during the confinement in jail of such free negro or person of color, to call upon some justice of the peace or quorum, to warn such free negro or person of color never to enter the said State after he shall have departed therefrom, and such justice of the peace, or quorum, shall, at the time of warning such free negro, or person of color, insert his or her name in a book, to be provided for that purpose by the sheriff, and shall therein specify his or her age, occupation, hight, and distinguishing marks; which book shall be good and sufficient evidence to such warning; and said book shall be a public record, and be subject and open to the examination of all persons who may make application to the clerk of the court of general sessions, in whose office it shall be deposited. And such justice shall receive the sum of two dollars, payable by the captain of the vessel in which said free negro or person of color shall be introduced into this State, for the services rendered in making said entry. And every free negro, or person of color, who shall not depart the State, in case of the captain refusing or neglecting to carry him or her away, or, having departed, shall again enter into the limits of this State, by

The next morning, Mr. Hoar called on Mr. Eggleston, who had been appointed to the same agency before him, and requested of him an introduction to the Mayor of Charleston, his object being to procure access to the records of orders or sentences, under which citizens of Massachusetts, it was understood, had been imprisoned. Mr. Eggleston acceded to his request, but said it would be best that he should first see the

land or by water, after having been warned as aforesaid, shall be dealt with as the first section of this Act directs in regard to persons of color, who shall migrate, or be brought, into this State."

It may be as well to add that the penalty of the first section referred to, is corporal punishment for the first offense: "and if, after said sentence or punishment, such free negro or person of color shall still remain in the State longer than the time allowed, or, having left the State, shall thereafter return to the same, upon proof and conviction thereof before a court, to be constituted as herein before directed, he or she shall be appropriated and applied, one half thereof to the use of the State, and the other half to the use of the informer."

4 Resolves of March 24, 1843, and March 16, 1844.

5 Hon. James H. Hammond, since distinguished as a U. S. Senator.

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