A Social History of the American Negro - Being a History of the Negro Problem in the United States. Including - A History and Study of the Republic of Liberia by Benjamin Brawley
page 71 of 545 (13%)
page 71 of 545 (13%)
|
stand firm and justify the faith of 1776 before Jefferson himself and
others had become submerged in a gilded opportunism. [Footnote 1: "The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, issued under the auspices of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association," 20 vols., Washington, 1903, II, 226-227.] [Footnote 2: "A South Carolina Protest against Slavery (being a letter written from Henry Laurens, second president of the Continental Congress, to his son, Colonel John Laurens; dated Charleston, S.C., August 14th, 1776)." Reprinted by G.P. Putnam, New York, 1861.] It is not to be supposed that such sentiments were by any means general; nevertheless these instances alone show that some men at least in the colonies were willing to carry their principles to their logical conclusion. Naturally opinion crystallized in formal resolutions or enactments. Unfortunately most of these were in one way or another rendered ineffectual after the war; nevertheless the main impulse that they represented continued to live. In 1769 Virginia declared that the discriminatory tax levied on free Negroes and mulattoes since 1668 was "derogatory to the rights of freeborn subjects" and accordingly should be repealed. In October, 1774, the First Continental Congress declared in its Articles of Association that the united colonies would "neither import nor purchase any slave imported after the first day of December next" and that they would "wholly discontinue the trade." On April 16, 1776, the Congress further resolved that "no slaves be imported into any of the thirteen colonies"; and the first draft of the Declaration of Independence contained a strong passage censuring the King of England for bringing slaves into the country and then inciting them to rise against their masters. On April 14, 1775, the first abolition society in |
|