More silly guys who worried that slavery would tear the country apart

wbull1

First Sergeant
Official Vendor
Joined
Jul 26, 2018
I have been quoting Thomas Jefferson about a "fire bell ringing in the night" in reference to slavery. Some posters assure me that there were hidden reasons contradicting what the secessionists said about why they seceded when they seceded. (It's true they have no evidence for their statements.) But guess what? Jefferson was not the first to worry that the country could not survive if slavery did.

George Washington expressed concerns over slavery's implications for the nation. In 1797, Washington is reported to have told a British guest: "I can clearly foresee that nothing but the rooting out of slavery can perpetuate the existence of our union, by consolidating it in a common bond of principal." [Washington's spelling] According to Thomas Jefferson’s notes, he told Edmund Randolph that if the country were to split over slavery, Washington, "had made up his mind to move and be of the northern." Washington's will included freeing the enslaved people he held upon the death of his widow, Martha. She freed her husband's slaves in January 1801, just over a year after his death.
 
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