and when that body, moved to action by the conduct of the British troops in Boston, formed a Federal union under the name of the United Colonies, and authorized the raising of a Continental army, her George Washington was chosen its commander-in-chief and took command at Cambridge, Mass., on the 2d of July, 1775.

The Virginia people again met in convention on the 17th of July, 1775, and chose a committee of safety to take charge of the affairs of the colony, ordered the enlistment of troops, passed laws for the raising of money, the procuring of arms and military supplies, and for the conducting of elections by loyal voters. The story of the revolution need not be repeated. Virginia's Washington, after seven long years of arduous struggle and endurance, brought it to a successful termination, at her Yorktown, in 1781. But it is well to recall that it was Virginia, the most conservative of the colonies, which in the convention of 1776, on the 6th of May, instructed her delegates in Congress to propose "to declare the United Colonies free and independent States;" and that this resulted in a Declaration of Independence, on the 4th of July, 1776, which was drawn by her Thomas Jefferson.

SLAVERY IN

CHAPTER II.

VIRGINIA-THE

AGITATION OF THE SLAVERY QUESTION— DISTRIBUTION OF SLAVES IN THE STATE-JOHN BROWN'S INVASION.

WH

HILE the war of 1861-65 between the Union, or Northern and non-slaveholding States, and the Confederate, or Southern and slaveholding was not fought by the South as a whole, and certainly not by Virginia, for the perpetuation of slavery, nor by the North, at least in its inception, for its abolition; yet every candid student of the history of the colonies and the States must admit that the slavery question, often under the name of "State rights" of one kind or another, was a dominant factor making issues that led to the temporary disruption of the Union. The history of Virginia during that war would be incomplete without a brief review of the story of her prior connection with African slavery.

Slaves were introduced into Virginia by Dutch merchantmen in 1619; from that time the importation of African negroes was engaged in by nearly all the commercial nations of Europe, especially by the Dutch, Spanish, French, Portuguese and British. In 1646, a ship from Boston was the first from the American colonies, so far as known, to engage in this traffic, which from that time until 1808 was more or less shared in by the commercial Northern States. In 1670 there were 2,000 slaves in Virginia. At the breaking out of the revolution, slavery extended over the North American continent wherever settled by Europeans. In 1774, Rhode Island, which up to that time had been considerably engaged in the slave trade, interdicted the importation of slaves into her borders. In 1778, Virginia, the second of the States to act, prohibited the introduction of slaves from abroad. Other States followed and gradual emancipation began in many of the Northern States. When Maryland refused to sign the articles of confederation of 1777, unless Vir

17

ginia would give up to the confederation the great Northwest Territory beyond the Ohio, which all concede belonged to her by rights of charter, conquest and treaty, Virginia generously granted the request and conveyed that great region to the Union in 1787, only providing, that it should eventually be divided into four or five States, to be admitted on an equal footing with the original thirteen; that she should have land there, in designated localities, to distribute to her revolutionary soldiers, and that slavery should be forever prohibited from that region, but that slaves fleeing there from other States should be returned to their owners. By this deed of gift Virginia did more to draw the line of actual separation between the North and South on the question of slavery than did any or all other States combined; for the great and populous States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin and part of Michigan, which were created from that territory, were the strongest factors in sustaining the North during the civil war,* and in eventually saving the Union.

The federal convention of 1787, which framed the Constitution of the United States, provided, as one of its compromises, that the slave trade should not be abolished by Congress until 1808. This was opposed by Virginia, who desired its immediate prohibition; but it was adopted by a vote of the New England States joined with South Carolina and Georgia. Virginia was the author of the compromise upon the question of negro representation in the convention of 1787, and probably saved that body from disruption and secured the adoption of the Constitution. South Carolina determined to leave the convention if her negroes were not counted for her representation in the Congress, and it was evident that Georgia and North Carolina would follow her example; in which event the number of States to ratify the action of the convention would be wanting. Virginia proposed and carried through, as a compromise, the provision that five negroes should be counted as equivalent to three white people in making up Federal representation.

As one after another of the Northern States abolished slavery and the States carved from the Northwest Terri

*It is difficult to give the proper title to the war of 1861-65. It was not technically civil war, because it was not waged among citizens. Strictly speaking, it was not "Confederate," as it was not instituted by the Confederacy. The term civil is now commonly used.-[EDITOR.

tory were organized as free States, the agitation of the slavery question continued. In 1820 another compromise was adopted upon the admission of Missouri as a State, which provided that slavery should not be allowed in any State of the Union north of 36° 30', the latitude of the southern boundary of Missouri. In effecting this compromise, Virginia took a prominent part, acting as mediator between the two sections.

The agitation of the slavery question continued not only between the States of the Union, but within the limits of Virginia herself, as nearly one-third of her territory, mainly the Trans-Appalachian region, was practically a free State, and its citizens, many of whom were from the adjacent States of Pennsylvania and Ohio, constantly demanded special legislation on questions of representation in the general assembly, in consequence of the large preponderance of negroes east of that chain of mountains. Many citizens of the Great Valley and of Appalachia were much in sympathy with this feeling, and in 1823 the State came very near adopting gradual emancipation, a large number of the most influential men in every portion of the commonwealth favoring it. The chief hindering cause was the question, still unanswered, "What shall be done with this great body of negroes when emancipated?" About that time the abolitionists throughout the free States became very zealous in the propagation of their peculiar views upon the subject of slavery, and deluged Congress with petitions against it and flooded the country with abolition publications. This provoked a reaction in sentiment in Virginia and the other Southern States, which again led, in 1838, to the adoption of "State rights" resolutions by Congress, reaffirming that the Federal government had no right to interfere with slavery in the States where it existed. This for the time being quieted the agitation, but the question came up again in 1845, when it was proposed to annex Texas; and was again settled by a compromise agreement, that four new States might be formed out of that great country, those north of 36° 30' to be free States, and those south of it either free or slave as their citizens might elect.

The propagandists of the North and the ultra slaveholders of the South, as contending factions, still continued the agitation of this question. The three leading

religious denominations of the United States divided into northern and southern churches. In 1849 the question of the admission of California again brought strife on this subject into the Congress. After a long contention, the compromise measures of 1850, introduced by Henry Clay, were adopted, the majority of Virginians favoring them; but the question of the rights of the separate States in the territories was still left open. Then began "the irrepressible conflict," which could only be settled, as it subsequently proved, by a gigantic war.

In

The execution of the fugitive slave law, one of the compromise measures of 1850, soon became a flaming firebrand waving between the free and the slave States. 1854 the Kansas-Nebraska bill brought to fever heat the question of the control of slavery in the territories by those living therein; but, in spite of bitter opposition, a bill favoring the claims of the South was passed by a majority of nearly two-thirds of the Senate and 13 in the House, although representation in Congress at that time was Northern by a large majority. This result was largely brought about by the influence of Stephen A. Douglas, of Illinois, who contended that under the legislation of 1850 the citizens settled in the territories had the right to decide the question of slavery for themselves.

A reign of terror followed in Kansas, in 1855, when the two factions, each aided by extremists from either section of the Union, met in conflict, and opposing territorial governments were organized. In 1856, John Brown, a fanatical abolitionist, backed by others of that faction, mainly in New England, took an active part in these contentions in Kansas, leading a night attack against his pro-slavery neighbors. Riots occurred in Boston when a United States marshal attempted to enforce the fugitive slave law, and New England sent men, money and arms for the Kansas conflict.

In 1856 the question of the right of the owners of slaves to carry them into the territories came before the Supreme court of the United States for a decision, in the case of Dred Scott. The court held that the "Missouri compromise" was unconstitutional, that the territories were the common property of all the States, and that the Federal government was bound to protect the slaves as well as the other property of citizens settling in these territories. This added fuel to the flame of abolitionism. In the presi