Edmund Burke declared in the House of Commons that one of causes of the American Revolution was Britain’s inhuman traffic in Negro slaves, and that Southern families were simply at the real “mercy of the slaves and in need of protection from their uprising.” This materialized as thousands of slaves, incited by the proclamations of royal governors, flew to English protectors to be armed against the colonists.
Britain’s Responsibility
“On the eve of the Revolution we find firmly entrenched at the American South because British greed was supplemented by a few persistent and bold pro-slavery leaders who were able to induce the many of opposite views to grant their demands for the sake of harmony and peace. The sentiment of the colonists can be seen in the following second Article of the Continental Association, which was adopted and signed by all the members of Congress on the 20th of October 1774:
That we will neither import nor purchase any slave imported after the first day of December next; after which we will wholly discontinue the slave trade, and will neither be concerned in it ourselves, nor will we hire our vessels nor sell our commodities or manufactures to those who are concerned in it.
All the Southern colonies, as far as was possible, gave approval to the Articles of Association, which were no doubt inspired to a large degree by Mr. Jefferson in his instructions to the first delegation from Virginia. These were published in pamphlet form under the title of A Summary View of the Rights of British America. The following passage will indicate that feeling toward the mother country was as intense on the slavery question as on measures of taxation:
For the most trifling reasons, and sometimes for no conceivable reason at all, His Majesty has rejected laws of the most salutary tendency. The abolition of domestic slavery is the great object is the great object of desire in those colonies, where it was, unhappily introduced in their infant state. Yet our repeated attempts to affect this by prohibitions, and by imposing duties which might amount to a prohibition, have been hitherto defeated by His Majesty’s negative; thus, preferring the immediate advantages of a few British corsairs to the lasting efforts of the American States, and to the rights of human nature, deeply wounded by this practice.
(The Republican Party, The History of its Fifty Years’ Existence. Francis Curtis, G.P. Putnam & Sons, 1904, pp. 6-7)