THE EARLY MOVEMENTS ON THE SUBJECT OF SLAVERY; THE CIRCUMSTANCES UNDER WHICH THE COLONIZATION SOCIETY TOOK ITS RISE; THE RELATIONS IT SUSTAINED TO SLAVERY AND TO THE SCHEMES PROJECTED FOR ITS ABOLITION; THE ORIGIN OF THE ELEMENTS WHICH HAVE GIVEN TO AMERICAN SLAVERY ITS COMMERCIAL VALUE AND CONSEQUENT POWERS OF EXPANSION; AND THE FUTILITY OF THE MEANS USED TO PREVENT THE EXTENSION OF THE INSTITUTION.

Four years after the Declaration of American Independence, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts had emancipated their slaves; and, eight years thereafter, Connecticut and Rhode Island followed their example.

Three years after the last named event, an abolition society was organized by the citizens of the State of New York, with John Jay at its head. Two years subsequently, the Pennsylvanians did the same thing, electing Benjamin Franklin to the presidency of their association. The same year, too, slavery was forever excluded, by act of Congress, from the Northwest Territory. This year is also memorable as having witnessed the erection of the first cotton mill in the United States, at Beverley, Massachusetts.

During the year that the New York Abolition Society was formed, Watts, of England, had so far perfected the steam engine as to use it in propelling machinery for spinning cotton; and the year the Pennsylvania Society was organized witnessed the invention of the power loom. The carding machine and the spinning jenny having been invented twenty years before, the power loom completed the machinery necessary to the indefinite extension of the manufacture of cotton.

The work of emancipation, begun by the four States named, continued to progress, so that in seventeen years from the adoption of the constitution, New Hampshire, Vermont, New York, and New Jersey, had also enacted laws to free themselves from the burden of slavery.

As the work of manumission proceeded, the elements of slavery expansion were multiplied. When the four States first named liberated their slaves, no regular exports of cotton to Europe had yet commenced; and the year New Hampshire set hers free, only 138,328 lbs. of that article were shipped from the country. Simultaneously with the action of Vermont, in the year following, the cotton gin was invented, and an unparalleled impulse given to the cultivation of cotton. At the same time, Louisiana, with her immense territory, was added to the Union, and room for the extension of slavery vastly increased. New York lagged behind Vermont for six years, before taking her first step to free her slaves, when she found the exports of cotton to England had reached 9,500,000 lbs.; and New Jersey, still more tardy, fell five years behind New York; at which time the exports of that staple—so rapidly had its cultivation progressed—were augmented to 38,900,000 lbs.

Four years after the emancipations by States had ceased, the slave trade was prohibited; but, as if each movement for freedom must have its counter-movement to stimulate slavery, that same year the manufacture of cotton goods was commenced in Boston. Two years after that event, the exports of cotton amounted to 93,900,000 lbs. War with Great Britain, soon afterward, checked both our exports and her manufacture of the article; but the year 1817, memorable in this connection, from its being the date of the organization of the Colonization Society, found our exports augmented to 95,660,000 lbs., and her consumption enlarged to 126,240,000 lbs. Carding and spinning machinery had now reached a good degree of perfection, and the power loom was brought into general use in England, and was also introduced into the United States. Steamboats, too, were coming into use, in both countries; and great activity prevailed in commerce, manufactures, and the cultivation of cotton.

But how fared it with the free colored people during all this time? To obtain a true answer to this question we must revert to the days of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society.

With freedom to the slave, came anxieties among the whites as to the results. Nine years after Pennsylvania and Massachusetts had taken the lead in the trial of emancipation, Franklin issued an appeal for aid to enable his society to form a plan for the promotion of industry, intelligence, and morality among the free blacks; and he zealously urged the measure on public attention, as essential to their well-being, and indispensable to the safety of society. He expressed his belief, that such is the debasing influence of slavery on human nature, that its very extirpation, if not performed with care, may sometimes open a source of serious evils; and that so far as emancipation should be promoted by the society, it was a duty incumbent on its members to instruct, to advise, to qualify those restored to freedom, for the exercise and enjoyment of civil liberty.

How far Franklin's influence failed to promote the humane object he had in view, may be inferred from the fact, that forty-seven years after Pennsylvania passed her act of emancipation, and thirty-eight after he issued his appeal, one-third of the convicts in her penitentiary were colored men; though the preceding census showed that her slave population had almost wholly disappeared—there being but two hundred and eleven of them remaining, while her free colored people had increased in number to more than thirty thousand. Few of the other free States were more fortunate, and some of them were even in a worse condition—one-half of the convicts in the penitentiary of New Jersey being colored men.

But this is not the whole of the sad tale that must be recorded. Gloomy as was the picture of crime among the colored people of New Jersey, that of Massachusetts was vastly worse. For though the number of her colored convicts, as compared with the whites, was as one to six, yet the proportion of her colored population in the penitentiary was one out of one hundred and forty, while the proportion in New Jersey was but one out of eight hundred and thirty-three. Thus, in Massachusetts, where emancipation had, in 1780, been immediate and unconditional, there was, in 1826, among her colored people, about six times as much crime as existed among those of New Jersey, where gradual emancipation had not been provided for until 1804.

The moral condition of the colored people in the free States, generally, at the period we are considering, may be understood more clearly from the opinions expressed, at the time, by the Boston Prison Discipline Society. This benevolent association included among its members, Rev. Francis Wayland, Rev. Justin Edwards, Rev. Leonard Woods, Rev. William Jenks, Rev. B. B. Wisner, Rev. Edward Beecher, Lewis Tappan, Esq., John Tappan, Esq., Hon. George Bliss, and Hon. Samuel M. Hopkins.

In the First Annual Report of the Society, dated June 2, 1826, they enter into an investigation "of the progress of crime, with the causes of it," from which we make the following extracts:

"Degraded character of the colored population.—The first cause, existing in society, of the frequency and increase of crime is the degraded character of the colored population. The facts, which are gathered from the penitentiaries, to show how great a proportion of the convicts are colored, even in those States where the colored population is small, show, most strikingly, the connection between ignorance and vice."

The report proceeds to sustain its assertions by statistics, which prove, that, in Massachusetts, where the free colored people constituted one seventy-fourth part of the population, they supplied one-sixth part of the convicts in her penitentiary; that in New York, where the free colored people constituted one thirty-fifth part of the population, they supplied more than one-fourth part of the convicts; that, in Connecticut and Pennsylvania, where the colored people constituted one thirty-fourth part of the population, they supplied more than one-third part of the convicts; and that, in New Jersey, where the colored people constituted one-thirteenth part of the population, they supplied more than one-third part of the convicts.

"It is not necessary," continues the report, "to pursue these illustrations. It is sufficiently apparent, that one great cause of the frequency and increase of crime, is neglecting to raise the character of the colored population.

"We derive an argument in favor of education from these facts. It appears from the above statement, that about one-fourth part of all the expense incurred by the States above mentioned, for the support of their criminal institutions, is for the colored convicts. * * Could these States have anticipated these surprising results, and appropriated the money to raise the character of the colored population, how much better would have been their prospects, and how much less the expense of the States through which they are dispersed for the support of their colored convicts! * * If, however, their character can not be raised, where they are, a powerful argument may be derived from these facts, in favor of colonization, and civilized States ought surely to be as willing to expend money on any given part of its population, to prevent crime, as to punish it.

"We can not but indulge the hope that the facts disclosed above, if they do not lead to an effort to raise the character of the colored population, will strengthen the hands and encourage the hearts of all the friends of colonizing the free people of color in the United States."

The Second Annual Report of the Society, dated June 1, 1827, gives the results of its continued investigations into the condition of the free colored people, in the following language and figures:

"Character of the colored population.—In the last report, this subject was exhibited at considerable length. From a deep conviction of its importance, and an earnest desire to keep it ever before the public mind, till the remedy is applied, we present the following table, showing, in regard to several States, the whole population, the colored population, the whole number of convicts, the number of colored convicts, proportion of convicts to the whole population, proportion of colored convicts:

"Or,

"Such is the abstract of the information presented last year, concerning the degraded character of the colored population. The returns from several prisons show, that the white convicts are remaining nearly the same, or are diminishing, while the colored convicts are increasing. At the same time, the white population is increasing, in the Northern States, much faster than the colored population."

Such is the testimony of men of unimpeachable veracity and undoubted philanthrophy, as to the early results of emancipation in the United States. Had the freedmen, in the Northern States, improved their privileges; had they established a reputation for industry, integrity, and virtue, far other consequences would have followed their emancipation. Their advancement in moral character would have put to shame the advocate for the perpetuation of slavery. Indeed, there could have been no plausible argument found for its continuance. No regular exports of cotton, no cultivation of cane sugar, to give a profitable character to slave labor, had any existence when Jay and Franklin commenced their labors, and when Congress took its first step for the suppression of the slave trade.

Unfortunately, the free colored people persevered in their evil habits. This not only served to fix their own social and political condition on the level of the slave, but it reacted with fearful effect upon their brethren remaining in bondage. Their refusing to listen to the counsel of the philanthropists, who urged them to forsake their indolence and vice, and their frequent violations of the laws, more than all things else, put a check to the tendencies, in public sentiment, toward general emancipation. The failure of Franklin to obtain the means of establishing institutions for the education of the blacks, confirmed the popular belief that such an undertaking was impracticable, and the whole African race, freedmen as well as slaves, were viewed as an intolerable burden, such as the imports of foreign paupers are now considered. Thus the free colored people themselves, ruthlessly threw the car of emancipation from the track, and tore up the rails upon which, alone, it could move.