Plantation Slaves in the South

The Nation Continues to Grapple with the Slavery Issue

In 1804 a provision was inserted into the act organizing the Territory of Orleans, that no slaves should be carried thither, except from some part of the United States, by citizens removing into the Territory as actual settlers, this permission not to extend to negroes introduced into the United States since 1798. The object of this provision was to guard against the effects of an act recently adopted by the legislature of South Carolina for reviving the slave-trade after a cessation of it, as to that State, for fifteen years, and of six years as to the whole Union. This was a consequence of the vast increase and profitableness of cotton culture, made so by Whitney's cotton-gin.

On Feb. 15, 1804, the legislature of New Jersey, by an almost unanimous vote, passed an act to abolish slavery in that State by securing freedom to all persons born there after July 4 next ensuing, the children of slave parents to become free, masculine at twenty-five years of age, feminine at twenty-one.

On April 7, 1862, a treaty was concluded between the United States and Great Britain for the suppression of the African slave-trade, and signed at the city of Washington, D. C. By it ships of the respective nations should have the right of search of suspected slave-ships; but that right was restricted to vessels of war authorized expressly for that object, and in no case to be exercised with respect to a vessel of the navy of either of the powers, but only as regards merchant vessels. Nothing was done under this treaty, as the emancipation proclamation and other circumstances made action unnecessary.

In his annual message to the Confederate Congress (Nov. 7, 1864), President Davis drew a gloomy picture of the condition of the Confederate finances and the military strength. He showed that the Confederate debt was $1,200,000,000, without a real basis of credit, and a paper currency depreciated several hundred per cent. It had been recommended, as the enlistments and conscriptions of the white people failed to make up losses in the Confederate army, to arm the slaves; but this was considered too dangerous, for they would be more likely to fight for the Nationals than for the Confederates. Davis was averse to a general arming of the negroes, but he recommended the employment of 40,000 of them as pioneer and engineer laborers in the army, and not as soldiers, excepting in the last extremity. " Should the alternative ever be presented," he said, " of a subjugation, or the employment of the slave as a soldier, there seems to be no reason to doubt what should then be the decision "; and he suggested the propriety of holding out to the negro, as an inducement for him to give faithful service, even as a laborer in the army, a promise of his emancipation at the end of the war. These propositions and suggestions disturbed the slave-holders, for they indicated an acknowledgment on the part of " the government " that the cause was reduced to the alternative of liberating the slaves and relying upon them to secure the independence of the Confederacy, or of absolute subjugation. There was wide-spread discontent; and when news of the reelection of President Lincoln, by an unprecedented majority, reached the people, they yearned for peace rather than for independence.