NEGRO. 



15 



press had been burned at Alton and his life taken ; 

 Pennsylvania Hall had been destroyed at Philadelphia ; 

 Abolition meetings had been broken up, and the right 

 of free speech and free press generally denied to the 

 friends of freedom. 



In some parts of the South the free negroes were 

 considerable in numbers, and while they might legally 

 acquire property and secure to themselves the blessing 

 of education, they were denied intercourse with the 

 slaves lest they should incite them to acts of violence 

 and bloodshed. And although the slaves were docile 

 and tractable they were, nevertheless, capable of bitter 

 resentment at times. Denmark Vesey, in South Car- 

 olina, "General" Gahiel and Nat Turner, in Virginia, 

 with other negro insurrectionists, between 1797 and 

 1831. had taught the slaveholders the danger of under 

 estimating negro courage. In 1839 an intelligent anc 

 brave African captive, named Cinque, led a numbei 

 of his fellow-countrymen, who were being conveyec 

 from Cuba to another Spanish island on board the ship 

 Ami-tii'l, in a desperate effort for liberty, in which 

 they slew their cantors. The whites, whose lives they 

 spared, were imprisoned, and, ignorant of navigation, 

 they placed a Spaniard at the wheel with orders tc 

 sail for Africa. He obeyed in the daytime, but al 

 night turned about and steered for the United States. 

 Capt. Gedney, U. S. brie Washington, discovered the 

 Amistad and brought her to New London, Conn. 

 After a long and exciting trial the Africans were lib- 

 erated. In 1841 an American slaver, the Creole, with 

 135 slaves on board, sailed from Richmond. In the 

 early part of November, when the Creole was near 

 the Bahamas, one Madison Washington, an intelli- 

 gent and intrepid negro, led eighteen of his fellow- 

 slaves in a revolt against their owners. They killed a 

 slave-trader and wounded the captain and several 

 other whites, and then put into Nassau, New Provi- 

 dence, where, after some waiting and much bitter 

 diplomatic correspondence between the United States 

 and England, they all obtained their freedom. The 

 free negroes of the Northern States were excluded 

 from the militia and denied, quite generally, the right 

 to vote, although taxed. Their schools were separate, 

 few in number, and poorly conducted. Frequently 

 they were the objects of cruel and murderous mobs 

 who sought them out in the seclusion of their homes 

 and maltreated them. They were excluded from 

 churches, confined to the galleries of theatres, denied 

 entertainment at hotels, and were not permitted to 

 travel as first-class passengers upon land or water. 

 Nearjy every State constitution contained the word 

 "white" as a restriction of civil rights- nearly every 

 common-carrier company had special rules to apply to 

 the negro ; nearly every community contained men 

 and women who were always ready to denounce and 

 almse the blameless and inoffensive blacks. 



In 1850 the oriirin.il Fugitive Slave law of 1793 was 

 altered by Conpn-- n that a master could go into a 

 free State and, without any regard to the laws of that 

 State, claim a negro as his property and take him 

 South. The negro was denied the writ of habeas cor- 

 /"<.-. he could not testify in court, nor could he de- 

 mand a trial by iury. The U. S. marshal of the dis- 

 trict in which the alleged fugitive "from labor and 

 service" was discovered was required to deliver him 

 up, and was empowered to call the posse camitatvx if 

 the exigencies of the case required it. Citizens who 

 :ittrnipted to aid the fugitive were liable to heavy 

 fines. The slaveholders did not hesitate to avail them- 

 selves of the wide-sweeping provisions of this law, 

 and its enforcement soon fanned the flame of anti- 

 slavery sentiment of the free States into a blaze of 

 indignation. Shadrach, a fugitive slave, had been 

 rescued from a TJ. S. court-room at Boston by the 

 tVimds of freedom ; and Thomas M. Sims, another 

 fugitive, would have been rescued from slave-hunters 

 had he not been arrested upon a charge of theft and 

 then held aa a fugitive slave. The rendition of An- 



thony Burns by the U. S. marshal at Boston ; the 

 posse comitatus of 100 respectable citizens of Boston ; 

 the company of U. S. marines and artillery with 

 shotted cannon ; the U. S. revenue cutter at the 

 wharf, sent by the order of Pres. Pierce to convey 

 the heavy-hearted and manacled slave back to the 

 bondage from whence he had escaped, were the chief 

 features of one of the most dramatic events in the 

 history of the slave-power in America. 



Next in historical importance was the DEED SCOTT 

 CASE fa v.). The opinion of the court was delivered 

 by the Chief-Justice, Roger B. Taney, March 6, 1857. 

 He maintained that neither persons of African descent, 

 imported into the United States, nor the descendants 

 of such persons, were citizens of the United States 

 under the Constitution; that the framers of that 

 instrument never intended to confer upon them such a 

 right ; that the only two references to them in the 

 Constitution relate to them as property ; that a negro 

 could not become a citizen, and that Dred Scott was 

 not a citizen of Missouri, and, therefore, dismissed the 

 case. From this opinion Justices McLean and Curtis 

 dissented ; but the Chief-Justice spoke for the slave- 

 power. _The confusion, alarm, and dissatisfaction 

 created in the North by the decision was unprece- 

 dented ; and the people, through public meetings 

 called to denounce the decision of the court, and 

 through the newspapers, defied the bold attempt to 

 prostitute the Constitution for the destruction of hu- 

 man freedom. 



During the administration of Pres. Buchanan the 

 attention of the whole country was riveted on Kan- 

 sas, where a desperate struggle for the extension 

 of slavery over territory declared free by the Missouri 

 Compromise was then taking place. Hardly had it 

 closed in favor of freedom than the irrepressible con- 

 flict seemed to be transferred to the soil where slavery 

 had first been planted in the limits of the United 

 States. On Oct. 16, 1859, Capt. John Brown, at the 

 head of 21 men, captured the U. S. arsenal at Har- 

 per's Ferry, Virginia, and held it until the 18th, when 

 it was^ retaken by a company of U. S. marines. 

 Brown's object was to emancipate the slaves of the 

 States of Virginia and Maryland and not to take life 

 except in self-defence. With five of his men he was 

 tried by a court of Virginia, convicted, and hanged on 

 Dec. 2. Though his attempt was thus easily quelled, 

 it sent a thrill of terror through the slaveholding 

 States. 



Southern leaders insisted on new constitutional 

 guarantees for the safety of their peculiar institution, 

 while a majority of the people of the North demanded 

 the perpetual exclusion of slavery from territory re- 

 peatedly dedicated to freedom. The Republican party 

 organized to carry out this policy triumphed at the 

 polls in November, 1860, and elected Abraham Lincoln 

 to the presidency. The heated and unscrupulous 

 partisans of slavery urged forward their States -to 

 secession and rebellion without waiting for his inau- 

 guration. 



Although the war of the rebellion was brought on 

 by the slavery question, both the Union and Confed- 

 erate governments strove, during the early months of 

 ;he conflict, to avoid it as an issue. The Union army 

 surrendered fugitive slaves to rebel masters who were 

 permitted to come within the lines in pursuit of their 

 ;hattels. Gen. B. F. Butler shrewdly declared such 

 ? ugitives contraband of war, but a great majority of 

 Union officers surrendered the slaves who sought shel- 

 ter in their camps from their masters. In Louisiana, 

 South Carolina, and Kansas negroes were mustered 

 nto the military service of the United States as 

 early as 1862, and before the spring of 1863 the 

 [J. S. government published a plan by which negroes, 

 tee and bond, were to be employed as soldiers. By 

 the end of autumn 50,000 troops of this character 

 were under arms. From the beginning to the close 

 of the war there were 178,975 negro troops in the aer- 



