The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918

These resolutions were just another indication that the sentiment of the people of Kentucky during the decade from 1830 to 1840 was in favor of gradual emancipation of the slaves and their colonization in Africa. We have seen that this was the plan of the various church bodies, and also of Kentucky's greatest statesman, Henry Clay. Added to this we find that the majority of the liberal-minded people of the State held to the same conviction. But why, one asks, did all this feeling come to naught. The answer can be better expressed in the words of a contemporary Kentuckian, Nathaniel Shaler: "From the local histories the deliberate student will easily become convinced that if there had been no external pressure against slavery at this time there would still have been a progressive elimination of the slave element from the population by emancipation on the soil, by the sale of slaves to the planters of the Southern States, and by their colonization in foreign parts."423

During the decade from 1840 to 1850 this outside pressure of which Shaler speaks was at its height. We have seen typical examples of it within the borders of Kentucky in the discussion of the cases of Delia Webster, Calvin Fairbank and John B. Mahan. The change in the trend of popular thought during this period does not show itself much in the open until 1849, when the third constitutional convention was about to assemble. It was then that all phases of the problem of slavery were discussed, in the press, in the pulpit, on the platform and in the elections. George IX Prentice in an editorial gave the best exposition of Kentucky sentiment. He said: "The sentiment of Kentucky we believe to be, that slavery is an evil which must be borne with patience, simply because there is no known plan for its rapid extinction which would not produce incalculable sacrifices and appalling risks. At the same time we think the people of Kentucky are not inclined to increase the evil, but are inclined to favor its gradual emancipation and remote termination, by prohibiting the further introduction of slaves and by some provision tending to encourage voluntary emancipation with colonization. These measures they believe, taken in connection with the known tendency in widening circles to substitute free for slave labor, will hasten the social revolution in question as fast as it can be carried with safety to the Commonwealth or with benefit to the colonized negro."424

So universal was this feeling that even Cassius M. Clay, the only real abolitionist left in the State, came out more or less in favor of it. Under his leadership there was held at Frankfort, April 25, 1849, an emancipation convention to which all the more radical element were invited. Clay himself proved to be the most radical member of the convention but when they came to draw up a series of resolutions the only ones to pass were those which favored the absolute prohibition of the importation of any more slaves into Kentucky and the complete power to enforce and perfect, under the new constitution, whenever the people desired it, a system of gradual emancipation of the slaves.425 Here we are confronted with the unusual fact that the radical element of the State agreed with the plan of George D. Prentice, one of the chief pro-slavery men of Kentucky, and with that of Henry Clay.

While sojourning for his health in New Orleans in February, 1849, Clay sent Richard Pindell for publication a letter on the gradual emancipation of slavery in Kentucky, as the State at that time was about to hold another constitutional convention. This long and able document constitutes the most constructive program for the progressive elimination of slavery from the State that was ever drawn up. It embodied not only the fundamental principles of Clay's attitude on the Kentucky slavery question but it undoubtedly typified the real position of the average high-minded Kentucky slaveholder of that day. Clay frankly admitted that he had little hope of the immediate success of the plan, but he thought it was his duty to present the facts of the problem to the people of his own State, at a time when they were about to alter the existing constitution. The spirit of the plan as well as its context shows that Clay had thoroughly considered the emancipation question from all aspects, especially in relation to its practical operation. The actual plan was based on three principles: (1) that any gradual emancipation should be slow in its operation, so as not to disturb the existing habits of society; (2) as an indispensable condition the liberated slaves were to be sent out of the State and colonized in Africa; (3) and the expenses of their transportation and six months subsistence were to be borne by a fund supplied by the labor of the freed negro.

Regarding the progressive plan of liberation, Clay suggested that a certain date, January 1, 1855 or 1860, be fixed for the commencement of the plan. All slaves born after that date were to be free at the age of twenty-five; but they were liable thereafter to be hired out under State authority for a period of not more than three years, in order to raise money to pay for their expenses of transportation to their colony and their subsistence for the term of six months. It was suggested that the offspring of those who were to be free at twenty-five should be free at their birth, but subject to apprenticeship until they reached their majority and then to be hired out as in the case of the parent to pay the expenses of transportation to the colony and their settlement there. In the meanwhile the master would have the usual legal rights over the slaves and could sell, devise or remove them out of the State.

Clay considered colonization to be an indispensable part of his scheme and went so far as to say that he would be "utterly opposed" to any system of emancipation without it. He firmly believed that the nearly two hundred thousand blacks along with their descendants "could never live in peace and harmony and equality with the residue of the population" if they were free. He thought the expense of colonizing should be borne by a fund from the labor of the liberated Negro because he was the individual who secured the most benefit thereby. The non-slaveholder should not be taxed for any share in the expense and the slaveholder would have enough sacrifices to make without any additional financial burdens. Clay figured that the average annual hire of each slave would be about fifty dollars, or one hundred and fifty dollars for the whole period of three years. One third of this sum would be required for the transportation of the Negro to Africa and the other two thirds would go towards a fund to establish him in his new country.426

The persistence of Clay in his avowed convictions on the subject of slavery and emancipation in Kentucky was kept up in spite of the fact that within a few days after the publication of his plan of emancipation throughout Kentucky the House of Representatives at Frankfort by the unanimous vote of 93 to 0 declared that "we the representatives of the people of Kentucky, are opposed to abolition or emancipation of slavery in any shape or form whatever, except as now provided by the laws and constitution of the state."427 This was their answer to the plea set forth by Clay and strange to say the same group of men voted unanimously at the same session to return Clay for six years more to the United States Senate.

A convention of the so-called "Friends of Constitutional Reform" had been held at the State capital on February 5, 1849, and had drawn up a series of twelve resolutions on the several questions which were to be debated in the constitutional convention. They made mention incidentally of the desired reforms in connection with slavery stating "that we do not desire or contemplate any change in the relative condition of master and slave in the new Constitution, and intend a firm and decided resistance to any such change. We have no objection to a proper provision for colonizing the present free blacks, and those who shall hereafter be set free, but protest against abolition or emancipation without the consent of the owner, unless upon full compensation and colonization."428

This element dominated the convention. The body not only ignored any plan of emancipation but drew the reins of the existing institution tighter than ever before by incorporating in the Bill of Rights the famous phrase that "the right of property is before and higher than any constitutional sanction, and the right of the owner of a slave to such slave and its increase is the same and as inviolable as the right of the owner of any property whatsoever." Such a statement was, however, not brought on by the words of Clay, but was a direct answer to the "higher law than the constitution" plea of the abolitionists.429 The convention amended the standard article on slavery with a section to the effect that the "General Assembly should pass laws providing that any free negro or mulatto immigrating to, and any slave thereafter emancipated in, and refusing to leave that State, should be deemed guilty of a felony, punished by confinement in the penitentiary."

The obvious purpose of this amendment was to reduce the number of Negroes in the State. Accordingly every slave emancipated was forced to leave the State and the Negro population was decreased just so much every time any slaves were set free. The convention was thus willing to do something towards eliminating the Negro, but was not in favor of any scheme of a general gradual liberation of the slaves. The necessary legislative act for carrying out the provision of the constitution was enacted March 24, 1851.430 This law only went half way in that it only prevented those Negroes who had been freed in Kentucky from living in the State. It was not until March 3, 1860, that the prohibition was extended to all free Negro immigration into the State.431 An interesting development of this policy was shown in the enactment of the legislature in 1863 which declared it unlawful for any Negro or mulatto claiming to be free under the Emancipation Proclamation to migrate to or remain in the State. Any Negro violating this law was to be treated as a runaway slave.432

The desire of the State authorities to eliminate the free Negro was accompanied by constructive measures in behalf of the emancipated slave. On March 3, 1856, the State legislature passed a law appropriating $5,000 annually to aid the Kentucky Colonization Society in the transportation of free Negroes to Liberia.433 The universal sentiment of the time was that the salvation of the Negro race rested in their elimination from the State even as free men and their transportation to their native African soil. Henry Clay of all others was the most persistent advocate of colonization.

We have seen that the general trend of public opinion from about 1798 had been progressively in favor of gradual emancipation provided it was coupled with some form of colonization which would remove the liberated Negroes from the State. Public sentiment, however, received a serious set-back about 1838 with the beginning of the Underground Railroad system and the incoming of the abolitionist literature. In a speech in the Kentucky legislature of 1838 James T. Morehead, one of the leading anti-slavery statesmen of the State, portrayed the coming of the newer era in the history of Kentucky slavery when the people would make more strenuous efforts to hold firmly to the slavery institution. Morehead pictured the popular mind in these words: "Any man who desires to see slavery abolished—any friend of emancipation, gradual or immediate– who supposes for a moment that now is the time to carry out this favorite policy, must be blind to the prognostics that lower from every quarter of the political sky. Sir, the present is not the period to unmanacle the slave in this or any other state of the Union. Four years ago you might have had some hope. But the wild spirit of fanaticism has done much to retard the work of emancipation and to rivet the fetters of slavery in Kentucky.... The advocates of abolition—the phrenzied fanatics of the North, neither sleep nor slumber. Their footsteps are even now to be seen wherever mischief can be perpetrated—and it may be that while the people of Kentucky are reposing in the confidence of fancied security, the tocsin of rebellion may resound through the land—the firebrand of the incendiary may wrap their dwellings in flames—their towns and cities may become heaps of ashes before their eyes and their minds drawn off from all thoughts of reforming the government to consider the means necessary for their self-preservation—the protection of their families and all that is dear to men."434

Such was the idea of one of the most prominent public men of Kentucky and such became in time the opinion of the average citizen who had come to believe in gradual emancipation as the hope and solution of the Negro problem in the State. The future course of events regarding slavery in Kentucky is to be explained by this radical change of mind. Thus did the wise and constructive plans of the gradual emancipationists come to naught with the incoming of the radical abolitionist movement which the Kentucky populace thought would bring about a civil insurrection among the slaves in their own State. The abolitionists misunderstood the gradual emancipation movement in Kentucky and really fanned the flame of the pro-slavery sentiment that came in its place.

BOOK REVIEWS

The Negro in Literature and Art. By Benjamin Brawley. Duffield and Company, New York, 1918. Pp. 176. Price $1.25.

This is an effort to put in succinct form an estimate of the Negro's efforts in the creative world. The style of the book is largely biographical. The opening chapter deals with Negro genius. Then around such Negroes as Phyllis Wheatley, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Charles W. Chestnutt, W. E. B. DuBois, William Stanley Braithwaite, Meta Warrick Fuller, Henry O. Tanner, Frederick Douglass, and Booker T. Washington are grouped most of the facts as to the achievements of the Negroes in art, literature, and science. In the appendix there is a dissertation on the Negro in American fiction. A helpful bibliography and a short index are also added.

This book is unique in that it is the first work devoted exclusively to this aspect of Negro history. It undertakes "to treat somewhat more thoroughly than has ever before been attempted the achievement of the Negro in the United States along literary and artistic lines, judging this by absolute rather than by partial or limited standards." The work is the result of studies begun by the author years ago and published in booklet form in 1910 as The Negro in Literature and Art. The substance of this treatise is found also in Professor Brawley's A Short History of the American Negro. Certain articles included therein have already been published in the Springfield Republican, The Southern Workman, and the Dial. The appearance of this work in the new form is justified by the author on the ground that the constantly increasing material in this field has so changed his viewpoint that the time seemed ripe for a more intensive review.

The purpose of the author is a lofty one. Here we see the effort to inform the public that there is among Negroes a growing scholarship which must be reckoned with in determining the thought of this country. It is to convince the public that the Negro mind is functioning along all lines of thought known to other races of achievement. The purpose, too, is to set forth to Negroes examples of successful men and women in this field to serve them as an incentive to contribute to thought. Professor Brawley has, therefore, written an interesting book which should attract all persons desiring to understand those forces at work in the Negro mind and the manner in which they have found expression.

C. G. Woodson

Negro Folk Songs. By Natalie Curtis Burlin. Book I. New York and Boston, G. Schirmer. Pp. 42. Price 50 cents.

The unique features of Natalie Curtis Burlin's notation of Negro folk-songs, collected in the South, are their complete truth to the original folk-song, spirit and letter. The spontaneous part-singing of groups of Negroes is a rare phenomenon in folk-music, for most simple people sing only a unisono melody. Mrs. Curtis Burlin, unlike most former collectors, has recorded not only the melody and words, but the whole choral folk-song, as sung in the South, with all its different voices. To secure entire accuracy in so difficult a task, a phonograph was used and the work was mainly accomplished in all its wealth of octave at Hampton Institute, Virginia, under the auspices of which the collection was undertaken and for the benefit of which the publications are made. Not content with a by-ear approximation only of the folk-song, Mrs. Burlin gave especial care to the notation of every nuance of Negro singing—organic and rhythmic. The changing nuance syncopations that give such expressive accent to the different solo verses sung by the Negro "leader" have all been caught and put upon paper. Doctor Talcott Williams, of the New York School of Journalism, says that the example of this reverent and scholarly work marks a new era in the collecting of Negro folk-music in this country.

The words of the songs—true folk-poems—have been noted in dialect with the same truth to Negro rendering as the music. Furthermore, the syllables stressed in the music are stressed in the written poem as well; for in the mind of the Negro authors, words and music were one spontaneous creation, and it is the music that gives to the words the accent, instead of the words forming the basis of the accentuation of the music, as with us. This reproduction in verse of the original Negro rhythms which are full of unexpected emphasis and captivating syncopation forms a new departure in the manner of writing Negro poems and it is believed that modern poets and writers of vers libre will find interest in the richness and variety of Negro rhythms here shown.

Each song is prefaced by a few paragraphs of descriptive text and the dedications of the different records to men who have helped to advance the Negro summarize, in a sense, the progress of the race since emancipation.

The recording of Negro folk-songs was prefaced by Mrs. Burlin by a year's study of the native music of Africa. Doubleday, Page & Co. will bring out in the autumn her book entitled Songs From the Dark Continent, containing the results of careful study of native folk-lore and music told and sung by two African boys (one a Zulu and the other from the Ndan tribe) who had come directly to Hampton Institute from the Dark Continent. This book plainly proves the relationship of American Negro music to its parent stem in Africa, and reveals the poetic as well as musical gifts latent in the black race.

The Black Man's Part in the War. By Sir H. H. Johnston. Simpkin Marshall, London, 1917.

Taking into consideration that the United Kingdom now rules 50,000,000 of Africans who are well represented in the battle line by the thousands of Negroes fighting to make democracy safe in the world of the white man, from which the blacks are excluded, this sympathetic writer here endeavors to give these soldiers of color credit for their unselfish services. The highest tribute which he pays them is that their loyalty is incontestable. The writer, therefore, makes an appeal in behalf of safeguarding their interests and reasonably preserving their independence after the war. Having in mind the new alignments of trade, he sees the Africans as the producers of the tropical products which white men will need. Their future loyalty in the competitive commercial world after the war is also necessary to the salvation of the English people in the tropics and at home.

The writer believes too that to secure this necessary loyalty the natives must be given political recognition. The rights of the black man as a citizen of the empire must be affirmed wherever the territories have been under British rule long enough to acquire a very British tone in language, education and ideals. He hopes also that the present tendency of the natives of the late German possessions to prefer the rule of the British to that of their former masters may be further accentuated by the efforts of Englishmen to treat these natives with more consideration. The writer advocates also a fair division of land where the two races are brought into contact with each other as in Rhodesia.

To strengthen the claims he makes for the recognition of the black man the writer has well illustrated his book with plates showing the advancement of Negroes to arouse interest in their behalf. The book is, of necessity, incomplete, as the war has not yet ended; but, on the whole, students of Negro life and history will find it profitable to read this broad enlightened working program for changing the white man's attitude toward a large part of the human family which not only has done him no great wrong, but has borne his burdens when he has been about to fall beneath the load.

History of the Civil War. By James Ford Rhodes, LL.D., D.Litt. McMillan Company, New York. 1861-1865. Pp. 454.

Mr. Rhodes has covered this ground in detail in his History of the United States in seven volumes. But this work is not an abridgment of the three volumes of that history dealing with the Civil War. Since writing his first history he has had access to much new material and many valuable treatments of certain periods of the Civil War. He has, therefore, considered it necessary to bring out this new volume that he may show the bearing of these new facts on his grasp of this period of our history.

Influenced by the dominant thought of the present war, Mr. Rhodes treats such conditions as unpreparedness, the privations of the war, lack of tea and coffee, the lack of bread and meat, the difficulty of transportation, conscription, high prices, loans, high taxation, and consequent distress. The Negroes are necessarily mentioned in the discussion of slavery in the territories, the attempted slavery compromises, Lincoln's handling of the question, the effect on them of the movements of the armies, and the efforts at emancipation leading up to the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment. Mention is also made of the conduct of the slaves who accompanied the Confederates and of those who followed and fought with the Union army.

Mr. Rhodes is here at his best, that is, when writing on the Civil War. But this seems to be mere chance. He writes a good history of the Civil War because he happens to be a Unionist, and no one has yet proved that the Union cause was wrong. He is after all an impressionable historian, accepting almost anything he picks up, but embellishing it so well as to win the American public, whose scholarship has not yet performed the task of publishing an authentic history of the Civil War from the viewpoint of treating the records scientifically. When Rhodes elsewhere takes up the Negro in the Reconstruction he shows his lack of ability as an historian in accepting almost everything which he has heard or read about the Negro and in branding, therefore, as mistakes and failures all of the efforts to elevate the Negro to the dignity of citizenship and to deal with him as a human being.

NOTES

William Bernard Hartgrove, one of the five members who participated in the organization of the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History in Chicago in 1915, died at Albuquerque, New Mexico, on the twenty-fourth of April. In his death the Association lost a substantial supporter and friend. He was an unselfish, wide-awake and enterprising teacher, endeavoring always to be instrumental in the uplift of the Negro. During the last ten years of his life he devoted much of his time and means to the work of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, serving the local branch most of that period as secretary. When the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History was organized he was among the first to see its possibilities and to give it financial as well as moral support. He made himself useful in assisting the editor in his arduous duties during the days when the work was in the making. He contributed to the Journal Of Negro History, moreover, a number of articles, among which are: The Story of Maria Louise Moore and Fannie M. Richards, The Negro Soldier in the American Revolution, and The Story of Josiah Henson.