’They are rising,—­
       All are rising,
    The black and white together.’

This faith is at once too sentimental and too dogmatic to suit those persons who have exalted economic efficiency into a fetish and who have talked loudly at times—­though rather less loudly since the Russo-Japanese War—­about the white man’s task of governing the backward races. But whatever progress has been made by the American Negro since the Civil War, in self-respect, in moral and intellectual development, and—­for that matter—­in economic efficiency, has been due to fidelity to those principles which Whittier and other like-minded men and women long ago enunciated.[2] The immense tasks which still remain, alike for ‘higher’ as for ‘lower’ races, can be worked out by following Whittier’s program, if they can be worked out at all.”

[Footnote 1:  Bliss Perry:  “Whittier for To-Day,” Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 100, 851-859 (December, 1907).]

[Footnote 2:  The italics are our own.]

3.  The Contest

Even before the Abolitionists became aggressive a test law had been passed, the discussion of which did much to prepare for their coming.  Immediately after the Denmark Vesey insurrection the South Carolina legislature voted that the moment that a vessel entered a port in the state with a free Negro or person of color on board he should be seized, even if he was the cook, the steward, or a mariner, or if he was a citizen of another state or country.[1] The sheriff was to board the vessel, take the Negro to jail and detain him there until the vessel was actually ready to leave.  The master of the ship was then to pay for the detention of the Negro and take him away, or pay a fine of $1,000 and see the Negro sold as a slave.  Within a short time after this enactment was passed, as many as forty-one vessels were deprived of one or more hands, from one British trading vessel almost the entire crew being taken.  The captains appealed to the judge of the United States District Court, who with alacrity turned the matter over to the state courts.  Now followed much legal proceeding, with an appeal to higher authorities, in the course of which both Canning and Adams were forced to consider the question, and it was generally recognized that the act violated both the treaty with Great Britain and the power of Congress to regulate trade.  To all of this South Carolina replied that as a sovereign state she had the right to interdict the entry of foreigners, that in fact she had been a sovereign state at the time of her entrance into the Union and that she never had surrendered the right to exclude free Negroes.  Finally she asserted that if a dissolution of the Union must be the alternative she was quite prepared to abide by the result.  Unusual excitement arose soon afterwards when four free Negroes on a British ship were seized by the sheriff and dragged from the deck.  The captain had to go to heavy