his iniquitous traffic, beginning with the importation of negroes into Hispaniola in 1503, was first pursued by the English in 1562, under Sir John Hawkins, who sold a cargo at the same island that year. The colony of Virginia was planted in 1607. The first cargo of negroes, only twenty in number, arrived there in a Dutch vessel in 1620, and was bought by the colonists. All the commerical nations of Europe were soon implicated in the trade, but England became, on the whole, the leader in this trade, and was unrivaled by any, save her daughter, New England.
Reynal estimates the whole number of negroes stolen from Africa before 1776 at nine million; Bancroft at something more than six million. Of these, British subjects carried at least half: and to the above numbers must be added a quarter of a million thrown by Englishmen into the Atlantic on the voyage.
But after the nineteenth century had arrived, the prospective impolicy of the trade, the prevalence of democratic and Jacobin opinions imported from France, the shame inspired by the example of Virginia, with (we would fain hope) some influences of the Christian religion upon the better spirits, began to create a powerful party against the trade. First, Clarkston published in Latin, and then in English, his work against the slave trade, exposing its unutterable barbarities, as practised by Englishmen, and arguing its intrinsic unrighteousness. The powerful parliamentary influence of Wilberforce was added, and afterwards that of the younger Pitt.
But Virginia was there first. The preamble to the State Constitution of Virginia, drawn up by George Mason, and adopted by the Convention June 29th, 1776, was written by Thomas Jefferson. In the recital of grievances against Great Britain, which had prompted the commonwealth to assume its independence, this preamble contains the following words: By prompting our negroes to rise in arms among us; those very negroes whom, by an inhuman use of his negative [veto, ed], he had refused us permission to exclude by law. Mr. Jefferson, long a leading member of the House of Burgesses, and most learned of all his contemporaries in the legislation of his country, certainly knew whereof he affirmed. His witness is more than confirmed by that of Mr. Madison, who says: The British government constantly checked the attempts of Virginia to put a stop to this infernal traffic. Mr. Jefferson, in a passage which was expunged from the Declaration of Independence by New England votes in the Congress, strongly stated the same charge. And George Mason, perhaps the greatest and most influential of Virginians, next to Washington, reiterated the accusation with equal strength, in the speech in the Federal Convention, 1787, in which he urged the immediate prohibition of the slave trade by the United States. A learned Virginian antiquary has found no less than twenty-eight several attempts made by the Burgesses to arrest the evil by their legislation, all of which were either supressed or negatived by the proprietary or royal authority.
But in 1778, the State of Virginia, determined to provide in good time against the resumption of the traffic when commerce should be reopened, gave final expression to her will against it. At the General Assembly, Patrick Henry being Governor of the Commonwealth, the following law was the first passed:
". . . Be it enacted by the General Assembly, That from and after the passing of this act, no slave or slaves shall hereafter be imported into this Commonwealth by sea or land, nor shall any slave so imported be bought or sold by any person whatsoever . . . Every person hereafter importing slaves into this Commonwealth contrary to this act, shall forfeit and pay the sum of one thousand pounds for every slave so imported . . . And be it further enacted, That every slave imported into this Commonwealth, contrary to the true intent and meaning of this act, shall, upon such importation, become free."
Thus Virginia has the honour of being the first Commonwealth on earth to declare against the African slave trade, and to make it a penal offence. Her action antedates by thirty years the much bepraised legislation of the British Parliament, and by ten years the earliest movement of Massachusetts on the subject. Almost before the Clarkstons and Wilberforces were born, Virginia did that very work for which her slanderers now pretend so much to laud those philanthropists.
But it may be said, that if the government of Virginia was opposed to the African slave trade, her people purchased more of its victims than those of any other colony; and the aphorism may be quoted against them, that the receiver is as guilty as the thief. This is rarely true in the case of individuals, and when applied to communities, it is notoriously false. All States contain a large number of irresponsible persons. The character of a free people as a whole should be estimated by that of its corporate acts, in which the common will is expressed. The proper rulers were forbidden by the mother country to employ that prohibitory legislation which is, in all States, the necessary guardian of the public virtue.
The government of Virginia was unquestionably actuated in prohibiting the slave trade, by a sincere sense of its intrinsic injustice and cruelty. §
R.L. Dabney (1820-1898) was a great Presbyterian theologian and a staff officer for "Stonewall" Jackson.
