Statements on Slavery I
Questions
1. What are the arguments against slavery?
2. What are the arguments for slavery?
3. What is the tone of the documents?
Note: Thomas Jefferson and James Madison were both slaveholders.
The abolition of domestic slavery is the great object of desire in those colonies where it was
unhappily introduced in their infant state…. [I]t is necessary to exclude all further importations
from Africa. Yet our repeated attempts to effect this by prohibitions, and by imposing duties
which might amount to a prohibition, have been hitherto defeated by his majesty negative1: thus
preferring the immediate advantages of a few British corsairs 2 to the lasting interests of the
American states, and to the rights of human nature deeply wounded by this infamous practice. -Thomas Jefferson (Virginia), July 17743
"We have seen the mere distinction of colour made in the most enlightened period of time, a
ground of the most oppressive dominion ever exercised by man over man." -- James Madison
(Virginia), Constitutional Convention , 1787 4
Although I have never sought popularity by animated Speeches or inflammatory publications
against Slavery of the Blacks, my opinion against it has always been known...and never in my
life did I own a Slave. The Abolition of Slavery must be gradual and accomplished with much
caution and Circumspection. Violent means and measures would produce greater violations of
Justice and Humanity than the continuance of the practice. --John Adams (Massachusetts), 18015
[The Missouri question], like a fire bell in the night, awakened and filled me with terror. I
considered it at once as the knell6 of the Union.… A geographical line, coinciding with a marked
principle, moral and political, once conceived and held up to the angry passions of men, will
never be obliterated…. I can say, with conscious truth, that there is not a man on earth who
would sacrifice more than I would to relieve us from this heavy reproach, in any practicable way.
The cession of that kind of property, for so it is misnamed, is a bagatelle which would not cost
me a second thought…. But as it is, we have the wolf by the ears, and we can neither hold him,
nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other. --Thomas Jefferson,
April 1822
"The magnitude of this evil among us is so deeply felt, and so universally acknowledged; that no
merit could be greater than that of devising a satisfactory remedy for it." --James Madison,
September 1825
1
The reference is to a royal veto.
Corsairs: A ship, often a pirate ship. Jefferson is referring to British slave traders.
3 The Jefferson quotes are from www.monticello.org
4 The Madison quotes are from www.montpelier.org
5 The Adams quote is from www.digitalhistory.uh.edu
6 Knell: funeral bell
2
Statements on Slavery II
Questions
1. What are the arguments against slavery?
2. What are the arguments for slavery?
3. What is the tone of the documents?
4. What factors might explain the change in tone from the first set of documents to these?
We further maintain that no man has a right to enslave or imbrute his brother—to hold or
acknowledge him, for one moment, as a piece of merchandise—to keep back his hire by fraud—
or to brutalize his mind by denying him the means of intellectual, social, and moral
improvement. The right to enjoy liberty is inalienable. To invade it is to usurp the prerogative of
Jehovah. Every man has a right to his own body—to the products of his own body—to the
protection of law—and to the common advantages of society. --Manifesto of the Anti-Slavery Society
(Philadelphia), 1833 7
I believe when two races come together which have different origins, colors, and physical and
intellectual characteristics, that slavery is instead of an evil, a good – a positive good . . . There is
and has always been, in an advanced state of wealth and civilization, a conflict between labor
and capital. Slavery exempts Southern society from the disorders and dangers resulting from this
conflict. This explains why the political condition of the slaveholding states has been so much
more stable and quiet than that of the North. -- John C. Calhoun (South Carolina), 18378
I neither deprecate nor resent the gift of slavery…. It is true that the slave is drive to labor by
stripes;9 and if the object of punishment be to produce obedience or reformation with the least
permanent injury, it is the best method of punishment. Men claim that this is intolerable. It is
not degrading to a slave, nor is it felt to be so. Is it degrading to a child?10 --William Harper (South
Carolina), 1837
A greater punishment could not be devised or inflicted upon the Southern slave at this day than
to give him that liberty which God in his wisdom and mercy deprived him of…. Free them from
control, and how soon does poverty and wretchedness overtake them!… I boldly and truly assert
that you may travel Europe over—yea, you may visit the boasted freemen of America—aye, you
may search the world over—before you find a laboring peasantry who are more happy, more
contented, as a class of people, or who are better clothed and fed and better provided for in
sickness, infirmity, and old age, or who enjoy more of the essential comforts of life, than these
so-called miserable, oppressed, abused, starved slaves. --Solon Robinson (Connecticut), 184911
7
Unless otherwise indicated, the documents by Harper and Robinson are adapted from The American Spirit, Vol. 1,
To 1877, 10th ed., edited by Thomas A. Bailey and David M. Kennedy.
8 www.gilderlehrman.org
9 Stripes=lashes from a whip
10 Note the assumption that it is okay to beat children.
11 I was surprised to discover that there is an elementary school in Indiana named after Solon Robinson.