Chapter V

The Destruction of Slavery—Abolition.

The events which led to the extinction of slavery in Pennsylvania fall naturally into four periods. They are, first, the years from 1682 to about 1740, during which the Germans discountenanced slave-holding, and the Friends ceased importing negroes; second, the period of the Quaker abolitionists, from about 1710 to 1780, by which time slavery among the Quakers had come to an end; third, from 1780 to 1788, the years of legislative action; and finally, the period from 1788 to the time when slavery in Pennsylvania became extinct through the gradual working of the act for abolition.

Opposition to slaveholding arose among the Friends. Slavery had not yet been recognized in statute law when they began to protest against it. This protest, faint in the beginning and taken up only by a few idealists, was never stopped afterwards, but, growing continually in strength, was, as the events of after years showed, from the first fraught with foreboding of doom to the institution. Opposition on the part of the Friends had begun before Pennsylvania was founded. In 1671 Fox, travelling in the West Indies, advised his brethren in Barbadoes to deal mildly with their negroes, and after certain years of servitude to make them free. Four years later William Edmundson in one of his letters asked how it was possible for men to reconcile Christ’s command, to do as they would be done by, with the practice of holding slaves without hope or expectation of freedom.[200] Nevertheless in the first years after the settlement of Pennsylvania Friends were the principal slaveholders. This led to differences of opinion, but at the start economic considerations prevailed.

The reform really began in 1688, a year memorable for the first formal protest against slavery in North America.[201] Germantown had been settled by German refugees who in religious belief were Friends. These men, simple-minded and honest, having had no previous acquaintance with slavery, were amazed to find it existing in Penn’s colony. At their monthly meeting, the eighteenth of the second month, 1688, Pastorius and other leaders drew up an eloquent and touching memorial. In words of surpassing nobleness and simplicity they stated the reasons why they were against slavery and the traffic in men’s bodies. Would the masters wish so to be dealt with? Was it possible for this to be in accord with Christianity? In Pennsylvania there was freedom of conscience; there ought likewise to be freedom of the body. What report would it cause in Europe that in this new land the Quakers handled men as there men treated their cattle? If it were possible that Christian men might do these things they desired to be so informed.[202]

This protest they sent to the Monthly Meeting at Richard Worrel’s. There it was considered, and found too weighty to be dealt with, and so it was sent on to the Quarterly Meeting at Philadelphia, and from thence to the Yearly Meeting at Burlington, which finally decided not to give a positive judgment in the case.[203] For the present nothing came of it; but the idea did not die. It probably lingered in the minds of many men; for within a few years a sentiment had been aroused which became widespread and powerful.

In 1693 George Keith, leader of a dissenting faction of Quakers, laid down as one of his doctrines that negroes were men, and that slavery was contrary to the religion of Christ; also that masters should set their negroes at liberty after some reasonable time.[204] At a meeting of Friends held in Philadelphia in 1693 the prevailing opinion was that none should buy except to set free. Three years later at the Friends’ Yearly Meeting it was resolved to discourage the further bringing in of slaves.[205] In 1712 when the Yearly Meeting at Philadelphia desiring counsel applied to the Yearly Meeting at London, it received answer that the multiplying of negroes might be of dangerous consequence.[206] In the next and the following years the Meetings strongly advised Friends not to import and not to buy slaves.[207] From 1730 to 1737 reports showed that the importation of negroes by Friends was being largely discontinued. By 1745 it had virtually ceased.[208]

It is generally believed that Pennsylvania’s restrictive legislation, that long series of acts passed for the purpose of keeping out negroes by means of prohibitive duties, was largely due to Quaker influence. This is probably true, but it is not easy to prove. The proceedings of the colonial Assembly have been reported so briefly that they do not give the needed information. When, however, the strong feeling of the Friends is understood in connection with the fact that they controlled the early legislatures, it is not hard to believe that the high duties were imposed because they wished the traffic at an end. Their feeling about the slave-trade and their desire to stop it are revealed again and again in the meeting minutes.[209] The most drastic law was certainly due to them.[210]

But the small number of negroes in Pennsylvania as compared with the neighboring northern colonies was above all due to the early and continuous aversion to slavery manifested by the Germans. The first German settlers opposed the institution for religious reasons.[211] This opposition is perhaps to be ascribed to them as Quakers rather than as men of a particular race. But as successive swarms poured into the country it was found, it may be from religious scruples, more probably because of peculiar economic characteristics and because of feelings of sturdy industry and self-reliance, that they almost never bought negroes nor even hired them.[212] As the German element in Pennsylvania was very considerable, amounting at times to one-third of the population, such a course, though lacking in dramatic quality, and though it has been unheralded by the historians, was nevertheless of immense and decisive importance.[213]

During this period, then, much had been accomplished. Not only had the Germans turned their backs upon slave-holding, but the Friends, brought to perceive the iniquity of the practice, had ceased importing slaves, and for the most part had ceased buying them. It was another generation before the conservative element could be brought to advance beyond this position. It was not so easy to make them give up the slaves they already had.

The succeeding period was characterized by an inevitable struggle which ensued between considerations of economy and ethics. The attitude of many Friends was that in refusing to buy any more slaves they were fulfilling all reasonable obligations. Sometimes there was a desire to hush up the whole matter and get it out of mind. Isaac Norris tells of a meeting that was large and comfortable, where the business would have gone very well but for the warm pushing by some Friends of Chester in the matter of negroes. But he adds that affairs were so managed that the unpleasant subject was dropped.[214] What would have been the result of this disposition cannot now be known; but it proved impossible to smooth matters away. There had already begun an age of reformers, forerunners by a hundred years of Garrison and his associates, men who were content with nothing less than entire abolition.

The first of the abolitionists was William Southeby of Maryland, who went to Pennsylvania. For years the subject of slavery weighed heavily upon his mind. As early as 1696 he urged the Meeting to take action. His petition to the Provincial Assembly in 1712 asking that all slaves be set free was one of the most memorable incidents in the early struggle against slavery. But the Assembly resolved that his project was neither just nor convenient; and his ideas were so far in advance of the times that not only did he a little later lose favor among the Friends, but long after it was the judgment that his ill-regulated zeal had brought only sorrow.[215]

The next in point of time was Ralph Sandiford (1693–1733), a Friend of Philadelphia. His hostility to slavery was aroused by the sufferings of negroes whom he had seen in the West Indies; and his feeling was so strong that on one occasion he refused to accept a gift from a slaveholder. In 1729 he published his Mystery of Iniquity, an impassioned protest against slavery. Although threatened with severe penalties if he circulated this work, he distributed it wherever he felt that it would be of use.[216] Such enmity did he arouse that he was forced to leave the city.[217]

His work was carried forward by Benjamin Lay (1677–1759), an Englishman who came from Barbadoes to Philadelphia in 1731. He too aroused much hostility by his violence of expression and eccentric efforts to create pity for the slaves. He gave his whole life to the cause, but owing to his too radical methods he was much less influential than he might have been.[218]

A man of far greater power was John Woolman (1720–1772), perhaps the greatest liberator that the Friends ever produced. Woolman gave up his position as accountant rather than write bills for the sale of negroes. He was very religious, and most of his life he spent as a minister travelling from one colony to another trying to persuade men of the wickedness of slavery. In 1754 he published the first part of his book, Some Considerations on the Keeping of Negroes, of which the second part appeared in 1762. He was stricken with smallpox while on a visit to England, and died there.[219]

The last was Anthony Benezet (1713–1784), a French Huguenot who joined the Society of Friends. He came to Philadelphia as early as 1731, but it was about 1750 that his attention was drawn to the negroes. From that time to the end of his life he was their zealous advocate. By his writings upon Africa, slavery, and the slave-trade, he attracted the attention and enlisted the support of many. He was untiring in his efforts. Frequently he talked with the negroes and strove to improve them; he endeavored to create a favorable impression of them; he was influential in securing the passage of the abolition act; and at his death he bequeathed the bulk of his property to the cause which he had served so well in his life.[220]

That these Quaker reformers, particularly men like Woolman and Benezet, exerted an enormous influence against slavery in Pennsylvania, there can be no doubt.[221] Their influence is attested by numerous contemporary allusions, but it is proved far better by the change in sentiment which was gradually brought about. Southeby, Sandiford, and Lay were before their time and were treated as fanatics. Woolman and Benezet who came afterward were able to reap the harvest which had been sown.

The movement which had been urged with violent rapidity from without was all the while proceeding slowly and quietly within. For many years the Friends considered slavery, and almost every year the Meetings made reports upon the subject. These reports showed that the number of Quakers who bought slaves was constantly decreasing.[222] In 1743 an annual query was instituted.[223] In 1754 the Yearly Meeting circulated a printed letter strongly condemning slavery.[224] The second decisive step followed when it was made a rule that Friends who persisted in buying slaves should be disowned. The measure was effective and this part of the work was soon accomplished.[225] Finally in 1758 the third step was taken when it was unanimously agreed that Friends should be advised to manumit their slaves, and that those who persisted in holding them should not be allowed to participate in the affairs of the Society.[226] John Woolman and others were appointed on committees to visit slaveholders and persuade them.[227]

The work of these visiting committees is as remarkable as any in the history of slavery. Self-sacrificing people who had freed their own slaves now abandoned their interests and set out to persuade others to give negroes the freedom thought to be due them. In southeastern Pennsylvania are old diaries almost untouched for a century and a half which bear witness of characters odd and heroic; which contain the story of men and women sincere, brave, and unfaltering, who united quiet mysticism with the zeal of a crusader. The committees undertook to persuade a whole population to give up its slaves. There is no doubt that the task was a difficult one. Again and again the writers speak of obstacles overcome. They tell of owners who would not be convinced, who acknowledged that slavery was wrong, and promised that they would buy no more slaves, but who affirmed that they would keep such as they had. The diaries speak of repeated visits, of the arguments employed, of slow and gradual yielding, and of final triumph. If ever Christian work was carried on in the spirit of Christ, it was when John Woolman, Isaac Jackson, James Moon, and their fellow missionaries put an end to slavery among the Quakers of Pennsylvania.[228]

The penalties denounced by the Meeting were imposed with firmness. In 1761 the Chester Quarterly Meeting dealt with a member for having bought and sold a slave.[229] Through this and the following years there are many records in the Monthly Meetings of manumissions, voluntary and persuaded; record being made in each case to ensure the negro his freedom.[230] In 1774 the Philadelphia Meeting resolved that Friends who held slaves beyond the age at which white apprentices were discharged, should be treated as disorderly persons.[231] The work of abolition was practically completed in 1776 when the resolution passed that members who persisted in holding slaves were to be disowned.[232] If this is understood in connection with the fact that in the Meetings questions were rarely decided except by almost unanimous vote, it is clear that so far as the Friends were concerned slavery was nearly extinct. This was almost absolutely accomplished by 1780.[233]

The wholesale private abolition of slavery by the Friends of Pennsylvania is one of those occurrences over which the historian may well linger. It was not delayed until slavery had become unprofitable,[234] nor was it forced through any violent hostility. It was a result attained merely by calm, steady persuasion, and a disposition to obey the dictates of conscience unflinchingly. As such it is among the grandest examples of the triumph of principle and ideal righteousness over self-interest.[235] It may well be doubted whether any body of men and women other than the Friends were capable of such conduct at this time.[236]

So far the checking of slavery in Pennsylvania had been the result of two great factors; that the Germans would not hold slaves, and that the Friends gradually gave them up. Another factor now made it possible to bring about the end of the institution altogether. There began the period of the long contest of the Revolution, when Pennsylvania was stirred to its depths by the struggle for independence.

Almost at the beginning of the war, in 1776, the Assembly received from citizens of Philadelphia two petitions that manumission be rendered easier. These petitions accomplished nothing,[237] but the feeling which had been gathering strength for so many years went forward unchecked, and by 1778 there existed a powerful sentiment in favor of legislative abolition. Therefore in February, 1779, the draft of a bill was prepared and recommended by the Council; but for a while no progress was made, since the Assembly, though it approved the principle, believed that such a measure should originate in itself.[238] Toward the end of the year the matter was taken up in earnest, and a bill was soon drafted. Public sentiment was thoroughly aroused now. Petitions for and against the bill came to the Assembly, and letters were published in the newspapers. The friends of the measure were untiring in their efforts. Anthony Benezet is said to have visited every member of the Assembly. On March 1, 1780, the bill was enacted into a law, thirty-four yeas and twenty-one nays.[239]

The “Act for the gradual Abolition of Slavery” provided that thereafter no child born in Pennsylvania should be a slave; but that such children, if negroes or mulattoes born of a slave mother, should be servants until they were twenty-eight years of age; that all present slaves should be registered by their masters before November 1, 1780; and that such as were not then registered should be free.[240] It abolished the old discriminations, for it provided that negroes whether slave or free should be tried and punished in the same manner as white people, except that a slave was not to be admitted to witness against a freeman.[241] The earlier special legislation was repealed.[242]

The act of 1780, which was principally the work of George Bryan,[243] was the final, decisive step in the destruction of slavery in Pennsylvania. The buying and selling of human beings as chattels had become repugnant to the best thought of the state, and it had partly passed away. The practice still survived, however, in many quarters, and strengthened as it was by considerations of economy and convenience, it would probably have gone on for many years. Against this the abolition law struck a mortal blow. From the day of March 1, 1780, the little remnant of slavery slowly withered and passed away. In the course of a generation, except for some scattered cases, it had vanished altogether.

Pennsylvania was the first state to pass an abolition law.[244] In after years this became a matter of great pride. Her legislators and statesmen frequently boasted of it. Not only was the priority a glory in itself, but the manner in which Pennsylvania conceived the law, and the success with which she carried it out, furnished the states that lay near her a splendid example and a strong incentive which not a few of them followed shortly thereafter.[245]

Yet this law was open to some objections, and for different reasons received much criticism. First, it was loosely and obscurely drawn in some of its sections, and these gave rise to litigation.[246] In the second place, it was largely ineffectual to prevent certain abuses which had been foreseen when it was discussed, and which assumed alarming proportions in a few years. Some Pennsylvanians openly kept up the slave-trade outside of Pennsylvania, and masters within the state sold their slaves into neighboring states, whither they sent also their young negroes, who there remained slaves instead of acquiring freedom at twenty-eight.[247] They even sent away for short periods their female slaves when pregnant, so that the children might not be born on the free soil of Pennsylvania. Besides this the kidnapping of free negroes went on unchecked.[248]

These practices did not escape unprotested. The Friends were indefatigable in their efforts to stop them, and the government was not disposed to allow the work of 1780 to be undone.[249] So in 1788 was passed an act to explain and enforce the previous one. It provided that the births of the children of slaves were to be registered; that husband and wife were not to be separated more than ten miles without their consent; that pregnant females should not be sent out of the state pending their delivery; and it forbade the slave-trade under penalty of one thousand pounds. Heavy punishments were provided for such chicanery as had previously been employed.[250]

This legislation was enforced by the courts in constructions which favored freedom wherever possible. Exact justice was dealt out, but if the master had neglected in the smallest degree to comply with the precise conditions specified in the laws, whether through carelessness, mistake, or unavoidable circumstance, the authorities generally showed themselves glad to declare the slave free.[251] The Friends and abolitionists were particularly active in hunting up pretexts and instituting law-suits for the purpose of setting at liberty the negroes of people who believed they were obeying the laws, but who had neglected to comply with some technical point.[252]

While these devotees of freedom were harassing the enemy they were engaged in operations much more drastic. The laws for abolition, respecting as they did the sacredness of right in property, had not abrogated existing titles to slaves.[253] This the abolitionists denounced as theft, and resolved to get justice by cutting out slavery root and branch.[254]

First they attacked it in the courts. The declaration of rights in the constitution of 1790 declared that all men were born equally free and independent, and had an inherent right to enjoy and defend life and liberty.[255] In 1792 a committee of the House refused the petition of some slaveholders on the ground that slavery was not only unlawful in itself, but also repugnant to the constitution.[256] This point was seized upon by the abolitionists, who resolved to test it before the law. Accordingly they arranged the famous case of Negro Flora v. Joseph Graisberry, and brought it up to the Supreme Court of the state in 1795. It was not settled there, but went up to what was at that time the ultimate judicial authority in Pennsylvania, the High Court of Errors and Appeals. Some seven years after the question had first been brought to law this august tribunal decided after lengthy and able argument that negro slavery did legally exist before the adoption of the constitution of 1790, and that it had not been abolished thereby.[257]

Failing to destroy slavery in the courts the abolitionists strove to demolish it by legal enactment. For this purpose they began a campaign that lasted for two generations. In 1793 the Friends petitioned the Senate for the complete abolition of slavery, and in 1799 they sent a memorial showing their deep concern at the keeping of slaves. In the following year citizens of Philadelphia prayed for abolition, and a few days later the free blacks of the city petitioned that their brethren in bondage be set free, suggesting that a tax be laid upon themselves to help compensate the masters dispossessed. The demand for freedom was supported in other quarters of the state, and undoubtedly a strong feeling was aroused. The Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery began the practice, which it kept up for so many years, of regularly memorializing the legislature. Later on some of the leading men of the state took up the cause, and once the governor in his message referred to the galling yoke of slavery and its stain upon the commonwealth.[258]

It is probable, however, that the majority of the people in the state believed that enough had been done, and desired to see the little remaining slavery quietly extinguished by the operation of such laws as were effecting the extinction. Be this as it may, it is certain that although many bills were proposed to effect total and immediate abolition, some of which had good prospects of success, yet each one was gradually pared of its most radical provisions, and in the end was always found to lack the support requisite to make it a law.

In 1797 the House had a resolution offered and a bill prepared for abolition. This measure dragged along through the next two sessions, but in 1800 so much encouragement came from the city and counties that the work was carried on in earnest. The course of this bill illustrates the progress of others. At first the proposed enfranchisement was to be immediate and for all; then it was modified to affect only negroes over twenty-eight. In this form it passed the House by a handsome majority, but in the Senate it was postponed to the next session. When finally its time came the committee having it in charge reported that as slavery was not in accordance with the constitution of 1790, a law to do away with slavery was not needed. The measure was still mentioned as unfinished business about the time that the High Court decided that slavery was in accordance with the constitution after all.[259]

The abolitionists did not lose heart. They tried again in 1803, and again the following year. In 1811 a little was done in the House, and in 1821 the matter was discussed in the Senate. In this latter year a bill was prepared and debated, but nothing passed except the motion to postpone indefinitely. Indeed the movement had now spent its force, and was thereafter confined to futile petitions that showed more earnestness of purpose than expectation of success.[260]

This is easily explicable when it is understood how rapidly slavery had declined. The number of slaves in Pennsylvania had never been large. By the first Federal census they were put at less than four thousand; but within a decade they had diminished by more than half, and ten years later there were only a few hundred scattered throughout the state.[261] The majority of these slaves during the later years were living in the western counties that bordered on Maryland and Virginia, where slavery had begun latest and lingered longest.[262] In Philadelphia and the older counties it had almost entirely disappeared. So rapid was the decline that as early as 1805 the Pennsylvania Abolition Society reported that in the future it would devote itself less to seeking the liberation of negroes than to striving to improve those already free. This could only mean that they were finding very few to liberate.[263]

That the decreasing agitation for the entire abolition of slavery in Pennsylvania was due to the decline of slavery and not to any decrease in hostility to it, is shown by the character of other legislation demanded, and the readiness with which stringent laws were passed. The act of 1780 permitted the resident of another state to bring his slave into Pennsylvania and keep him there for six months.[264] A very strong feeling developed against this. In 1795 it was necessary for the Supreme Court to declare that such a right was valid. It was afterwards decided, however, that if the master continued to take his slave in and out of Pennsylvania for short periods, the slave should be free. Again and again the legislature was asked to withdraw the privilege. It is needless to recount the petitions that never ceased to come, and at times poured in like a flood. At last the pressure of popular feeling could no longer be held back, and after the legislation of 1847 following the memorable case of Prigg v. Pennsylvania, when a slave was brought by his master within the bounds of Pennsylvania, that moment by state law he was free.[265]

Long before this time the passage through the state of slaves bound with chains had awakened the pity of those who saw it.[266] In 1816 it was decided that in certain cases if a runaway slave gave birth to a child in Pennsylvania the child was free.[267] Later the legislature forbade state officers to give any assistance in returning fugitives; and at last lacked but little of giving fugitives trial by jury.

If it be asked whether at this time Pennsylvania was not rather decrying slavery among her neighbors than destroying it within her own gates, since beyond denial she still had slavery there, it must be answered that first, her slavery as regards magnitude was a veritable mote, and secondly, since after 1830, for example, there was not one slave in Pennsylvania under fifty years old, it was far more to the advantage of the negroes to remain in servitude where the law guaranteed them protection and good treatment, than to be set free, when their color and their declining years would have rendered their well-being doubtful. It is probable that such slavery as existed there in the last years was based rather on the kindness of the master and the devotion of the slave, than on the power of the one and the suffering of the other. It was a peaceful passing away. And so in connection with slavery Pennsylvania is seen to have been fortunate. Seeing at an early time the pernicious consequences of such an institution she was able, such were the circumstances of her economic environment, and such was the character of her people, to check it so effectually that it never assumed threatening bulk. Almost as quick to perceive the evil of it, she acted, and while others moralized and lamented, she set her slaves free. Moreover as if to atone for the sin of slave-keeping she granted her freedmen such privileges that it seemed to her ardent idealists that the future could not but promise well.

Whether this liberality came to be a matter of regret in after years, and whether because of circumstances sure to come, but as yet unforeseen, it was possible for the experience of Pennsylvania with her free black population to be as happy as that with her slaves, it will be the purpose of later chapters to enquire.