Slavery and States' Rights - in Which Wheeler Argues That The Southern Colonies Had Opposed Slavery

In Which Wheeler Argues That The Southern Colonies Had Opposed Slavery

Wheeler also argued that northerners were to blame for slavery. He says, "When the people of the South settled on the shores of Maryland, Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia, they had no intention of encouraging or even tolerating the institution of slavery. The thrifty New England seamen, solely with the view of profit, urged slavery upon all the Colonies".

Wheeler continues, "Oglethorpe and his colonists were possibly the most determined in resisting the importation, sale and use of African slaves; and for twenty years they were successful in the enforcement of the law which prohibited the landing of slaves in Georgia.

Wheeler adds, "The evil of this traffic soon became apparent to the people of the South, and when the Constitution was framed in 1787, the South demanded that the fundamental law of our land should inhibit this traffic of importing human beings from Africa. The South was resisted by the New England slave-traders."

One might construe that Wheeler was arguing that northern capitalists first "tricked" southerners into buying slaves, and then, once the south had heavily invested in this property, the north began to wage what Wheeler referred to as, "a war upon the institution of slavery."