End of Slavery Quotes
The Boer war broke out when the Afrikaners of the Transvaal would not give suffrage and equality to the new British immigrants . However, Blacks were in even worse shape in the Transvaal. The British Colonial Minister had urged reform in this arena, but the British had fought an ugly war and settled for a non-Black Reform, platform assuring suffrage and other rights for the white English but assuring nothing for the Blacks. This set the stage for apartheid. In the settlement of the Boer War, England would not prolong the fighting and the casualties to gain civil and equal rights for the Black population which they had argued for and was one of the causes of the war. Just what Chamberlain warned about came to pass.
It was in fact, the following year when the South rebelled to prevent a “settlement”, but the irony was that the Civil War brought the settlement—emancipation-- faster and on less favorable terms than had they not rebelled and let the political process end slavery gradually as the majority of the nation wanted and morality dictated.
In April, 1784, the Continental Congress passed a series of laws that Jefferson had drafted for the NorthWest territory—Ohio then being the west and the states that would develop there. However, the quotation is the clause that the Southern States blocked and hence did not become law, as the Soothers states cared little about the status of the area regarding slavery, but feared that the new states wold become a sanctuary for runaway slaves. It was another case where Jefferson attempted to end slavery. It also was yet another example of the unwieldiness of the Continental Congress to manage the new nation which led up to the Constitutional Convention of 1787. Ironically, as a price for union, the Southern States demanded and obtained a disproportionate representation in the New House of Representatives by having 60 percent of their slaves counted inzallocating congressional seats. The senate also worked in their favor as there were enough Southern states to block any attack on slavery in the Senate. There was no democratic way to eliminate slavery and the Civil War resulted. However, Jefferson’s proposed law was passed by the last Continental Congress in June, 1787. The difference was that there was also added a proviso that required the return of all runaway slaves from the new territory and states which was lacking in the earlier attempt.
See {613644} for the earlier decree which this modified.
