(The following is part 2 of a series on the American Revolution, which began with the opening section of Chapter 7 of my book Defeating Slavery : Hamilton’s American System Showed the Way. Click here for Part 1. – Nancy Spannaus*)
As the Declaration’s principal author, Thomas Jefferson, said, his purpose in penning the document was to summarize the prevailing sentiments among the American people which demanded independence from the Crown. Among those sentiments was the rising voice against the slave trade and slavery itself.
There was no unified anti-slavery movement, but many of the leading revolutionaries – from John and Samuel Adams to Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Rush, and George Washington himself – had penned resolutions and/or drafted and supported laws and documents dedicated to, or including calls for, the abolition of that evil. Warnings had appeared in newspapers up and down the coast warning of the disastrous results, for whites and Blacks alike, of continuing the practice of slavery, including dire consequences for the nation if this violation of basic human rights were not eliminated from society.
In the spring of 1776, as the Second Continental Congress was taking up the calls for declaring independence, Samuel Hopkins, a prominent abolitionist Congregationalist minister in the slave-port of Newport, Rhode Island, published a pamphlet addressing Congress directly on the issue. It was entitled “A dialogue concerning the slavery of the Africans; shewing it to be the duty and interest of the American states to emancipate all their African slaves: With an address to the owners of such slaves. Dedicated to the Honourable Members of the Continental Congress.”[1]
Hopkins began by appealing to the responsibilities which these representatives had to lead the “important, noble struggle for LIBERTY.”
We naturally look to you in behalf of more than half a million of persons in these Colonies, who are under such a degree of oppression and tyranny, as to be wholly deprived of all civil and personal liberty, to which they have as good a right as any of their fellow men, and are reduced to the most abject state of bondage and slavery, without any just cause.
Hopkins’ lengthy piece used a dialogue format to eviscerate the pro-slavery arguments of the slavery defenders, especially those claiming that slavery benefits Africans by exposing them to Christianity. He pointed out the “glaring contradiction” between continuing slavery and the struggle for civil liberty and issued a broad indictment of not only government but society as a whole for tolerating slave practices. (See extensive excerpts in the appendix.)[2]
There is no record of a debate on Hopkins’ appeal to the Continental Congress delegates, which clearly was not acted upon. But there is a partial record of what happened to Jefferson’s draft declaration.
Excerpts from Hopkins document, as printed in the appendix of Defeating Slavery
The document continued to be circulated long after the Second Continental Congress. For example, it was reprinted in full by the New York Manumission Society in 1785.
Hopkins begins by appealing to the responsibilities which these representatives have to lead the “important, noble struggle for LIBERTY.” “We naturally look to you in behalf of more than half a million of persons in these Colonies, who are under such a degree of oppression and tyranny, as to be wholly deprived of all civil and personal liberty, to which they have as good a right as any of their fellow men, and are reduced to the most abject state of bondage and slavery, without any just cause.” He then commences with an imaginary dialogue between an advocate of emancipation (seemingly immediate) and a slaveholder.
In the opening part of his dialogue, Hopkins expresses optimism that public opinion is on the side of condemning the slave trade as evil. His advocate of emancipation [denoted as B] says:
B. I am glad you have attended to the affair so much as to be convinced of the unrighteousness of the slave trade. Indeed, this conviction has been so spread of late, that it is has reached almost all men on the continent, except some of those who are too deeply interested in it, to admit the light which condemns it. And it has now but few advocates, I believe, being generally condemned and exploded. And the members of the Continental Congress have done themselves much honour, in advising the American colonies to drop this trade entirely; and resolving not to buy another slave, that shall be imported from Africa.
But I think it of importance that this trade should not only be condemned as wrong, but attentively considered in its real nature, and all its shocking attendants and circumstances; which will lead us to think of it with a detestation and horror, which this scene of inhumanity, oppression and cruelty, exceeding every thing of the kind that has ever been perpetrated by the sons of men, is suited to excite; and awaken us to a proper indignation against the authors of this violence and outrage; done to their fellow men; and to feelings of humanity and pity towards our brethren, who are the miserable sufferers. Therefore, though I am not able to paint this horrid scene of barbarity and complicated iniquity, to the life, or even to tell the one half which may be told, in the short time allotted for this conversation; yet I will suggest a few particulars; leaving you, if you please, to consult the authors who have given a more particular description.
Hopkins’ concluding summary of the Dialogue goes as follows:
A. [the slaveholder]. All this seems to be little to the purpose; since it was granted in the beginning of our conversation, that the slave-trade, as it has been carried on, is not to be justified. But what is this to the question we proposed to consider; which is, Whether it be wrong to hold the blacks we have among us in a state of slavery, or ought to set them free without delay? To this you have said little or nothing as yet.
B. [the author]. All I have said upon the slave-trade, to shew the unrighteousness, the cruelty, the murder, the opposition to Christianity and the spread of the gospel among the Africans, the destruction of whole nations, and myriads of souls, which are contained in this horrid practice, has been principally with a view to a more clear and satisfactory, determination of the question before us, which you have now renewedly proposed—For I think the following proposition may be advanced as undeniable, viz. If the slave-trade be unjustifiable and wrong; then our holding the Africans and their children in bondage, is unjustifiable and wrong; and the latter is criminal in some proportion to the inexpressible baseness and criminality of the former. For,
FIRST, If they have been brought into a state of slavery, by unrighteousness and violence, they having never forfeited their liberty, or given any one a right to enslave and sell them; then purchasing them of these piratical tyrants, and holding them in the same state of bondage into which they, contrary to all right, have brought them, is continuing the exercise of the same unrighteousness and violence towards them. They have yet as much a right to their liberty as ever they had, and to demand it of him who holds them in bondage; and he denies them their right, which is of more worth to them than every thing else they can have in the world, or all the riches the unjust master does or can possess; and therefore injures them in a very high degree every hour he refuses or neglects to set them at liberty. Besides,
SECONDLY, Holding these blacks in a state of slavery, is a practical justification of the slave-trade, and so brings the guilt of that on the head of him, who so far partakes in this iniquity, as to hold one of these a slave, who was unrighteously made so by these sons of violence. The old adage, “The partaker is as bad as the thief,” carries such a plain truth in it, that every one must discern it: And it is certainly applicable to this case.
It is impossible to buy one of these blacks and detain him a slave, without partaking with him who first reduced him to this state, and put it in his power, thus to possess him; and practically justifying him for so doing, so as to bring upon himself the guilt of first enslaving him. It is not therefore possible for any of our slave keepers to justify themselves in what they are doing, unless they can justify the slave-trade. If they fall here, they bring on themselves an awful degree of the guilt of the whole.
THIRDLY, By keeping these slaves, and buying and selling them, they actually encourage and promote the slave-trade: And therefore, in this view, keeping slaves, and continuing to buy and sell them, is to bring on us the guilt of the slave-trade, which is hereby supported. For so long as slaves are bought and possessed, and in demand; so long the African trade will be supported and encouraged.
A. But there is a stop put to the importation of slaves into the American Colonies, as they have resolved no more shall be bought. This being the case, the keeping those we have among us in slavery, is no encouragement to the slave-trade.
B. I grant, if this resolution should be perpetual, and extend to the West Indies, it would discourage the slave-trade; so far as the Americans are concerned in it: But it would be more effectually discountenanced and condemned, if slavery was wholly abolished; and it cannot be consistently done without this. For if it be wrong to import and buy them now, it was always wrong; and therefore they that are already slaves among us, are injured, and unjustly enslaved; and we have made them our slaves without the least right; and ought to retract it, and repair the injury done to them, so far as is in our power, by setting them free, and compensating them otherwise, so far as we are able. There is therefore a palpable inconsistency in resolving to import and buy no more slaves; and yet refusing to let those go out free, which we have already enslaved, unless there be some insuperable impediment in the way. …
Next Installment: Slavery in the Declaration
[1] The full text is available from the Evans Early American Imprint Collection at the University of Michigan. (See Appendices for excerpts)
[2] Hopkins was not the only abolitionist to speak up at this time, but his appeal was among the most widely circulated.
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Tags: American Revolution, Congress, Declaration of Independence, Nancy Spannaus, Samuel Hopkins, slavery