Our society has been favoured with your letter of the 1st of
May last, and are happy that efforts so honourable to the nation are making in
your country to promote the cause of justice and humanity relative to the
Africans. That they who know the value of liberty, and are blessed with the
enjoyment of it, ought not to subject others to slavery, is, like most other
moral precepts, more generally admitted in theory than observed in practice.
This will continue to be too much the case while men are impelled to action by
their passions rather than their reason, and while they are more solicitous to
acquire wealth than to do as they would be done by. Hence it is that India and
Africa experience unmerited oppression from nations which have been long
distinguished by their attachment to their civil and religious liberties, but who
have expended not much less blood and treasure in violating the rights of
others than in defending their own. The United States are far from being
irreproachable in this respect. It undoubtedly is very inconsistent with their
declarations on the subject of human rights to permit a single slave to be
found within their jurisdiction, and we confess the justice of your strictures
on that head.
Permit us, however, to observe, that although consequences ought
not to deter us from doing what is right, yet that it is not easy to persuade
men in general to act on that magnanimous and disinterested principle. It is
well known that errors, either in opinion or practice, long entertained or
indulged, are difficult to eradicate, and particularly so when they have
become, as it were, incorporated in the civil institutions and domestic economy
of a whole people.
Prior to the great revolution, the great majority or rather
the great body of our people had been so long accustomed to the practice and
convenience of having slaves, that very few among them even doubted the
propriety and rectitude of it. Some liberal and conscientious men had, indeed,
by their conduct and writings, drawn the lawfulness of slavery into question,
and they made converts to that opinion ; but the number of those converts
compared with the people at large was then very inconsiderable. Their doctrines
prevailed by almost insensible degrees, and was like the little lump of leaven
which was put into three measures of meal: even at this day, the whole mass is
far from being leavened, though we have good reason to hope and to believe that
if the natural operations of truth are constantly watched and assisted, but not
forced and precipitated, that end we all aim at will finally be attained in
this country.
The Convention which formed and recommended the new
Constitution had an arduous task to perform, especially as local interests, and
in some measure local prejudices, were to be accommodated. Several of the
States conceived that restraints on slavery might be too rapid to consist with
their particular circumstances; and the importance of union rendered it
necessary that their wishes on that head should, in some degree, be gratified.
It gives us pleasure to inform you, that a disposition
favourable to our views and wishes prevails more and more, and that it has
already had an influence on our laws. When it is considered how many of the
legislators in the different States are proprietors of slaves, and what
opinions and prejudices they have imbibed on the subject from their infancy, a
sudden and total stop to this species of oppression is not to be expected.
We will cheerfully co-operate with you in endeavouring to
procure advocates for the same cause in other countries, and perfectly approve
and commend your establishing a correspondence in France. It appears to have
produced the desired effect; for Mons. De Varville, the secretary of a society
for the like benevolent purpose at Paris, is now here, and comes instructed to
establish a correspondence with us, and to collect such information as may
promote our common views. He delivered to our society an extract from the
minutes of your proceedings, dated 8th of April last, recommending him to our
attention, and upon that occasion they passed the resolutions of which the
enclosed are copies.
We are much obliged by the pamphlets enclosed with your
letter, and shall constantly make such communications to you as may appear to
us interesting.
By a report of the committee for superintending the school
we have established in this city for the education of negro children, we find
that proper attention is paid to it, and that scholars are now taught in it. By
the laws of this State, masters may now liberate healthy slaves of a proper age
without giving security that they shall not become a parish charge; and the
exportation as well as importation of them is prohibited. The State has also
manumitted such as became its property by confiscation; and we have reason to
expect that the maxim, that every man, of whatever colour, is to be presumed to
be free until the contrary be shown, will prevail in our courts of justice.
Manumissions daily become more common among us; and the treatment which slaves
in general meet with in this State is very little different from that of other
servants.
I have the honour to be, gentlemen,
Your humble servant,
John Jay,
President of the Society for Promoting the Manumission of
Slaves.
_______________
* In 1788 a society in France, and another in England,
formed for promoting the abolition of slavery, opened a correspondence with the
New York society through its president. The above letter to the English society
was from Jay's pen. See letter from Granville Sharp, May 1, 1788.
SOURCE: Henry P. Johnston, Editor, The Correspondence and Public Papers of John Jay Volume 3: 1782-1793,
p. 340-4
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