SLAVERY (ante). In 1776 there had been about 300,000 Africans imported into the _ British colonies in America, from the time of their first settlement. The number exist ing in the United States, according to the first census, 1790, was 697,897; every state in the union contributing except Massachusetts, which at this time included Maine. Ton years later the number had increased to 893,041; and in 1810 to 1,191,364. The suc ceeding decennial census showed the following figures as the existing number of slaves in the states at the dates mentioned: 1820....... • 1,53S,022 1830 .... 2.009,043 1840 - 2.487,455 1850 ' 3,204,313 1860 3,953,760 At the periol of the organization of the national government the feeling of distaste for the institution of domestic slavery was strong in the southern states themselves, and prevalent throughout the union, though certain ship-owners- of Boston and other parts of New England found it to their interest to foster a state of things which was to them greatly remunerative. They supplied the slave.ships which transported the Africans from the points of departure on the w. coast of Africa. and grew rich ,on the traffic. But Vermont abolished slavery in 1777; Massachusetts in 1780; and Rhode Island and Connecticut gradually, both these states having a few slaves as late as 1840. New York finally abolished the institution in 1827; having gradually emancipated its slaves since 1799. New Jersey followed the same plan in 1804, nod had 236 slaves still living in 1850. Pennsylvania commenced gradual emancipation in 1780, and in 1840 contained 64 slaves. The southern states had from the beginning found slaves more profitable to i them than they could have ever possibly been in the north: and this fact alone lied been sufficient to occasion the gradual centralization of the institution within the bound aries of those states. But the invention of the cotton-gin in 1793, by Eli• Whitney, a Massachusetts man, increased the demand for labor, and specially increased the avail able uses of slave labor. In 1791 the entire cotton crop of the United States amounted to 2,000,000 pounds. In 1801 the crop was 48,000,000, of which nearly one-half was exported. In 1821 the crop was 180,000,000 pounds; in 1825, 255,000,000; and it con tinued to increase until, in 1860, it was 2,054,698,800 pounds. In the face of this tre mendous accretion of a product representing a vast increase in the wealth of the country and of individuals, the feeble efforts of persons to oppose the continuance of what was esteemed the chief producing force, were of course futile. Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Hamilton, and others of the leaders of public opinion in the early history' of the country, were opposed to slavery on moral and religious grounds; and not less as a system calculated to become a retarding influence as to the progress of civilization and the general advancement of the people. And had not the invention of the cotton gin operated to encourage the perpetuation of the system, the opinions of such men would have doubtless exercised their due weight in creating a profound and general public sentiment in antagonism to its existence. As it was, the question grew to be considered from this standpoint by humanitarians alone; while, having gradually become absorbed into the general party politics of the country, and connected with' important points arising in relation to the accession of new territory, and its political status, its bearing eventually became national, and iu a sense vital. The opponents of slavery began as
early as 1775, with the formation of the. Pennsylvania abolition society, their consist ent resistance to the continuance and spread of slavery. By them, and from the period of the establishment of the Liberator in Boston, in 1831, under the leadership of William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips, Arthur Tappan, and other prominent men, a crusade against slavery was undertaken, which never ceased until victory had been achieved, and the last slave was freed. The formation of a political (free-soil) party in 1848 organized the various elements throughout the country which were in agreement on the main question; and candidates for the presidency on the broad platform of freedom for the slave assumed a position in national politics. Compromises began to be the only method for settling, even temporarily, quustions whose complete recognition and con clusion seemed dangerous; and impracticable in the existing and growing state of excited public feeling. The effort to extend slavery into the newly acquired territories was the rock on which the pro-slavery leaders eventually split; and the outbreak in Kansas, and the Fremont presidential campaign foreshadowed the serious character of the coming struggle. The "underground railroad," as it was called, the secret and persistent method of northern abolitionists to settle the question practically by absorbing the slaves into non-slaveholding communities, roused a bitterness of feeling in the south, which not even supreme court decisions and congressional enactments in favor of the shtveholders could allay. Missouri border ruffianism and "squatter sovereignty" were answered by Sharp's rides, and at length the raid of John Brown at Harper's Ferry pre sented the "impending crisis," which the election Lincoln made positive and present. The old antagonism between Puritan and cavalier; between manufacturing and agri cultural interest; between a northern and a southern people, was now laid upon the shoulders of the institution of slavery. And the revolution which had become essential to clear the moral and political atmosphere of the country of all these varieties of antago nism, presented itself in the form of the rebellion of 1861-65; and concluded, so far as the existence of slavery was concerned, with the edict of president Lincoln of Jau. 1, 1863 : See EMANCIPATION, PROCLAMATION OF. This proclamation had been suggested, and the minds of the people prepared for it, by the act of congress of March 13, 1862, which forbade the employment of military face to return fugitives, to slavery; and that of July 16, 1862, authorizing the confiscation of the property of rebels, including slaves under this designation. The proclamation had but little immediate practical effect except within the lines of the federal army; but it gave system and regularity to the treatment of the whole question; which had previously, in the hands of federal commanders, been sufficiently undefined and chaotic. See also ABOLITION, KANSAS, MIS SOURI COMPROMISE,