Again, it is well known that some passages
in the original draft of the Declaration of In-
dependence by Mr. Jefferson were omitted by
Congress. The following is one that shows
his hostile feelings on this subject :
" He has waged cruel war against human
nature ilself, violating its most sacred rights
of life and liberty in the persons of a distant
people who never offended him; captivating
and carrying them into slavery in another
hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in
their transportation thither. This piratical
warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is
the warfare of the Christian King of Great
Britain, Determined to keep open a market
where men should be bought and sold, be
has prostituted his negative for suppressing
every legislative attempt to prohibit or re-
strain this execrable commerce."—Jefferson's
Works, vol. pp. 23, 24,
I might cite numerous quotations from
General Washington, General Lafayette and
others, but my friend from Cecil (Mr. Scott)
who has preceded me, has saved me this ne-
cessity. I will simply quote one paragraph
from a letter on the subject from General
Washington to Robert Morris, 12th April,
1786, in these words :
" I hope it will not be conceived from these
observations that it is my wish to hold the
unhappy people, who are the subject of this
letter, in slavery. I can only say that there
is not a man living who wishes more sincerely
than I do to see some plan adopted for the
abolition of it, but there is only one proper
and effectual mode by which this can be ac-
complished, and that is by legislative au-
thority; and as far as my suffrage will go it
shall never be wanting."—Sparks's Wash-
ington, vol. 9, p. 159.
In 1786 Mr. Jefferson, whilst in France,
said to M. Demeunier, in a written commu-
nication, amongst other things touching the
question of emancipation in America.:
"But we must wait with patience the
workings of an overruling Providence, and
hope that that is preparing the deliverance
of these our suffering brethren. When the
measure of their tears shall be full; when
their groans shall have involved heaven it-
self in darkness—doubtless a God of justice
will awaken to their distress, and by diffusing
light and liberality among their oppressors,
or, at length by his exterminating thunder,
manifest his attention to the things of this
world, and that they are not left to the guid-
ance of a blind fatality."—Jefferson's Works,
vol. 9, pp. 278,, 279.
How wonderfully prophetic these latter
words seem when we consider the agony the
blood and suffering through which we are
now passing. Is not God by his extermi-
nating thunder showing us that " vengeance
is His and He will repay,"
I might quote from Luther Martin and
Pinckney, of Maryland, Mason, of Virginia. |
and others to the same import did time
permit,
The very framers of our Constitution were
careful to exclude the word slave from that
instrument, for the very purpose of avoiding
the recognition of property in man. This we
learn from the debates of that time. In one
place they speak of ' ' persons held to service
or labor," .'and again when speaking of the
basis of representation, after enumerating the
number of whites, they speak of ' ' three-fifths
of all other persons
But gentlemen seem to have great fears of
being overrun by this class of people. They
speak of them as wicked, indolent and worth-
less when freed. I ask them, has not this
state of degradation to the extent in which
it exists, been produced in a great measure
by the oppressive system of laws which we
have enacted for them? I tell them I believe
they will work when they know they are lo
receive the rewards of their own labor, and
that we shall have need for all their labor and
more. And so far from being overrun, I be-
lieve there will be rather a drain upon Mary-
land if the whole Southern country shall be
opened up to freedom, as I believe, in the
Providence of God, it will. Climate and
other natural advantages will draw them
thither.
But the best reply I can make to the objec-
tion is, the report of Senator Pearce, now
no more, and whom we all respect, to a slave-
holders' convention, the object of which was
to enslave all the free negroes or drive them
out of the State. This was at the time, too,
when slavery was at its zenith. He uses these
words:
"The existence of so large a portion of
free blacks in a slaveholding State is believed
to be of itself an evil, and this evil is readily
perceived to be greater when it is considered
that a portion of them are idle, vicious and
unproductive. This, however, is not the case
with the majority of them, and their removal
would, as the committee believe, be far greater
than all the evils the people of Maryland ever
suffered from them. In the city of Baltimore
it is estimated that there are more than twenty-
five thousand of them employed chiefly as
domestic servants or laborers in various de-
partments of industry, in many of the rural
districts of the State where labor is by no
means abundant, they furnish a large supply
of agricultural labor, and it is unquestionable
that quite a large portion of our soil could
not be tilled without their aid."
He pursues this strain still further, and
closes the report as follows :
"The committee therefore cannot recom-
mend their expulsion from the State, still
more unwilling should they be to favor any
measure which looked to their being deprived
of the right to freedom, which they have ac-
quired by the indulgence of our laws, and the
tenderness of their masters, whether wise or |
