Virginia's Attitude Toward Slavery and SecessionLongmans, Green, and Company, 1909 - 329 pages |
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Common terms and phrases
abolition of slavery Abolitionists Abraham Lincoln action admitted to probate adopted African African slave trade amendment American Colonization Society Amherst County ANTI-SLAVERY SENTIMENTS attitude Bancroft battle Burgesses cause citizens Civil Clerk's Office condition Confederacy Congress constitution Cotton County Court Records dated declared delegates desire effect efforts emancipation enactment evil executors existence Extract Federal Government Fort Sumter free negroes freedom Fugitive Slave Law George Governor Henry History of Slavery History of United House of Burgesses Idem inaugural institution of slavery insurrection James Jefferson land Legislature Letters Liberia liberty Madison manumitted ment Mercer National North Northern Ohio peace political population position present President Lincoln pro-slavery prohibiting provision race Randolph Republican Party resolution respect says seceded secession sections slaveholders slavery in Virginia South Carolina Southern SPECIMENS OF DEEDS speech statute Sumter territory tion Union VIEWS Virginia Convention vote Washington Wendell Phillips William Lloyd Garrison writes wrote
Popular passages
Page 19 - He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither.
Page 19 - That all men are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot by any compact deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.
Page 181 - John Brown's effort was peculiar. It was not a slave insurrection. It was an attempt by white men to get up a revolt among slaves, in which the slaves refused to participate. In fact, it was so absurd that the slaves, with all their ignorance, saw plainly enough it could not succeed.
Page 278 - Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right, — a right which, we hope and believe, is to liberate the world.
Page 70 - And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God ? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath?
Page 6 - I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so; and I have no inclination to do so.
Page 178 - I now reiterate these sentiments ; and in doing so I only press upon the public attention the most conclusive evidence of which the case is susceptible, that the property, peace and security of no section are to be in any wise endangered by the now incoming administration.
Page 174 - To the proposition, then, that slaves, whose cases come within the terms of this clause, "shall be delivered up," their oaths are unanimous. Now, if they would make the effort in good temper, could they not, with nearly equal unanimity, frame and pass a law by means of which to keep good that unanimous oath?
Page 175 - That the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the States, and especially the right of each State to order and control its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment exclusively...
Page 278 - Nay : we hold, with Jefferson, to the inalienable right of communities to alter or abolish forms of government that have become oppressive or injurious ; and, if the Cotton States shall decide that they can do better out of the Union than in it, we insist on letting them go in peace.