Haiti

An appeal was made by Wilberforce in 1821 to Thomas Fowell Buxton to undertake the conduct of this new question in parlia ment. An anti-slavery society was established in 1823, the prin cipal members of which, besides Wilberforce and Buxton, were Zachary Macaulay, Dr. Lushington and Lord Suffield. Buxton moved on May 5, 1823, that the House should take into considera tion the state of slavery in the British colonies. The object he and his associates had then in view was gradual abolition by establishing something like a system of serfdom for existing slaves, and passing at the same time a measure emancipating all their children born after a certain day. Canning carried against Buxton and his friends a motion to the effect that the desired ameliorations in the condition and treatment of the slaves should be recommended by the home Government to the colonial legis latures, and enforced only in case of their resistance, direct ac tion being taken in the single instance of Trinidad, which, being a Crown colony, had no legislature of its own. A well-conceived series of measures of reform was accordingly proposed to the colonial authorities. Thereupon a general outcry was raised by the planters at the acquiescence of the Government in the prin ciples of the anti-slavery party. A vain attempt being made in Demerara to conceal from the knowledge of the slaves the ar rival of the order in council, they became impressed with the idea that they had been set free, and accordingly refused to work, and, compulsion being resorted to, offered resistance. Martial law was proclaimed ; the disturbances were repressed with great severity; and the treatment of the missionary Smith, which was taken up and handled with great ability by Brougham, awakened strong feeling in England against the planters. The question, how ever, made little progress in parliament for some years, though Buxton, William Smith, Lushington, Brougham, Mackintosh, But terworth and Denman, with the aid of Z. Macaulay, James Stephen, and others, continued the struggle, only suspending it during a period allowed to the local legislatures for carrying into effect the measures expected from them. In 1828 the free people of colour in the colonies were placed on a footing of legal equality with their fellow-citizens. In 1830 the public began to be aroused to a serious prosecution of the main issue. It was becoming plain that the planters would take no steps tending to the future libera tion of the slaves, and the leaders of the movement determined to urge the entire abolition of slavery at the earliest practicable period. The Government continued to hesitate and to press for mitigations of the existing system. At length in 1833 the Ministry of Earl Grey took the question in hand and carried the abolition with little difficulty, the measure passing the House of Commons on Aug. 7, 1833, and receiving the royal assent on the 28th. A sum of 20 millions sterling was voted as compensation to the planters. A system of apprenticeship for seven years was estab lished as a transitional preparation for liberty. The slaves were bound to work for their masters during this period for three fourths of the day, and were to be liable to corporal punishment if they did not give the due amount of labour. The master was, in return, to supply them with food and clothing. All children under six years of age were to be at once free, and provision was to be made for their religious and moral instruction. Many thought the postponement of emancipation unwise. Immediate liberation was carried out in Antigua, and public tranquillity was so far from being disturbed there that the Christmas of 1833 was the first for 20 years during which martial law was not pro claimed in order to preserve the peace. Notwithstanding pro tracted and strenuous opposition on the part of the Government, the House of Commons passed a resolution against the continu ance of the transitional system. When this was done the local legislatures saw that the slaves would no longer work for the masters; they accordingly cut off two years of the indentured apprenticeship, and gave freedom to the slaves in Aug. 1838 instead of 1840.

The example of Great Britain was gradually followed by the other European States, and some American ones had already taken action of the same kind. The immediate emancipation of the slaves in the French colonies was decreed by the Provisional Government of 1848. In 1858 it was enacted that every slave belonging to a Portuguese subject should be free in 20 years from that date, a system of tutelage being established in the meantime. This law came into operation on April 29, 1878, and the status of slavery was thenceforth illegal throughout the Portuguese possessions. The Dutch emancipated their slaves in 1863. Several of the Spanish American States, on declaring their independence, had adopted measures for the discontinuance of slavery within their limits. It was abolished by a decree of the Mexican re public on Sept. 15, 1829. The Government of Buenos Aires en acted that all children born to slaves after Jan. 31, 1813, should be free ; and in Colombia it was provided that those born after July 16, 1821, should be liberated on attaining their eighteenth year.

Three of the most important slave systems still remained in which no steps towards emancipation had been taken—those of the Southern United States, of Cuba and of Brazil.

Slavery in the United States.

Slavery was far from being approved in principle by the most eminent of the fathers of the American Union. Washington in his will provided for the emanci pation of his own slaves; he said to Jefferson that it was "among his first wishes to see some plan adopted by which slavery in his country might be abolished by law," and again he wrote that to this subject his own suffrage should never be wanting. John Adams declared his abhorrence of the practice of slave-holding, and said that "every measure of prudence ought to be assumed for the eventual total extirpation of slavery from the United States." Franklin's opinions we have already indicated; and Madison, Hamilton and Patrick Henry all reprobated the prin ciple of the system. Jefferson declared in regard to slavery, "I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just." The last-named statesman, at the first Continental Congress after the evacuation by the British forces, proposed a draft ordinance (March I, 1784) for the government of the North-west Ter ritory, in which it was provided that "after the year 1800 there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in any of the said states, otherwise than in punishment of crime." This proviso, however, was lost ; but in the ordinance of 1787 (July 13) for the government of the territory of the United States north-west of the Ohio river, which was introduced by Nathan Dane and probably drafted by Manasseh Cutler, slavery was forbidden in the territory. At the Convention of Philadelphia in 1787, where the constitution was drafted, the sentiments of the framers were against slavery; but South Carolina and Georgia insisted on its recognition as a condition of their joining the Union, and even an engagement for the mutual rendition of fugitive slaves was embodied in the Federal pact. The words "slave" and "slavery" were, however, excluded from the constitution, "because," as Madison says, "they did not choose to admit the right of property in man" in direct terms; and it was at the same time provided that Congress might interdict the foreign slave trade after the expiration of 20 years. It must not be forgotten that either before or soon after the formation of the Union the Northern States—beginning with Vermont in 1777, and ending with New Jersey in 1804—either abolished slavery or adopted measures to effect its gradual abolition within their boundaries. But the principal operation of (at least) the latter change was simply to transfer Northern slaves to Southern markets.

We cannot follow in detail the several steps by which the slave power for a long time persistently increased its influence in the Union. The acquisition of Louisiana in 1803, which gave a new field for the growth of the slave power, though not made in its interest, the Missouri Compromise (1820), the annexation of Texas (1845), the Fugitive Slave Law (1850), the Kansas Nebraska bill (1854), the Dred Scott decision (1857), the at tempts to acquire Cuba (especially in 1854) and to reopen the foreign slave trade (1859-6o), were the principal steps—only some of them successful—in its career of aggression. They roused a determined spirit of opposition, founded on deep-seated con victions. The pioneer of the more recent abolitionist movement was Benjamin Lundy (1789-1839). He was followed by William Lloyd Garrison (1805-79), Elijah P. Lovejoy (1802-37)—a martyr, if ever there was one—Wendell Phillips, Charles Sum ner, John Brown (b. 180o, hanged 1859), all of whom were in their several ways leading apostles or promoters of the cause. The best intellect of America outside the region of practical politics has been on the anti-slavery side. William E. Channing, R. W. Emerson, the poets Bryant, Longfellow, pre-eminently Whittier and Whitman, have spoken on this theme with no un certain sound. The South, and its partisans in the North, made desperate efforts to prevent the free expression of opinion re specting the institution, and even the Christian Churches in the slave States used their influence in favour of the maintenance of slavery. But in spite of every such effort, opinion steadily grew. Public sentiment in the North was deeply stirred by the Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) of Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, which, as Senior said, under the disguise of a novel was really a pamphlet against the Fugitive Slave Law. It gradually became apparent that the question could not be settled without an armed conflict. The election of Abraham Lincoln as president in Nov. 1860 was the signal for the rising of the South. The North at first took arms simply to maintain the Union ; but the farsighted politicians from the first, and soon the whole nation, saw that the real issue was the continued existence or the total abolition of slavery. (See UNITED STATES.) The war was practically closed by the surrender at Appomattox (April 9, 1865), but already in 1862 slavery in the territories had been abolished by Congress; on Sept. 22 of the same year Lincoln (q.v.) had issued the preliminary emancipation proclama tion, followed on Jan. 1, 1863, by the emancipation of all slaves in the States in arms against the Union; and in Dec. 1865 a constitutional amendment was ratified abolishing and for ever prohibiting slavery throughout the United States.