Excerpt:
Lesson XII
North America
The United States
- This was once the most prosperous country in the word. Nearly a hundred years ago it belonged to England; but the English made such hard laws that the people said they would not obey them. After a long, bloody war of seven years, they gained their independence; and for many years were prosperous and happy.
- In the mean time both English and American ships went to Africa and brought away many of those poor heathen negroes, and sold them for slaves. Some people said it was wrong and asked the King of England to stop it. He replied that “he knew it was wrong; but that slave trade brought much money into his treasury, and it should continue.” But both countries afterwards did pass laws to stop this trade. In a few years, the Northern States finding their climate too cold for the negro to be profitable, sold them to the people living farther South. Then the Northern States passed laws to forbid any person owning slaves in their borders.
- Then the northern people began to preach, to lecture, and to write about the sin of slavery. The money for which they sold their slaves, was now partly spent in trying to persuade the Southern States to send their slaves back to Africa. And when the territories were settled they were not willing for any of them to become slaveholding. This would soon have made the North much stronger than the South; and many of the men said they would vote for a law to free all the negroes in the country. The Southern men tried to show them how unfair this would be, but still they kept on.
Citation: Miss M. B. Moore, Geographical reader for the Dixie children. Raleigh, N.C.: Branson, Farrar, & Co, 1863. A 863g
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good info!…