John Murray Quotes
I do hereby declare all indented servants, negroes or others (appertaining to rebels) free, that are able and willing to bear arms, they joining his majesty’s troops …
This was America’s first emancipation of slaves. It was not done so much for the principle of equality or rights of slaves, but as an intimidation technique applied to the rebellious Americans.
John Murray, 1732-1809, [Lord Dunsmore], English Member of Parliament, English Governor of Virginia, Proclamation, November 7, 1775
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
By 1863, Negro troops were being used to fill in gaps in the Union forces. Many union generals resisted having colored troops under their command. Thomas, however, welcomed them, and won several major battles where black soldiers were instrumental in victory.
At the time of the American Revolution there were strong abolitionist forces working against slaver and the slave trade. Southern American slave-owners, the political leadership of the South, feared that England would force slavery reforms on their colonies. Hence, severance from England eliminated that threat. In retrospect, they were quite right for it was England which outlawed the slave trade and led the worldwide anti-slavery movement which had little effect on the new independent America and the political bias in favor of the south of the American compact caused slavery to survive in America, long after the vast majority of the population would have it ended. It took the Civil War to do it.
Jefferson’s views, actions and inactions regarding slavery are very complex and contradictory. This quotation is one example of the many statements and activities to end slavery. Yet he never freed his own slaves (as did George Washington) and he fathered a child by one of his slaves with no attempt at freeing even her and the child. The Andrew Dickson White article is one of the first serious studies of the Jefferson contradictions regarding slavery.
Lincoln had promised amnesty to Southerners who would pledge loyalty to the Union. What many feared was that this would include slave owners re-enslaving their former "property," or that the government would allow them to do so in order to stop the rebellion.
The Act was passed by the Pennsylvania General Assembly whose clerk interestingly enough was Tom Paine.
See {613949} for the Governor’s letter to George Washington.
One of the many complaints that many people made at the time about Smith and his Mormons was that they opposed slavery. In fact, Smith not only opposed it be had a plan for compensating the slave owner and a method for paying for it. Smith was not advocating the kinds of personal lifestyle issues of his church the way modern religious leaders do, but was concerned with the much larger issues of expansionism, corruption of the courts and judiciary, and land distribution. He was a classic reform candidate in that sense. Smith had written to most of the then likely Presidential candidates of both major parties asking for their position on the Mormons who were facing persecution wherever they went. None of the politicians would make any satisfactory commitments. Smith took Direct Action and became the only major religious official to have run for the Presidency of the United States until Pat Robertson tried and failed in 2000. Smith’s assassination shortly thereafter cut his run for the Presidency short before it made much headway and politically he had no chance to affect the race.
In this case, the Pope was obeyed on the issue of slavery. However, Papal injunctions against slavery have not always had the desired effect. See {617632}
It is not known what actually happened thereafter. However, from the intensity of this letter, it is likely that unless Rice was killed or wounded in battle, he went to get his daughter and deal with her “owner”. An interesting side note is that the slave owner actually sent the letter to the Commanding Union General Rosecrans complaining. The mental set of Southern Slave Owners was incredible to us today, but that is one of the reasons that Reconstruction was so difficult. Southerners could not see anything that they did that was wrong. Unfortunately, there are a few racist people with those views still in America plus many throughout the world.
He was the Russian Reformer who ended serfdom and gave land to the peasants and then was assassinated. Ironically, both Alexander II and Lincoln were assassinated—because of their reform efforts—Lincoln for going too far; the Czar for not going far enough. See the Nickname that was given to the Czar: {622809}.
This quotation illustrates the strong abolitionist tendency in the Ohio Territory. Under this clause, escaped slaves from Southern states would not be returned by the state authorities. Even more insulting to the slave enthusiasts of the South, if a Southerner brought any slaves into Ohio with them as was common for Southerners traveling with their personal slaves or horse team drivers, those slaves would be free. An interesting aspect of this clause of the Ohio Constitution was that the beginning was, word for word, copied from the Northwest Ordinance of 1787. See {618100}.
The military weapon of freeing the slaves was advocated from the earliest days of the Civil War. However, most Northern political leaders were sure that the South would be economically broken by emancipation, and many were hoping to end the rebellion swiftly by some military victories, and the Confederate soldiers could return to an economically viable South. If the slaves were freed, Southern soldiers would have little to return to and would all have to become laborers and thus would fight then to the death. However, the more battlefield success the South had, the more the combination of the moral pressure of the abolitionists and the practical strategic pressure of those who wanted to cripple the South militarily by freeing the slaves, influence Lincoln’s decision.
Washington was from Virginia, the largest of the slave states, and he himself owned slaves. In his will he emancipated all his slaves. Most of his fellow Southern Slave owners however not only disagreed about the abolition of slavery but were adamant that slavery spread so that the abolitionists never attain a majority.
As an entertainer she had toured much of the world and seen American slavery and that of some other nations. She became a staunch abolitionist and like entertainers in the 20th and 21st centuries she used her celebrity to give anti-slavery lectures and perform for audiences where she donated the proceeds of the event to the abolition cause. She is a particularly interesting political figure in that she seems to be one of the first entertainers to perform for a social cause and become an activist.
This fear was great among many who were abolitionists as potentially there might be mass slaughter of all Southern whites.
This was one of the several early unofficial Emancipations that was issued in the Civil War.
loyalty oath to the King of England His “Ethiopian Regiment” was the first Black military regiment in North America. Soon after, Rhode Island organized a Black military unit—see {613949}.
