Various - The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862

On the 10th of April last, upon the recommendation of the President of the United States, Congress offered pecuniary aid to such States as would gradually abolish slavery within their limits. The colonization, from time to time, of the manumitted slaves, with their consent, by the Government, beyond our boundaries, was also contemplated as a part of the system. By the President's proclamation of September last, this offer is still made to loyal States, and practical measures suggested for carrying it into execution. As to the States persisting in rebellion after the close of this year, the President, as a military necessity, has announced a different measure, that is, general emancipation in all such States, with compensation only to loyal masters. Immediate emancipation of all slaves, with compensation for all, costing, as it would, twelve hundred millions of dollars, is now beyond the power of the Government, burdened as it is by an enormous and increasing debt. Nor was such a measure ever wise or expedient. That subject I will discuss hereafter, but will speak now of the plan proposed by the President, and sanctioned by Congress on the 10th of April last.

If this measure seems slow in securing total manumission and colonization, it would be progressive and certain. God works out the destiny of nations by no sudden or spasmodic action. His great and beneficent changes are generally slow and gradual, but when he wills destruction, it is sudden as the lightning's flash, the crash of the earthquake, or the sweep of the hurricane, marked by ruin and desolation. Would we avoid like disasters in solving this stupendous problem, we must follow, in humble faith, the ways of God, and thus by gentle, but constant and successive movements, reach the grand result.

History, however, exhibits a few extraordinary cases, in which man, as an instrument in the hands of Providence, sometimes punishes great crimes, eradicates great evils, and accomplishes great national reforms by acts as sudden as the devastating career of the tempest in sweeping away pestilential vapors. Such may be the case with the revolted States, if they should persist in this wicked rebellion beyond the close of the period of solemn warning.

The coming year may be the great crisis of human destiny. It may see our rivers, like those of Egypt, turned into blood. It may witness similar loathsome plagues, and pestilence, and fiery hail, and darkness palpable. But may it never behold the dread work of the destroying angel as of old, at the midnight hour, in every dwelling whose lintels were unmarked by the typical blood of the Paschal sacrifice! Avoiding the last dread scene of the great Egyptian drama, may we have, not the Jewish Passover, but the grand American jubilee, when we may hail the South redeemed from the curse of slavery, and forever united with the North, as the one blessed home of universal freedom.

As the South was as earnest as the North in protesting against the landing upon our shores of the first cargo of African slaves, and the continuance of the traffic so long forced upon us under the British flag, and as they all united in excluding the word 'slave' from the Federal Constitution, so will they ultimately coöperate in expunging from our system the institution of slavery.

I shall discuss this question as to the border States under no sectional or party aspect, no influence of passion or prejudice, or any motive but the desire to promote the good of my country. Our national and material interests must be fully considered, as also those great moral principles and intellectual developments which exalt and dignify the character of man. I shall examine the subject inductively and deductively, the facts and the causes.

That a return to the Union with gradual emancipation and colonization by the rebel States would be best for them and for us is certain. But in justice to loyal citizens and communities, and to avoid the danger of foreign intervention by prolonging the contest, it is our duty, after the close of this year, to withdraw the slaves in the rebel States from the culture of the crops used to support their armies, which can only be done by general emancipation in such States persisting then in the rebellion. This is a necessary war measure, designed, like battles or blockades, to suppress the rebellion (alike ruinous to North and South), and which must no longer be permitted to accumulate an immense debt and oppressive taxation, and to exhaust our blood and treasure. The census shows that very few slaves are held by the deluded masses of the South, that the slaveholders are few in number; and full compensation is contemplated by Congress and the President, in all cases of the manumission by us of the slaves of loyal citizens.

By the census of 1790, all the sixteen States then enumerated held slaves, except Massachusetts (then including Maine, although numbered separately), where the institution was abolished by a judicial construction of their constitution of 1780. The following table, from the census, shows the gradual disappearance of slavery from seven of these States, the remaining eight States still continuing the institution:

Illinois, by her constitution of 1818, continued slavery in the State, but declared that 'children hereafter born shall be free.' An effort was made in Congress to defeat the admission of Illinois, on the ground that its constitution 'did not conform to the ordinance of 1787.' But it was then decided by the House of Representatives (117 to 54) that 'the ordinance did not extend to States.' In the Senate the vote was unanimous . (See Niles's Register, vol. xix. p. 30.) Rhode Island adopted the Pennsylvania system. Connecticut declared free, at the age of 26, all born after the 1st March, 1784. Indiana pursued in its results the course of Illinois. By the census, Illinois had 917 slaves in 1820, 747 in 1830, 331 in 1840; and Indiana had 190 slaves in 1820, 3 in 1830, and 3 in 1840. New York in 1799 continued in bondage the slaves then living, but those born after the date of the law were emancipated at the age of 28; and in New Jersey, the males at 25 and the females at 21. This slow and gradual process in States having so few slaves, should inculcate kinder and more indulgent feelings as to those loyal communities where the slaves are so much more numerous, and the time and mode of action so vital.

The great model act of gradual emancipation, drawn by Benjamin Franklin, the great leader on this question, approved by the Quakers, and adopted by Pennsylvania in 1780, liberated all the descendants of slaves born after that date within the limits of the State. To avoid circumlocution, I shall call those born before the date of emancipating laws the ante nati , and those born after the date of such laws, post nati .

I shall consider first the question of gradual emancipation and colonization in connection with Maryland, and afterward apply the same principles to other States.

If the Pennsylvania system of liberating immediately only the post nati, so much more liberal than that of most of the free States, were adopted by Maryland, the cost of manumission there would be very small. In the execution of the emancipation act of Congress in this District, infant slaves were valued officially this year by sworn experts at $50 each. Now by the census of 1860, the infant slaves of Maryland, under one year old, surviving on the 1st June, 1860, numbered 2,391, which, at $50 each, would cost $119,550. This would be the actual expense for the first year in Maryland, but decreasing every year, and ceasing altogether in little more than a generation. Now the total number of slaves under one year of age, born in all the slave States, and surviving on the 1st June, 1860, was, by the census, 113,581, which, at $50 each, would cost $5,679,050, for the first year, and decreasing annually as above stated. The post nati numbered in Delaware 40, in Kentucky 7,281, in Missouri 3,377, and in Virginia 13,850, making the first year's cost as follows: