| | 1 | Author: | Woodson
Carter Godwin
1875-1950 | Add | | | Title: | A Century of Negro Migration  | | | | Published: | 2003 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | THE migration of the blacks from the Southern
States to those offering them better
opportunities is nothing new. The objective
here, therefore, will be not merely to present the
causes and results of the recent movement of
the Negroes to the North but to connect this
event with the periodical movements of the
blacks to that section, from about the year 1815
to the present day. That this movement should
date from that period indicates that the policy
of the commonwealths towards the Negro must
have then begun decidedly to differ so as to
make one section of the country more congenial
to the despised blacks than the other. As a
matter of fact, to justify this conclusion, we
need but give passing mention here to developments
too well known to be discussed in detail.
Slavery in the original thirteen States was the
normal condition of the Negroes. When, however,
James Otis, Patrick Henry and Thomas
Jefferson began to discuss the natural rights of
the colonists, then said to be oppressed by Great
Britain, some of the patriots of the Revolution
carried their reasoning to its logical conclusion,
contending that the Negro slaves should be
freed on the same grounds, as their rights were
also founded in the laws of nature.1
1 Locke, Anti-Slavery, pp. 19, 20, 23; Works of John Wool-,
man, pp. 58, 73; and Moore, Notes on Slavery in Massachusetts,
p. 71.
And so it
was soon done in most Northern commonwealths. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
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