A HISTORY OF THE INTRODUCTION OF SLAVERY ITS ESTABLISHMENT FROM COLONIAL TIMES AND FINAL EFFECT UPON THE POLITICS OF THE UNITED STATES By...

MEMBER OF THE VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1861 Copyright 1915 By R. H. EARLY PRESS OF BROWN-MORRISON CO LYNCHBURG, VA....

A review is given, in the pages following, of the causes which led to the political issue of the '60s; an issue which will be open to argument until, in all of its bearings, it becomes understood through familiarity with the conditions of the past. Sentiment divorced from reason occasioned misconception. Many causes contributed to that effect. The lack of authentic records doubtless was one; certainly ill-advised publications inflamed, if they did not inspire, public opinion at this critical per

The African Slave Trade The struggle for independence made by the Southern States of the American Union, grew out of questions of self government arising mainly in regard to the institution of African slavery as it existed in those states, and as that institution was the occasion for the development of the difficulties which led immediately to the struggle, the conduct of the states lately forming the Southern Confederacy has been misunderstood, therefore, misrepresented, with the effect of cast

Origin of Slavery in the United States The first permanent settlement within the limits of the United States—as they became afterwards—to be established, was that of Florida, which was begun by the Spaniards in the year 1564. Slavery was introduced into Florida, as it was into all the Spanish colonies, and that colony remained under the control of Spain until the year 1763, when it was ceded to Great Britain, at the close of the war which resulted in the cession of Canada, and the territory east

Legislation on the Question of State Establishment In order to understand the status of the slave trade and slavery in the United States after their independence was achieved, it is necessary to glance at the progress of the Revolution and the adoption of the new form of government after its close. In 1774, the contest between the mother country and the English Colonies of North America approached a crisis, and the first Continental Congress of delegates from the thirteen colonies assembled at P

Causes Leading to Secession—Secession of the Cotton States Very shortly after the organization of the government under the new Constitution, petitions upon the subject of the slave trade began to be presented to Congress, mostly from the Quakers of Pennsylvania, that "non-resisting" sect "conscientiously opposed to all war." Some of the petitions were very inflammatory in their character, and caused much excited debate in the early Congresses, and one presented by Warren Mifflin, a Quaker of Del

Action of the Border Slave States—Convention of Virginia The "Border Slave States," as they were called, including North Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas, which immediately joined the "Cotton States" on the south, though equally appreciating the outrages upon their rights and the dangers to be apprehended in the future, were not at first disposed to secede, as they had cherished such an habitual attachment to the Union that they were exceedingly loth to give it up, being governed by that sentime

The Right to Withdraw The causes which led to the secession of the Southern States have never been given, and when they are compared with those which led to the American Revolution as given by the First Continental Congress, the latter sink into comparative insignificance. A large portion of the wrongs complained of in the Declaration of Independence were acts committed after the commencement of the collisions between the British troops and the Colonists, and if these were compared with those co

Injurious Effect of Misinformation In connection with this claim of the slave power were the most shocking misrepresentations of the condition of the slaves themselves and of the social relations of the Southern people, in order to array the prejudices of the world against their cause. This course of misrepresentation had long been pursued before the war, and was not confined to American writers, but many works appeared from the British press containing libels upon the society of the Southern st