Anti-Slavery Opinions before the Year 1800: Read before the Cincinnati Literary Club, November 16, 1872Poole, William Frederick
History
Anti-Slavery Opinions before the Year 1800: Read before the Cincinnati Literary Club, November 16, 1872
Poole, William Frederick
Antislavery movements -- United States; Slavery -- United States
[2] On one of the fly-leaves, written in a boy's hand, is "Mary
Washington and George Washington." Beneath is this memorandum: "The
above is in General Washington's handwriting when nine years of age.
[Signed,] G. W. Parke Custis," who was the grandson of Mrs.
Washington, and the last surviver of the family. He was born in 1781,
and died at the Arlington House in 1857.
In the appraisement of General Washington's estate, after his death,
this book was valued at twenty-five cents, and the Miscellaneous Works
of Col. Humphreys, at three dollars. The boy's scribbling, in the one
case, and the gorgeous binding in the other, probably determined these
values. In the appendix of Mr. Everett's Life of Washington, is
printed the appraisers' inventory of Washington's library. Tracts on
Slavery was valued at $1.00; Life of John Buncle, 2 vols., $3.00;
Peregrine Pickle, 3 vols., $1.50; Humphrey Clinker, 25c., Jefferson's
Notes on Virginia, $1.50, Tom Jones, or the History of a Foundling, 3
vols., (third vol. wanting) $1.50; Gulliver's Travels, 2 vols., $1.50;
Pike's Arithmetic, $2.00.
[3] The first of these tracts is "A Serious Address to the Rulers of
America, on the Inconsistency of their Conduct respecting Slavery:
forming a contest between the encroachments of England on American
liberty, and American injustice in tolerating slavery. By a Farmer,
London," 1783. 24 pages. 8vo. The author compared, in opposite
columns, the speeches and resolutions of the members of Congress in
behalf of their own liberty, with their conduct in continuing the
slavery of others. I have never seen the name of the author of this
tract. It was extensively circulated at the time, and had much
influence in forming the anti-slavery sentiment which later existed.
Another is "An Essay on the Impolicy of the African Slave Trade. In
two Parts. By the Rev. T. Clarkson, M. A. To which is added an Oration
upon the Necessity of Establishing at Paris a Society for Promoting
the Abolition of the Trade and Slavery of the Negroes. By J. P.
Brissot de Warville. Philadelphia: Printed by Francis Bailey, for 'the
Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery and the
Relief of Free Negroes unlawfully held in Bondage.' 1789." 155 pp.
8vo.
[4] These facts may also be found in Steadman's Narrative of an
Expedition to Surinam, vol. 2. p. 160; in Bishop Gregoire's "Enquiry
into the Intellectual and Moral Faculties and Literature of Negroes,"
p. 153; in Edw. Needles' "Historical Memoir of the Pennsylvania
Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery," p. 32; and in Brissot
de Warville's New Travels in the United States, p. 287, ed. 1792.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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