"A Perilous and Grievous Burden"
Introduction
The great planter elite that had governed Virginia for generations experienced a time of disturbance and adversity after the Revolutionary War. Although some families managed to retain their position of high esteem and leadership, many others in the era after 1790 experienced a time of disaster. As the economic and population centers of the state shifted westward due to economic and social tensions, the existence of slavery remained one of their most perplexing problems. Their republican moral ideals undermined the system of labor that provided the material base which kept them in power and thus gave a kind of stability to the South. Virginians of the gentry class did not have to be especially introspective or self-critical to realize that their dilemma not only affected their present way of life but also threatened the future happiness of their children. That class included one of central Virginia's most assiduous planters, John Hartwell Cocke. (1)
Because of his involvement in the creation of institutions which tried to eliminate the evils and transcend the weaknesses of the existing society, Cocke throws into relief many of the major problems of his generation. His fundamental quandary was that of Virginia's slaveholding elite: reconciling slavery with the prevalent natural rights theories with their emphasis on liberty, the watchword of the revolution. His remarkable antislavery sentiment in a state where slavery was accepted as a norm led him down an inquisitive path full of unusual and unique approaches to the problem. His attempt to balance long-range goals with short term practicalities, as well as his contradictions, presents an example in the flesh of the central paradox which several generations of American historians have been trying to fathom: the existence of slavery in a land of freedom. (2)
As far back as 1901, American historians of antislavery have divided their subject into three distinct periods: the period until 1807, 1808–1830, and after 1830. Mary Stoughton Locke credited the few advocates of immediatism with ending the slave trade and abolishing slavery in the North during the first period but stressed that "gradual abolition" characterized antislavery thinking throughout the first two periods, especially after it "received an enormous impetus from the principles of the Revolution." Although many Virginians believed slavery to be "inconsistent with the principles and professions of the republic," "a moument of hypocrisy," the antislavery idea that remained dominant was gradual emancipation; southern slavery presented too many great "practical difficulties" to be overcome by "abstract theories" of antislavery thought. (3)
Robert McColley attributed "the fabulous scheme of a mass migration" away from Virginia to the schemers' burden of "a gloomy set of immutable principles which man, it appeared, could have no power to alter." Unfortunately, whites considered blacks natural enemies of inferior intelligence who must be removed upon manumission. According to McColley, neither "enlightened aristocrats" or "refined theories of republicanism and natural law" or "the increased zeal for freedom fostered by the Revolution" could match the "pious and primitive religious zeal of the dissenting sects" in their genuine spirit of emancipation. "At her best, Virginia produced men who were independent, liberal, and generous," but "each wanted to enjoy his private empire with a minimum of interference from others." (4)
Carl N. Degler noted that most antislavery southerners were "conspicuously concentrated" in the Upper South. He identified their limits in outlook or ideology as well as extent as conservative and narrow. He sympathetically interpreted their rejection of theorizing or speculating about what might be in favor of a more realistic, down-to-earth approach to eliminate slavery as a genuine atttempt to rid the South of a backward and stagnant economic and social system. The desire of southerners to compete with what they believed to be a progressive North, when joined with the contradictory elements of racism and a real concern for the black man, created a southern antislavery sentiment characterized by gradualism eventually accompanied by colonization. Degler perceptibly reminds us that in the lively first half century of the new republic there existed no Garrisons in either the South or the North and thus the most radical antislavery proponents in the South after 1790 were more likely to be in favor of gradual emancipation and removal of freed blacks to the western territories or Africa. (5)
Even though gradualism became the "dominant frame of mind" of antislavery rationale in Virginia and the South, David Brion Davis has noted that we cannot begin to understand its force "in antislavery thought unless we abandon the coventional distinction between Enlightenment liberalism and evangelical reaction." Antislavery gradualists attacked natural religion and its acceptance of slavery while at the same time absorbing the rationalists' "fear of sudden social change." Both Enlightenment liberals and evangelicals shared a confidence in "the slow unfolding of a divine or natural plan of historical progress." Thus, to gradualists, slavery appeared as an anachronistic "vestige of barbarism" slowly and almost imperceptibly giving way to the "diffusion of reason, benevolence or Christianity." They believed natural and historical forces delicately balanced bridged the widespread gap between their acceptance of the abstract propostion that slavery was wrong and their formation of antislavery policy which flatly rejected any form of immediatism. Directly related to the acceptance of gradualism by southerners was their adoption of the belief that free blacks had become the "principle barrier to voluntary manumission" and must somehow be removed before slavery could be ended. Even "radical and outspoken abolitionists" became convinced that colonization of free blacks was an "inescapable prerequisite to reform" in slaveholding Southern states. Others stressed education and moral training and expressed the belief that weak political institutions could do little to limit or end slavery. (6)
John Cocke provides a good example of the antislavery gradualist within whom the "distinction between Enlightenment liberalism and evangelical reaction" is blurred, if not eliminated by a merging of the two ways of thinking. Like most, Cocke did not systemize his thoughts and plans into a logically infallible rationale. Cocke was a user of ideas, not an original thinker. Inconsistencies and contradictions arose and were allowed to stand; Cocke either did not notice or chose not to deal with them. Yet he was a man of integrity who wanted to do the best for his slaves as well as for his fellow Virginians. He considered personal responsibility the highest priority in his idealistic attempt to liberate slaves. What follows is an attempt to understand Cocke's antislavery sentiment from his perspective; those perceptions were not always accurate, but they affected his actions just the same.