Only a Reprieve
Fondly do we hope,—fervently do we pray,—that this mighty scourge of War may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn by the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, “The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”
Abraham Lincoln
There were two statements in the Declaration of Independence, which must have profoundly disturbed its Signers:—
“All men are created equal,” and have the right “to Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Many of the Signers were slave-holders.
Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, the Framer of the Declaration, was an Abolitionist, and an active one, throwing the weight of his great influence against the institution of slavery.
He earnestly believed that all men—white and black alike—are born equal. So, when he was asked to frame the Declaration of Independence, he put into it a clause condemning the slave-trade, as an “assemblage of horrors.” During the debate in the Convention, this clause was stricken out.
Though Jefferson had his reasons for not freeing his own slaves, he continued to speak and write against slavery as a violation of human rights and liberties.
“This abomination must have an end,” he said.
There were other Americans who believed as he did.
George Washington, in his Will, left their freedom to his slaves, to be given them after his wife’s death. He ordered a fund to be set aside for the support of all his old and sick slaves, and he bade his heirs see to it that the young negroes were taught to read and write and to carry on some useful occupation.
Kosciuszko was Jefferson’s intimate friend, and like him a believer in Freedom for all men, without regard to race or colour. Before he left America, Kosciuszko made a will turning over his American property to Jefferson, for the purchase of slaves from their owners and for their education, so that when free, they might earn their living and become worthy citizens.
From the time of Jefferson until the Civil War, slavery to be or not to be, was the burning question. Men and women, specially those belonging to the Society of Friends, devoted their lives to the abolition of slavery.
Many of these Abolitionists were mobbed, and otherwise persecuted, because of their humane efforts. William Lloyd Garrison was the great leader of the Abolitionists. “The Quaker Poet” Whittier was also a leader in the agitation against slavery.
But to go back to Thomas Jefferson: When the Missouri Compromise went into effect, and “the house was divided against itself,” Jefferson was deeply and terribly stirred. He looked far into the future.
“This momentous question,” he wrote, “like a fire-bell in the night, awakened and filled me with terror. I considered it at once as the knell of the Union. It is hushed, indeed, for the moment. But this is a reprieve only—not a final sentence.”
And again he said:—
“I tremble for my Country, when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep for ever.”
First the reprieve! Then as the crime was continued, the execution of the sentence! Nearly a hundred years of slavery passed after the framing of the Declaration, then on North and South fell the terrible retributive punishment of the Civil War.