Message From the President of the United States Stating the Interpretation Which Has Been Given To The Act Entitled “An Act in Addition to the Acts Prohibiting the Slave Trade. [with] A Report of the Committee to Whom was Referred So Much of the President’s Message, of the 7th of December last, as relates to the Suppression of the Slave Trade.

MONROE, James.

$1,500.00

Item Number: 132709

Washington, D.C: Printed by Gales & Seaton, 1819-1826.

Two rare printed pamphlets regarding President James Monroe’s position on the prohibition of the Slave Trade. Octavo. In very good condition. Rare.

During the course of his presidency, Monroe remained convinced that slavery was wrong and supported private manumission, yet at the same time insisted that any attempt to promote emancipation would cause problems. Monroe believed that slavery had become a permanent part of southern life, and that it could only be removed on providential terms and like many other Upper South slaveholders, he believed that a central purpose of government was to ensure "domestic tranquility" for all. He feared for public safety in the United States during the era of violent revolution on two fronts. First, from potential class warfare of the French Revolution in which those of the propertied classes were summarily purged in mob violence and then preemptive trials, and second, from possible racial warfare similar to that of the Haitian Revolution in which blacks, whites, then mixed-race inhabitants were indiscriminately slaughtered as events there unfolded. In 1820, Monroe signed the Missouri Compromise, which admitted Missouri as a slave state but banned slavery from territories north of the parallel 36°30′ north. He also became a member of the American Colonization Society, which sought to aid freed slaves in colonizing Africa.