GHIST 225: US HistoryKevin R. Hardwick

Spring 2012 

Lecture 18Debating Slavery, 1787-1821

I. North West Ordinancea) Thomas Jefferson’s Notes on the

State of Virginiab) Lack of Enforcement

II. The American Colonization SocietyIII.Missouri Compromise

a) James Tallmadgeb) The “Tallmadge Amendments”c) Jesse Thomas’ solution to the

impasse

North West Ordinance, 1787:

There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted: provided always, that any person escaping into the same, from whom labour or service is lawfully claimed in any one of the original states, such fugitive may be lawfully reclaimed, and conveyed to the person claiming his or her labour or service aforesaid.

George Mason, Philadelphia Constitutional Convention, 1787:

Slaves  “produce the most pernicious effect on manners. Every master of slaves is born a petty tyrant. They bring the judgment of heaven on a country. As nations can not be rewarded or punished in the next world they must be in this . . . providence punishes national sins by national calamities.”

Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, 1782

The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other.”

Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, 1782

The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other.”

North West Ordinance, 1787:

The French and Canadian inhabitants, and other settlers of the Kaskaskies, St. Vincents, and the neighboring villages, who have professed themselves citizens of Virginia may retain their laws and customs now in force among them, relative to the descent and conveyance of property.

Henry Clay:

Emancipation without colonization

“would be followed by instantaneous collisions between the two races, which would break out into a civil war that would end in the extermination or subjugation of one race or the other.”

Rev. James Forten and many others, The Voice From Philadelphia:

Wrote to inform “the humane and benevolent inhabitants of the city that we have no wish to separate from our present homes for any purpose whatsoever.”  They were, they said, “contented with our present situation and condition” and wanted only “to use of those opportunities which the Constitution and laws allow to all.”  

Rev. James Forten and many others, The Voice From Philadelphia:

“We, therefore, a portion of those who are the objects of this plan, and among those whose happiness, with that of others of our color, it is intended to promote; with humble and grateful acknowledgements to those who have devised it, renounce and disclaim every connexion with it.”

Thus, Thomas Ritchie, editor of the THE RICHMOND ENQUIRER,

“We do not vindicate servitude; we wish no slave had touched our soil; we wish slavery could be terminated.”  Robert Reid, of Georgia, speech to congress

“I hate the touch of servile hands; I loath the slaves who cringe around; and I would hail the day as most glorious when negroes shall be placed upon the high eminence of equal rights.”

South Carolina Senator William Smith: “No class of laboring people in any country upon the globe are better clothed, better fed, or more cheerful, or labor less.”

Richard Furman, 1823 letter to the Governor of South Carolina: “The holding of slaves is clearly established by the Holy Scriptures, both by precept and example.” “The powerful Romans had succeeded, in empire, the polished Greeks; and under both empires, the countries they possessed and governed were full of slaves.” “While men remain in the chains of ignorance and error, and under the domination of tyrant lusts and passions, they cannot be free.”

Richard Furman, 1823 letter to the Governor of South Carolina: “It is therefore firmly believed that general emancipation to the Negroes in this country, would not, in present circumstances, be for their own happiness.”