Abolishing slavery Abolishing Slavery In May of 1787, three of the largest slaveholders in the Confederate States met with other wealthy men to compose a Constitution for a group of states who had won their freedom from Great Britain. The newly freed states were under threat of breaking up for financial reasons. These states were a collection of "special interest groups" who met in Philadelphia to balance "political idealism with political expediency," writes Kenneth C. Davis (Davis 85). As they designed their new government, two problems arose. "The first was representation. Should Congress be based on population.... The second question was that of slavery.... Faced with growing abolitionist sentiments, the southern delegates would not bend on questions affecting slavery, nor would they grant freed black slaves the vote. On the other hand, they wanted slaves counted for the purpose of determining representation in Congress" (Davis 86). From there, it took compromise, political campaigns, revolts and civil war before African Americans received legal emancipation. When the first census was taken in 1790, there were 757,000 blacks in the United States, and nine out of ten were slaves-by 1860, three years before emancipation, there were four million slaves. This was true even though Congress passed a law in 1808 that did not permit bringing any more slaves into the country. This did not prevent the slave owners from "breeding" slaves. The tensions between the north and south made the situation worse for Black slaves. White slaveholders began to treat blacks in a manner that could only be described as barbarous. As a result, a number of strong revolts began to take place. Most of these were given strength based on the legend of a man named Toussaint L'Ouverture, who successfully led the slaves of St. Domingue
to freedom in the 1790s. American slaves knew of his efforts. In Charleston in 1822, Denmark Vesey attempted another revolt, but unfortunately, Vesey was betrayed by informants (Davis 126). In the north, a number of abolitionist newspapers began to flourish. Black and white men who lived in the north, but traveled in the south, began to speak up against the unfairness they observed. One of these was David Walker, the son of a slave father and a free mother. Walker published a number of articles in Boston's Freedom's Journal calling for abolition of slavery. In 1829, Walker wrote Walker's Appeal..., ...
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to freedom in the 1790s. American slaves knew of his efforts. In Charleston in 1822, Denmark Vesey attempted another revolt, but unfortunately, Vesey was betrayed by informants (Davis 126). In the north, a number of abolitionist newspapers began to flourish. Black and white men who lived in the north, but traveled in the south, began to speak up against the unfairness they observed. One of these was David Walker, the son of a slave father and a free mother. Walker published a number of articles in Boston's Freedom's Journal calling for abolition of slavery. In 1829, Walker wrote Walker's Appeal..., a series of four articles that spoke of the "most degraded, wretched, and abject set of beings that ever lived since the world began," his judgment on white owners (Ravitch 99). He called for the repentance of the white man for his barbarity against the slave population and fir the abolition of slavery. Walker was found poisoned the next year. During that same year, writing for The Genius of Universal Emancipation, a Baltimore abolitionist newspaper funded by Quakers, William Lloyd Garrison wrote that he found no one more "bitter" or "frozen" than the slave owners (Ravitch 101). Garrison said it was his duty to make the fact of slavery known, and for the cause of abolition, he wrote "I will not equivocate-I will not excuse-I will not retreat a single inch-AND I WILL BE HEARD" (Ravitch 102). The next revolt in the south also failed to free Black slaves. Nat Turner and his followers in Virginia began killing their white masters-causing many whites to flee their plantations. Unfortunately, after the initial success of Nat Turner's army of 70, the army relaxed, and a larger white army attacked. Nat Turner escaped, but the fear of his return threw the south "into hysterical terror" (Davis 126). Even after he was eventually found and hung, slaveowners afraid of his influence on their slaves, passed stringent new laws against runaway slaves-adding to their own barbarity. As a result, the abolitionist movement grew, and an underground railroad became the means of escape to freedom. As a result of the success of the underground railway, in 1850 the U.S. Government passed the Fugitive Slave Law, a portion of the 1850 Compromise that required the federal government's assistance in returning slaves that had run away to free states. This began a system of bounty hunting where freed slaves required an Affidavit verifying their free status (Davis 149-151). However, the system only served to enslave emancipated and runaway slaves. One of the first to challenge this law in the courts was Dred Scott, whose white master had died and left him in a northern state. Scott's owner had stated to him that he was free upon his death, but Scott did not have the paperwork to prove it. In 1857 the Supreme Court ruled that Scott had no residence rights in the free state in which his master had died and left him. The court stated that slavery could not be prohibited in free states, and therefore, Scott was not free and had to be handed over as part of the dead owner's estate (Davis 158). This decision divided north and south even more. The thought of a divided America was unreasonable to many of the political leaders, whose job it was to keep the states united. One hundred years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the United States was in danger of separating over the slave issue. Not only were Americans blind to this fact, wrote Garrison, but they also were becoming unemotional to the whole condition of slavery. He stated that the words were spoken, but no action was taken. He wrote: "This state of things afflicted, but did not dishearten me. I determined, at every hazard, to lift up the standard of emancipation in the eyes of the nation, within sight of Bunker Hill and in the birth place of liberty" (Ravitch 101-102). The country was founded on the Puritan belief that the land itself and its government were the gift of a higher power (God), a Quaker abolitionist, John Greenleaf Whittier appeal to the morality of slavery (Beard 3). For people in the north, who understood that industry was not falling because of paying wages (a southern argument), the idea of slavery was detestation to God's will, and such moralistic appeals began to breed. Theodore S. Wright, a clergyman, called slavery "nefarious and wicked" and said that God would never save anyone who believed that Black people were lesser human beings than white people-for this reason, the nation itself was in mortal danger (Ravitch 104-105). The abolitionist movement grew, and they used any argument they could to bring the message home. Angelina Grimske, the daughter of a slaveholder who detested slavery, moved north and became a Quaker. She wrote that she had seen slavery. In an address at the National Anti-Slavery Convention in Philadelphia, she said: "Let me urge every one of you to buy the books written on this subject; read them, and lend them to your neighbors... aid in scattering `the living coals of truth upon the naked heart of the nation'; in circulating appeals to the sympathies of Christians in behalf of the outraged slave" (Ravitch 107). Another witness, a slave who had escaped to New York with his father at nine, Henry Highland Garnet, delivered the first sermon to the House of Representatives by a black clergyman in 1865. He made an appeal to black slaves everywhere to join together in resistance. He warned the country's leaders that the slaves "are becoming better informed, and more numerous" (Ravitch 109). He scolded those who believed in a natural right to enslave, and informed the nation that these same men believed that "no cruelty is too great, no villainy and no robbery too abhorrent for even enlightened men to perform" (Ravitch 109). By 1852, the anti-slavery sentiment was so strong, that Frederick Douglass was invited to speak at the Independence Day celebration in Rochester, New York. He opened his speech with these words: "Fellow citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here today? What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, stated in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us?" (Ravitch 115). Douglass also raised the question, why has this issue not been resolved? Abraham Lincoln agreed with him. In 1858, Lincoln expressed his concern for the divided nation and his impatience with the Senate for its ineffectiveness in passing the legislation that he believed could save the country. If an antislavery bill was not passed soon, he foresaw the destruction of the United States. In his speech to the Senate, Lincoln spoke his famous words, "a house divided against itself cannot stand" (Ravitch 119). Lincoln challenged Senator Stephen Douglas to a number of public debates during his campaign for the presidency. In the most famous of those debates, on October 15, 1858, Douglas claimed Lincoln's statement that "negro equality was an inalienable right" to be false. Douglas also refuted the divine right of freedom. Lincoln called slavery morally, socially and politically wrong, and argued that slavery was the only issue that could destroy the country. For that reason alone, he said slavery should be abolished (Ravitch 126). Lincoln won the election, proving that slavery was held to be wrong by the voting citizens of the United States. However, the issue was not resolved. The south seceded from the union, and it was only after a bloody Civil War that Abraham Lincoln was able to issue the Emancipation Proclamation, effective January 1, 1863, freeing the slaves.
