USA > Mississippi > Encyclopedia of Mississippi History Comprising Sketches of Counties, Towns, Events, Institutions and Persons, Vol. II > Part 82
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Governor Holmes, first governor of the State, said in his first message: "By the constitution you are invested with the author- ity to enact laws to prevent slaves from being brought into the State for the purpose of being disposed of as merchandise. Under existing circumstances I am aware, gentlemen, of the difficulty you will find in devising any mode that will be adequate to put an entire end to this odious traffic; but I trust that in your wisdom you will be enabled to adopt such measures as may in some degree les- sen the evil. As the practice is now prohibited by most of the States where domestic slavery is tolerated, it is evident that great
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numbers will be brought to this State, and principally those of the most vicious character, unless by some means we can render the trade at least precarious to those who engage in it. I am fully persuaded, gentlemen, that you will deem this subject worthy of your most serious consideration." The legislature of 1819 provided that slaves imported for sale should be registered, with proof that they had not been guilty of "murder, burglary, arson, rape or grand larceny," an import tax of $20 each was imposed, for the benefit of the Natchez hospital; but this did not apply to slaves imported by a citizen for his own use, except from Louisiana and Alabama. Any free negro or mulatto who should enter the State should depart on warning within thirty days, or be sold. Governor Holmes in his next message, said the law was difficult to enforce, and one of the judges of the supreme court had declared it to be in conflict with the constitution of the United States. He asked the legisla- ture to exercise "the power, with which they are invested by the constitution, of preventing, unconditionally, the importation of slaves, as merchandize. The evils arising from this odious prac- tice, are constantly, tho' imperceptibly, increasing, and must ulti- mately result in consequences of a most serious nature, unless the traffic is wholly prohibited." The assembly did not do this, though a bill to prohibit importation was introduced by Joseph E. Davis.
At the first session of the supreme court of Mississippi, June, 1818, in the case of "Harry and others" to assert their right to free- dom because they were brought from the French district of Indi- ana and sold in 1816, the court ruled that these negroes were made free by the ordinance of 1787, adding, "Slavery is condemned by reason of the laws of nature. It exists and can only exist through municipal regulations, and in matters of doubt, is it not an unques- tioned rule that courts must lean in favorem vitae et libertatis." (Harry vs. Decker, Walker, 36.) In June, 1820, the court consid- ered the first appeal from a sentence of death for murder. It was the case of a white man who had killed a negro, and sought relief by raising in question the personal rights of negroes. Judge Clarke, in pronouncing the opinion, said: "In some respects slaves may be considered as chattels, but in others they are regarded as men." The syllabus reads: "The ancient laws of Rome giving power over the life of a slave never extended here. Slavery exists not by force of the law of nature, or of nations, but by virtue only of the positive provisions of the law ; to these the master must look for all his rights, and they do not confer the power of taking the life of the negro." The records of the early State period show occasional orders that a force of militia attend the sheriff to pre- serve order during the execution of negroes for murder. Occasion- ally also there are records of pardons to negroes sentenced to death.
The Territorial code was the basis of subsequent codes. It was embodied, revised and additional restrictions added, in the Poin- dexter code of 1822. The death penalty was provided, as it had been before, for any slave who should maim a white person, or at-
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tempt to commit rape, or any capital crime, or arson. It was pro- vided that when proof had been made to a court that any negro or mulatto had "given false testimony" he should, without further trial, "be ordered by the said court, to have one ear nailed to the pillory, and there to stand for the space of one hour, and then the said ear to be cut off, and thereafter the other ear nailed in like manner and cut off at the expiration of one other hour, and more- over to receive thirty-nine lashes on his or her bare back, well laid on, at the public whipping post, or such other punishment as the court shall think proper, not extending to life or limb." Just what were the provisions in the Poindexter code that were used against him in politics, it does not appear. The code was said at the time to prohibit any religious instruction of slaves. The act passed in place of these objectionable sections was similar to the Territorial laws above quoted in a general way, regulating the vis- iting and meeting together of slaves. This act to ameliorate the Poindexter code prohibited any assemblage of slaves to be taught reading or writing, under any pretext, but provided that this should not forbid masters giving slaves written consent to attend relig- ious worship, if the same were conducted by a regular white min- ister.
The proposition in 1819 to prohibit slavery in the new State of Missouri, as it had been prohibited in the Northwest Territory and States, caused the first open sectional dispute on the subject, although an even division of the United States between slave States and free States had been long before this quietly maintained. (See Statehood.) To preserve the national tolerance of slavery, as well as obtain an outlet for the negro increase, it became neces- sary to insist upon the extension of slavery into new States. But the Missouri compromise of 1820 prohibited slavery, west of the Mississippi, north of an extension of the south line of Virginia and Kentucky, except that slavery should be permitted in Missouri. This made the acquisition of Texas inevitable. In 1825 the legis- lature refused to concur in the resolution of the legislature of Ohio, "proposing a plan for the emancipation of slaves in the United States," and approved the constitutional amendment proposed by Georgia, to prohibit the interstate slave trade, in other words, "the importation or ingress of any person of color into any one of the United States, contrary to the laws of said States." In Janu- ary, 1826, resolutions of the States of Delaware, Connecticut, Illi- nois and Indiana, concurring with the Ohio resolution, were re- ferred to a committee of which William Haile (q. v.) was chair- man. Haile reported resolutions, which were adopted by the ma- jority of both houses of the general assembly. The report was: "That, under the Constitution and Laws of our Country, the right of property in Slaves is as sacred and inviolate as that of any other . species of property whatever. However great may be the national evil of slavery, and however much we may regret it, circumstances over which we have no control have rendered it inevitable, and places it without the pale of legislative authority. We, therefore,
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cannot concur in any arrangement for their emancipation, by any legislative enactment, without violating the constitutional rights of our citizens. Any interference in our own internal concerns upon subjects of this kind, is only calculated to engender feelings of prejudice, which, if fostered by the continued efforts of the Non-Slave holding States, may, eventually, produce consequences deplorable to society, and tend to weaken that bond of union and fellowship which should exist between all the members of the same confederacy. Your committee conceive, also, that any meas- ures which might be taken by other States to ameliorate the condi- tion of the slave would tend rather to aggravate than relieve his misfortunes. By a gradual emancipation the hopes and prospects of those who remain in slavery would be so far excited as to create a spirit of discontent and of insurrection, which might not only en- danger the interests but the personal safety and lives of our citizens. And it is, therefore, with serious apprehensions for our peace and safety that your committee witness the combined efforts of several of the Non Slave holding States in their behalf. By holding out the semblance of aid and prospect of freedom they might be easily stimulated to rebellion, and our citizens might fall victims to a pol- icy against the exercise of which they protest, and in which policy they are determined not to participate. We, therefore, most sin- cerely deprecate and will continue firmly to resist all interference on the part of other States. The Southern States, who suffer, and are compelled, from circumstances, to endure the evil, ought to be the best judges of the remedy ; and so soon as they can concur in any expedient for their relief, it will be time enough to adopt it. This State, in the language of Georgia, 'claims the right with her Southern sisters, whose situation is similar, of moving this ques- tion when an enlarged system of benevolence and philanthropic exertions in consistency with her rights and interests shall render it practicable.'" On this point Gen. Felix Houston wrote several years later to a New York paper that the planters apprehended no injury from their slaves, and looked to no power on earth, not even the Union, for protection. They were abundantly supplied with arms, and could easily control the black population. "If the South are so safe, it may be asked why are they so sensitive on this sub- ject? I will answer-they are sensitive from motives of interest and humanity. He who makes my negroes dissatisfied with their situation, makes them less useful to me, and puts me under the necessity of dealing more rigorously with them. Throughout the whole south it is considered disgraceful not to cloth and feed negroes well, or to treat them cruelly, and there are very few who have the hardihood to brave public sentiment. But if negroes become disorderly, discontented and disobedient, the neces- sity requires that they should either be set at large at once, or their privileges curtailed, and discipline made more rigorous till they are brought into complete subjection-there is no middle course. Again, there is a possibility, if they become rebellious, that they may do damage in a single neighborhood, and destroy
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the lives of a few women and children-the consequence of which would be that then whites would be under the necessity of putting great numbers of the misguided wretches to death. Such was the case at Southampton."
In his annual message of 1828 Gerard C. Brandon, the first native governor, said: "The southern States generally having passed laws to prevent the importation of slaves for the purpose of traffic, has left Mississippi almost the only receptacle for the surplus black population of the middle States, where their labor is not found so productive as in the south. The vast number annually imported into our State has excited uneasiness in the minds of our fellow citizens and caused them to feel much solicitude that we should adopt the policy of our neighboring States. Slavery is an evil at best, and has invariably operated oppressively on the poorer class of every community into which it has been introduced, by de- stroying that mutual dependence which would otherwise exist be- tween the rich and the poor, and excludes from the State, in pro- portion to the number of slaves, a free white population, through the means of which alone can we expect to take rank with our sister States." But no restriction was made, except by taxation. The State income from this source in 1831 was a trifle over $3,000. In 1830 the board of internal improvements recommended the plan urged by Charles Lynch, that the State should become the owner of a body of slaves, to be used in public works.
After the election of Gen. Jackson (1828) there was, much less toleration of the discussion of slavery. Also, "The horrible slave insurrection of August, 1831, at Southampton, Va., caused a panic that resulted in mobs and the expulsion from the South of a num- ber of persons suspected of tampering with the slaves, and in the general strengthening of the patrol system." (Birney and his Times, 72). The biographer of James G. Birney writes: "At the time his abhorrence of slavery was banishing him from his native South (1832), he shuddered at the thought of the horrors he thought would follow the general immediate abolition of slavery. To him, as to most Southerners, it appeared to involve social convulsions, the overthrow of civilization in the South, and the substitution of immorality and barbarism."
The constitution of 1832 followed the constitution of 1817, with this addition : "The introduction of slaves into this State as mer- chandise or for sale, shall be prohibited from and after the first day of May, 1833; provided, that the actual settler or settlers shall not be prohibited from purchasing slaves in any State in this Union, and bringing them into this State for their own individual use, until the year 1845."
An attempt was made in 1833 to amend the constitution by strik- ing out this clause, but the amendment failed of adoption by pop- ular vote. "It was rejected by the people," said Judge Sharkey. Not all the planters, by any means, were disposed to sanction the inter-state slave trade, and there was naturally much opposition to negro labor among the "mechanics," as white laboring men
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were called. But the doctrine was set up by those interested in the traffic that the prohibition in the constitution was inoperative without an act of legislature. The legislature did not enact any penalties, immediately. In 1833 a tax was laid on negroes im- ported, and in 1837 another act imposed a fine of $500 and impris- onment for each slave introduced. The first enactment, it is inti- mated by Judge Sharkey, was unconstitutional. Contracts entered into for slaves imported as merchandise were held to be invalid in three cases brought before the High Court, but afterward the Supreme court of the United States, in the case of Groves vs. Slaughter (15 Peters) held such contracts valid, on the ground that the constitutional prohibition was a mere mandate to the legisla- ture to carry out the provision by providing proper penalties. In the case of Brien vs. Williamson, (7 Howard, 14) Chief Justice Sharkey reiterated the ruling of the highest court of Mississippi that a constitutional prohibition was operative without an act of legislature, and that, even if it were admitted, as bearing on the validity of a contract, that the clause of the constitution was a mere mandate, "the mere mandate was a law which will avoid the contract which was made in violation of its spirit. . . Our legislation has looked and tended to this point [prohibition of, the slave trade] since 1817. The prohibitory provision
established the policy of the State." He also remarked: "Judge Story has told us that the mandatory provisions in the constitution of the United States, addressed to congress, were so imperative that they could not be defeated. How is it that a mandatory provision in our constitution should be less obliga- tory?"
The slave trade was constitutionally prohibited in Mississippi from 1832 to 1857, according to the rulings of the highest court of the State. But the financial interests overcame this prohibition. Under the constitution of 1832, also, a tax was imposed upon vendors in slaves, but several judges ruled the tax unconstitutional, and the restriction failed.
The great importation of slaves from Virginia and Kentucky, and their sale on credit, during the opening up of the Indian coun- try, was one of the main causes of the financial crash. At the same time the slave gangs along the Ohio and Potomac rivers, practically the same as in Africa where the slave trade was maintained, aroused the abolition sentiment in Kentucky and Ohio and in con- gress to great intensity.
Acting Governor Quitman was the first governor of Mississippi (1836) to defend slavery in an executive message. He complained of "reviews, orations, tracts and even school books, emanating from the non-slaveholding States. These publications have been characterized by illiberal and odious comparisons, by false or mistaken misrepresentations of our character, morals and habits, and by sweeping denunciation of our civil institutions. . Within the past year . this interference has as- sumed a character which will no longer permit us to be silent or
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inactive. Organized associations have been formed in some of the non-slaveholding States, with the avowed purpose of effecting the abolition of slavery, in every State of the Union, by whatever means their envy, their fanaticism or their deep-seated malignity, may devise." He charged that attempts had been made to incite insurrection or organization among slaves for the promotion of emancipation. "The morality, the expediency, and the duration of the institution of slavery, are questions which belong exclusively to ourselves. It would degrade the character and prostrate the dig- nity of the sovereign State, to step down into the arena of con- troversy and discuss the morality, the propriety or wisdom of her civil institutions with foreign powers or with self-constituted as- sociations of individuals, who have no right to question them. It is enough that we, the people of Mississippi, professing to be actuated by as high a regard for the precepts of religion and moral- ity as the citizens of other States, and claiming to be more com- petent judges of our own substantial interests, have chosen to adopt into our political system, and still choose to retain, the in- stitution of domestic slavery."
Governor Lynch, who was elected by the opponents of Calhoun, was no less vigorous in repudiating outside interference. "The question of right involved admits of no parley, no intermeddling, no discussion from any quarter-nor can a proposition bearing on this point, either immediately or remotely, be listened to for a moment. In stamping upon these incendiary movements our in- dignant and decided disapprobation, there can be but one opinion. Mississippi has given a practical demonstration of feeling on this exciting subject that may serve as an impressive admonition to offenders; and however we may regret the occasion, we are con- strained to admit that necessity will sometimes prompt a summary mode of trial and punishment unknown to the law. But no means should be spared to guard against and prevent similar occurrences." (See Panic of 1835.)
Upon the collapse of credit in 1837, Governor Lynch asked the legislature "whether the passage of an act prohibiting the intro- duction of slaves in this State as merchandise may not have a salu- tary effect in checking the immense drain of capital annually made upon us by the sale of this description of property." To do so would only be obedience to the constitution. "It is freely admitted, and the objection may be made to such a law, that it would be at variance with the broad principles of our free institutions-its en- forcement, too, must always be attended with difficulty. Under such impressions I voted in convention against the clause imposing the inhibition; and under different circumstances, looking to its general operation, I should certainly still oppose it." But he be- lieved circumstances now warranted an experiment. He also noted that the prohibitive clause in the constitution had cast a cloud upon the validity of all bills of sale of negroes.
A committee of the house (Phillips of Madison chairman) in recommending the annexation of Texas in 1837, discussed the ques-
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tion of slavery as the reason of opposition to annexation, and an argument why the South should demand annexation, so that "an equipoise of influence in the halls of congress will be secured." (House Journal, 1837, p. 158). This committee said of slavery : "This system is cherished by our constituents as the very pal- ladium of their prosperity and happiness, and whatever ignorant fanatics may elsewhere conjecture, the committee are fully as- sured, upon the most diligent observation and reflection on the sub- ject, that the South does not possess within her limits a blessing, with which the affections of her people are so closely entwined and so completely enfibered, and whose value is more highly appre- ciated, than that which we are now considering. To this
system we owe more than we can well estimate of domestic com- fort and social happiness. To it we are chiefly indebted for the proud spirit of liberty which so eminently distinguishes the proud and highminded inhabitants of this happy region which every southern man, worthy of the name, is resolved before high heaven to protect and sustain, if need be, even at the hazard of his life. During the last winter the hall of representatives in congress was for the first time desecrated with a petition from slaves, on the subject of abolition. Abolition societies, created in a fiendish spirit of malignity, discreditable to the dignity of human character, are at this time multiplying with astonishing rapidity in the New England States.
This unholy crusade has not only a potent band of moral agitators in our own country, but they are encouraged and stimulated to action by a hypocritical fraternity of polar philanthropists across the Atlantic." In 1841 Governor McNutt transmitted to the legislatures communications from other States relative to the refusal of Northern States to sur- render fugitives charged with stealing slaves. He said: "The prin- ciples contended for by the governors of the States of Maine and New York are utterly indefensible, and in violation of both the letter and spirit of the national compact, and if adopted generally, by the non-slaveholding States, will inevitably lead to a dissolution of the Union." (For subsequent history see Administrations, Tucker to Sharkey.)
Niles Register, of February, 1849, notes a petition from Han- cock county to the governor of Mississippi asking an extra session of the legislature to prohibit the further shipping in of slaves from Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky and Missouri, where slavery had ceased to be profitable, "throwing an immense population on the extreme southern States, which is destined to increase with im- mense rapidity." But congressional prohibition of this traffic was bitterly opposed by the politicians. (See Nashville Convention.)
A writer in DeBow's Commercial Review said, about this time, that it was the belief of many citizens that the neglect of manufac- ture and the turning of all investment into agriculture could be remedied by prohibiting the further introduction of slaves. "In my opinion, there is a still more cogent reason for the adoption of this system of exclusion not only by Mississippi, but also by
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most of the extreme Southern States. In the northern slaveholding States (Kentucky to Virginia), slave labor is but little profitable, and a disposition is already manifested by them to sell us their slaves, and eventually abolish the institution within their respec- tive limits. The wild fanaticism of the abolitionist has checked this evil to some extent, but we should also anticipate it by forbid- ding the introduction of their slaves amongst us, and thus compel them to be our allies, by forcing them to retain their property, and thus possess a common interest with us in its preservation." (Vol. XI, p. 618).
The attitude of the extremists as the great war approached is stated in the resolution introduced in the Mississippi senate by I. N. Davis, November 1, 1858: "Whereas, At the adoption of the Federal Constitution, every State which formed the Union, save one, tolerated and protected slavery; and Whereas, property in slaves is directly and fully recognized by said constitution and also by the Holy Bible; Therefore, Resolved, That the institution of slavery, as now held and practiced in the Southern States, is neither legally nor morally wrong, and hence the law of congress making the slave trade piracy should be repealed." After two weeks, in which this proposition was thoroughly discussed, the proposition to revive the African slave trade was defeated by reference to committee. The author of the resolution had been the Unionist candidate for congressman-at-large in 1852, on the Foote ticket.
On the general subject of conditions S. S. Prentiss wrote to his brother in Maine, dated Natchez, July 25, 1831: "You ask me about the slaves in this country-how they are treated, etc. The situation of slaves-at least in this State-is not half as bad as it is represented, and believed to be, in the North. They are in general, as far as my observation extends, well clothed, well fed, and kindly treated-and, I suspect, fully as happy as their masters. Indeed, I have no question, that their situation is much preferable to that of the free negroes, who infest the Northern cities. To be sure, there are, occasionally, men who treat their slaves cruelly and inhumanly-but they are not countenanced by society, and their conduct is as much reprobated as it would be anywhere else. To free the slaves, and let them continue in the United States, would not, in my opinion, be any advantage to them: though if they could be transported to African again, it would be better. But that is impossible on account of their number-and even if they were all offered the privilege of going to Africa, I do not believe half of them would accept it. The sin of the business lies at the doors of those who first introduced slavery into this country. The evil now is too deep-rooted to be eradicated."
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