Posted on 08/27/2025 9:44:47 AM PDT by ProgressingAmerica
John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the United States, was a staunch opponent of slavery.
(Excerpt) Read more at csac.history.wisc.edu ...
https://hamilton.gilderlehrman.org/supporting-document/act-gradual-abolition-slavery-new-york-state-1799
Jay proposed abolishing slavery in New York State’s first constitution in 1777, but he could not get enough support at the time. However, when he became governor of New York in 1799, the Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery passed both the Senate and the Assembly with little opposition and Jay signed it into law.
Friendly ping, no reply needed
Some abolitionists may have bought slaves in order to save them from abuse.
I wonder how people would feel about "An Act for the Gradual Abolition of Rape."
If slavery is so morally bad, why is it okay to let people wait to end it?
Well thanks, though I saw your headline before I saw your ping.
:)
I think that very likely happened, and in fact I do seem to recall reading something to that effect years ago.
People who would do such a thing should be admired for sacrificing their own money to advance their principles.
"Putting your money where your mouth is" garners respect.
Fair enough.
I’m not sure but lets keep in mind, gradual is how slavery was abolished in most cases.
Gradual is the correct mode of abolitionism. It’s better for both the slaves and the slave owners, leaving adjustment time for both.
How could gradual not be the correct? The British gradually abolished slavery. 1833 was not immediate.
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My ancestor fought with the Union Cavalry, was from Tennessee, and owned slaves. Ironically he didn’t have to relinquish his ownership until December of 1865. Many stayed with him after the war with a couple of them forming the town of Locke in West Tennessee.
No friend to the Catholics though ...
But I guess Catholics hadn’t been nice to his French Protestant ancestors ...
Because that time cannot be judged by modern time. The culture was different and under England slavery went back to the 1600 hundreds. So, all of society was used to the concept of slavery even if most Northerners were against. Soon they abolished slavery after America was formed by the Constitution. I believe it was 9 of 13 states that soon abolished slavery.
Cheap Irish labor allowed Northerners to seel their slaves to the South and then vilify the South for owning slaves. It was cheaper to exploit the Irish than to own slaves.
I see the benefits of doing it gradually, but i'm not sure the slave would agree that this is the best way.
Also, for people claiming the moral high ground for "abolishing" slavery, it's abolishment on the payment plan. They never really own it until they pay it off with actual freedom.
That's a dumb question. Entrenched abuses are hard to abolish overnight. But maybe if one assumes that you think slavery wasn't that morally bad, the question might make some sense.
As I have pointed out to people many times, you haven't really "abolished" it so long as you still have it.
Most of those states that claimed to have "abolished" it, simply said "we will at some future time abolish it."
Pennsylvania had slaves in the 1840 census, some 60 years or so after they "abolished" it.
Didn't say they weren't, but claiming you did, when you actually didn't, should preclude you from claiming you did.
But maybe if one assumes that you think slavery wasn't that morally bad, the question might make some sense.
I think my point is that *THEY* didn't think slavery was that morally bad, else it wouldn't have taken them so long to abolish it. Massachusetts, as much as I consider them to be absolute @$$hole troublemakers, at least had the proper moral conviction on the matter, and ended it quickly, albeit through legal activism and a deliberate misinterpretation of the law.
As for me, I had no impact on that era, so it isn't really relevant what I think about the subject, but just for the record, I consider slavery to be morally bad. (except in punishment of a crime)
And nobody cares if you abuse the Irish. They probably deserve it.
:)
I can see this comment applying equally to American as British abolitionism, so I agree.
A Look Back on Founding Father John Jay’s Relationship With SlaveryBy David Levine
January 25, 2022[excerpt]
Abisch contends that Jay did not share the view of many Southern slaveholders that Black Africans were somehow less than human. He notes a passage in a letter Jay wrote to his son, Peter Augustus Jay, in 1791: “Providence has placed these persons in stations below us. They are servants, but they are men; and kindness to inferiors more strongly indicates magnanimity than meanness.”
That humanity “makes it even more difficult to understand Jay’s willingness to participate in an institution he opposed,” Abisch says. Jay was far from alone in that conflict, however. “We can speculate that he may have thought along the lines expressed by Patrick Henry,” Abisch says, who once wrote: “Would anyone believe that I am master of slaves by my own purchase? I am drawn along by the general inconvenience of living without them. I will not – I cannot justify it, however culpable my conduct.” The wealthy landowners needed slaves to maintain their lifestyles, while at the same time found slavery dishonorable. “I think that’s where John Jay was,” Abisch says.
Jay advocated manumission, which allowed slave owners to free their slaves on their own terms, a slower process than abolition. Jay was a founding member of the New York Society for Promoting the Manumission of Slaves (along with Alexander Hamilton; see sidebar) and its first president. Manumission gave slave owners time to earn a return on their investment, and Jay, who owned as many as six slaves at one time, was a capitalist. “I purchase slaves and manumit them at proper ages and when their faithful services shall have afforded a reasonable retribution,” Jay admitted.
But Jay also championed abolition… sort of. He called for it in 1777, “not immediately but gradually,” Abisch says, during the writing of the constitution for the new state of New York. After serving as the first chief justice of the Supreme Court, Jay was elected governor in 1795. Four years later, he signed the state’s first abolition law, titled “An Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery.” This half-backed measure stated that from July 4 of that year, any child born to slave parents would be free. However, these same children were still required to serve the mother’s owner until males reached age 28 and females 25. “The law thus defined the children of slaves as a type of indentured servant while slating them for eventual freedom,” according to an article on the Selected Papers of John Jay website, at Columbia University. It wasn’t until 1827 that male slaves were freed.
Though he opposed bondage, Jay grievously misunderstood it. When his wife, Sally Jay, traveled to Europe, she took with her a slave named Abigail. While in Paris, Abigail ran away. She was captured and jailed. Sally Jay arranged for her release, but Abigail became ill and died. Jay was stunned. “I cannot conceive a motive,” he wrote in a 1783 letter. “I had promised to manumit her upon our return to America, provided she behaved properly in the meantime.” He, like many slaveholders, saw himself as a “good” owner, when there is no such thing when it comes to possessing like property another human being.
The policy of gradual emancipation of children at a certain age did not result in many free people. It acted as an economic impetus to sell slaves to people in other states. The 1860 census reveals there were more free blacks in the slave states than in the free states.
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