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mother country, existed nevertheless as a matter of fact CHAPTER in every one of the United Colonies. In half the Union it still exists, preventing, more than all other causes, that carrying out of the principles of the Revolution, that assimilation and true social union toward which the states have constantly tended, but which they are still so far from having reached.

That this anomaly was felt at the time is clearly enough evinced by the fact that no distinct provision on the subject of slavery appears in any state Constitution except that of Delaware, which provided "that no person hereafter imported from Africa ought to be held in slavery under any pretense whatever ;" and that "no negro, Indian, or mulatto slave ought to be brought into this state for sale from any part of the world."

The legal proceedings mentioned in a former chapter as having been commenced in Massachusetts prior to the Revolution to test the legality of slavery there, though resulting in favor of the claimants of freedom, failed, however, to produce a general emancipation. Some attempts made at the commencement of the Revolution to introduce the subject into the provincial Congress of Massachusetts were defeated; and that body seemed to recognize the legality of slavery by a resolution that no negro slave should be enlisted into the army. In 1777, a prize ship from Jamaica, with several slaves on board, was brought into Salem by a privateer. The slaves were advertised for sale; but the General Court interfered, and they were set at liberty. The declaration, presently inserted into the Massachusetts Bill of Rights, that "all men are born free and equal," was held by the Supreme. Court of that state to prohibit slavery. So it was decided in 1783, upon an indictment for assault and battery against a master for beating his alleged slave. A

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CHAPTER similar clause in the second Constitution of New Hampshire was held to guarantee personal freedom to all born in that state after its adoption.

An act of the Pennsylvania Assembly of 1780, passed principally through the efforts of George Bryan, and a little prior in date to the ratification of the Constitution of Massachusetts, forbade the further introduction of slaves, and gave freedom to all persons thereafter born in that state. Moderate as it was, this act did not pass without a good deal of opposition. Several members of Assembly entered a protest against it, acknowledging, indeed, "the humanity and justice of manumitting slaves in time of peace," but denouncing the present act as "imprudent" and "premature," and likely to have, by way of example, a most dangerous effect on the southern states, whither the seat of war seemed about to be transferred. In 1784, laws similar to that of Pennsylvania were enacted in Connecticut and Rhode Island.

The Virginia Assembly, on the motion of Jefferson, prohibited, in 1778, the further introduction of slaves. In 1782 the old colonial statute was repealed, which forbade emancipations except for meritorious services, to be adjudged by the governor and council. This repeal remained in force for ten years, during which period private emancipations were very numerous. But for the subsequent re-enactment of the old restrictions, the free eolored population of Virginia might now have exceeded the 1783. slaves. Maryland followed the footsteps of Virginia both in prohibiting the further introduction of slaves and in removing the restraints on emancipation.

That feeling which led in New England and Pennsylvania to the legal abolition of slavery, was strongly responded to by the most illustrious and enlightened citizens of Maryland and Virginia. Jefferson denounced

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the whole system of slavery, in the most emphatic terms, CHAPTER as fatal to manners and industry, and endangering the very principles on which the liberties of the state were founded" a perpetual exercise of the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submission on the other." Similar sentiments were entertained and expressed by Patrick Henry. "Would any one believe," he wrote, "that I am a master of slaves of my own purchase? I am drawn along by the general inconvenience of living here without them. I will not-I can not justify it! I believe a time will come when an opportunity will be offered to abolish this lamentable evil. Every thing we can do is to improve it, if it happens in our day; if not, let us transmit to our descendants, together with our slaves, a pity for their unhappy lot, and an abhorrence of slavery." Washington avowed to all his correspondents "that it was among his first wishes to see some plan adopted by which slavery may be abolished by law." But these generous sentiments were confined to a few liberal and enlightened men. The uneducated and unreflecting mass did not sympathize with them. Jefferson, in his old age, in a letter on this subject, says, “From those of a former generation, who were in the fullness of age when I came into public life, I soon saw that nothing was to be hoped. Nursed and educated in the daily habit. of seeing the degraded condition, both bodily and mental, of those unfortunate beings, not reflecting that that degradation was very much the work of themselves and their fathers, few had yet doubted but that they were as legitimate subjects of property as their horses and cattle. The quiet and monotonous course of colonial life had been disturbed by no alarm and little reflection on the value of liberty, and when alarm was taken at an enterprise on their own, it was not easy to carry them the whole length

CHAPTER of the principles which they invoked for themselves.

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In

the first or second session of the Legislature after I became a member, I drew to this subject the attention of Colonel Bland, one of the oldest, ablest, and most respected members, and he undertook to move for certain moderate extension of the protection of the laws to these people. I seconded his motion, and, as a younger member, was more spared in the debate; but he was denounced as an enemy to his country, and was treated with the greatest indecorum." With the advance of the Revolution the sentiments of Jefferson made a certain progress, resulting in the prohibition of the slave trade and the freedom of emancipations, already mentioned; yet, though the Constitution of Virginia declared life, liberty, and property to be unalienable rights, no legal restraint was placed upon the exorbitant and despotic power hitherto exercised over those held as slaves; and Washington, in 1785, complained in a letter to La Fayette that some "petitions for the abolition of slavery, presented to the Virginia Legislature, could scarcely obtain a hearing."

New York and New Jersey followed the example of Virginia and Maryland in prohibiting the further introduction of slaves-a prohibition extended to the domestic as well as to the African slave trade.

The same generous sentiments had penetrated also into North Carolina, especially among the Quaker population; but the legislators of that state did not fully sympathize with them. Complaining of the frequency and danger of freedom given to slaves, the Assembly of 1777 re-enacted the old restrictive law on the subject, with this modification, that, instead of the governor and council, the consent of the County Court was made necessary to emancipations; and all negroes emancipated without that consent were ordered to be resold into slavery. Yet in

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1786, by an act which declared the introduction of slaves CHAPTER into the state to be " of evil consequences and highly impolitic," a duty of £5 per head was imposed on all future importations. South Carolina and Georgia omitted to follow the example of the other states in enacting laws to prevent or restrict the further introduction of slaves. So long, however, as the war lasted, an effectual stop, so far as importations from Africa were concerned, was put to that detestable traffic. Congress, indeed, never abrogated that part of the American Association by which the African slave trade was totally renounced.

No mention was made in any state Constitution of the indented servants or redemptioners," so numerous a class in several of the states. The war of the Revolution put a stop to their importation; nor was it ever revived again to any considerable extent. But in Connecticut, even within the present century, the law still remained in force, by which debtors unable to meet the claims against them might be sold into temporary servitude for the benefit of their creditors.

While the states claimed, as to their internal affairs, to be independent sovereignties, as to every thing of common interest, especially the prosecution of the war with Great Britain, they acknowledged in Congress a supereminent and controlling authority. To determine the relative powers of Congress and the states, and to fix the terms and conditions of the confederation, was a matter of no little importance and of equal difficulty. As early as 1775, a project of colonial union had been brought forward in Congress by Franklin. When independence had been finally resolved upon, a committee of one from each 1776. state was appointed to report the draft of a confederation. June. This committee, among whose members were Samuel Adams, Sherman, Dickinson, and John Rutledge, soon re

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