any slave by land or sea, and ordered the emancipation of every slave introduced from abroad. But the bill respecting resident slaves, prepared by the commissioners for codifying the laws, was a mere digest of existing enactments. Its authors agreed in wishing that the assembly might provide by amendment for universal freedom; and it is the testimony of Jefferson that, with the concurrence of himself, Pendleton, and Wythe, an amendatory bill was prepared "to emancipate all slaves born after passing the act;" but the proposal was blended with the idea of their deportation, and nothing came of it. The statute drafted by Jefferson, and in 1779 proposed by Mason, to define who shall be citizens of Virginia, declared the natural right of expatriation in opposition to the English assertion of perpetual allegiance, and favored naturalization; but it confined the right of expatriation and citizenship to white men.

In 1780, Madison expressed the wish that black men might be set free and then made to serve in the army. This was often done by individuals; but, before the end of the same year, Virginia offered a bounty, not of money and lands only, but of a negro, to each white man who would enlist for the war.

In May 1782, just thirteen years after Jefferson had brought in a bill giving power of unconditional emancipation to the masters of slaves, the measure was adopted by the legis lature of Virginia. Under this act more slaves received their freedom than were liberated in Pennsylvania or in Massachusetts. Even had light broken in on Jefferson's mind through the gloom in which the subject was involved for him, Virginia would not have accepted from him a plan for making the state a free commonwealth; but there is no evidence that he ever reconciled himself to the idea of emancipated black men living side by side with white men as equal sharers in political rights and duties and powers. The result of his efforts and reflections he uttered in these ominous forebodings: "Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free; nor is it less certain that the two races, equally free, cannot live in the same government." In the helplessness of despair, Jefferson, so early as 1782, dismissed the problem from his thoughts with these words: "I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that his justice

cannot sleep forever. The way, I hope, is preparing, under the auspices of heaven, for a total emancipation." At that time Washington was a kind and considerate master of slaves. By slow degrees the sentiment grew up in his mind that to hold men in bondage was a wrong; that Virginia should proceed to emancipation by general statute of the state; and that, if she refused to do so, each individual should act for his own household.

Delaware, which, on the twentieth of September 1776, adopted its constitution as an independent state, had, in proportion to its numbers, excelled all in the voluntary emancipation of slaves. Its constitution absolutely prohibited the introduction of any slave from Africa, or any slave for sale from any part of the world, as an article which "ought never to be violated on any pretence whatever."

In the constituent convention of New York, Gouverneur Morris struggled hard for measures tending to abolish domestic slavery, "so that in future ages every human being who breathed the air of the state might enjoy the privileges of a freeman." The proposition, though strongly supported, especially by the interior and newer counties, was lost by the vote of the counties on the Hudson. Jay lamented the want of a clause against the continuance of domestic slavery. Still, the declaration of independence was incorporated into the constitution of New York; and all its great statesmen were opposed to slavery. All parts of the common law, and all statutes and acts repugnant to the constitution, were abrogated and repealed by the constitution itself.

It has already been narrated that, in 1777, the people of Vermont, in separating themselves from the jurisdiction of New York, framed a constitution which prohibited slavery.

In July 1778, William Livingston, the governor of New Jersey, invited the assembly to lay the foundation for the manumission of the negroes. At the request of the house, which thought the situation too critical for the immediate discussion of the measure, the message was withdrawn. "But I am determined," wrote the governor, "as far as my influence extends, to push the matter till it is effected, being convinced that the practice is utterly inconsistent with the principles of

Christianity and humanity; and in Americans, who have almost idolized liberty, peculiarly odious and disgraceful." Of the two Jerseys, slavery had struck deeper root in the East from the original policy of its proprietaries; the humane spirit of the Society of Friends ruled opinion in West Jersey.

The name of Pennsylvania was dear throughout the world as the symbol of freedom; her citizens proved her right to her good report by preparing to abolish slavery. The number of their slaves had grown to be about six thousand, differing little from the number in Massachusetts, and being in proportion to the whole population much less than in New York or in New Jersey. The fourteenth of April 1775 was the day of founding the Pennsylvania society for the abolition of slavery, the relief of free negroes unlawfully held in bondage, and the improvement of the condition of the African race. In 1777, in the heads of a bill proposed by the council, a suggestion was made for ridding the state of slavery. The retreat of the British from Philadelphia, and the restoration to Pennsylvania of peace within its borders, called forth in its people a sentiment of devout gratitude. Under its influence, George Bryan, then vice-president, in a message to the assembly of the ninth of November 1778, pressed upon their attention the bill proposed in the former year for manumitting infant negroes born of slaves, and thus in an easy mode abrogating slavery, the opprobrium of America. "In divesting the state of slaves," said Bryan, "you will equally serve the cause of humanity and policy, and offer to God one of the most proper and best returns of gratitude for his great deliverance of us and our posterity from thraldom; you will also set your character for justice and benevolence in the true point of view to all Europe, who are astonished to see a people struggling for liberty holding negroes in bondage."

On becoming president of the executive council of Pennsylvania, Joseph Reed, speaking for himself and the council, renewed the recommendation to abolish slavery gradually and to restore and establish by the law in Pennsylvania the rights of human nature. In the autumn of 1779, George Bryan had been returned as a member of the assembly. In the committee to which on his motion the subject was referred, he pre

pared a new preamble and the draft of the law for gradual emancipation; and, on the twenty-ninth of February 1780, it was adopted by a vote of thirty-four to twenty-one. So Pennsylvania led the way toward introducing freedom for all. "Our bill," wrote George Bryan to Samuel Adams, "astonishes and pleases the Quakers. They looked for no such benevolent issue of our new government, exercised by Presbyterians."

The constitution of South Carolina of 1778 contained no bill of rights, and confined political power exclusively to white men; from the settlement of the state, slavery formed a primary element in its social organization. When Governor Rutledge in 1780 came to Philadelphia, he reported that the negroes offered up their prayers in favor of England, in the hope that she would give them a chance to escape from slavery. But British officers, regarding negroes as valuable spoil, defeated every plan for employing them as soldiers on the side of England. In 1769, George III. in council "gave his consent to an act of Georgia whereby slaves may be declared to be chattels ;" and the war of the revolution made no change in their condition by law.

The Puritans of Massachusetts permitted slavery by law. Negroes trained with the rest in the ranks, certainly from 1651 to 1656. Cases occurred where laws on marriage, adultery, and divorce were applied to them; and where they were allowed, like others, to give their testimony, even in capital cases. Color was no disqualification to the exercise of suffrage. At the opening of the revolution William Gordon, the Congregationalist minister of Roxbury, though he declined to "unsaint" every man who still yielded to the prevailing prejudice, declared with others against perpetuating slavery, and, in November 1776, published in the "Independent Chronicle," a newspaper in Boston, a plan sent from Connecticut for its gradual extermination out of that colony. In the same month and in the same newspaper "a Son of Liberty" demanded the repeal of all laws supporting slavery, because they were "contrary to sound reason and revelation." In January 1777, seven negro slaves joined in petitioning the general court "that they might be restored to that freedom which is

the natural right of all men, and that their children might not be held as slaves after they arrive at the age of twenty-one years." This petition was referred to a very able committee, on which are the names of Sergeant and John Lowell, both zealous for the abolition of slavery; and Lowell was then the leading lawyer in the state.

In May 1777, just before the meeting of the general court at Boston, Gordon, finding in the multiplicity of business its only apology for not having attended to the case of slaves, asked for a final stop to the public and private sale of them by an act of the state. Clothing the argument of Montesquieu in theological language, he said: "If God hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on the face of the earth, I can see no reason why a black rather than a white man should be a slave." A few weeks later the first legislature elected in Massachusetts after the declaration of independence listened to the second reading of a bill which declared slavery "without justification in a government of which the people are asserting their natural rights to freedom," and had for its object “to fix a day on which all persons above twenty-one years of age then held in slavery should be free and entitled to all the rights, privileges, and immunities that belong to any of the subjects of this state." A committee was directed to take the opinion of congress on the subject, but no answer from congress appears on record, nor any further consideration of the bill by the Massachusetts legislature.

Hancock, in his presidency, had shown proclivities to the South. When, on his resignation in October, a motion was made to give him the thanks of congress for his impartiality in office, the three northernmost states of New England voted in the negative, while the South was unanimous in his favor. After his arrival in Boston, the two branches of the general court saw fit to form themselves into a constituent convention, for which some of the towns had given authority to their representatives. In the winter session of 1778 the draft of a plan of government was considered. One of the proposed clauses took from Indians, negroes, and mulattoes the right to vote. Against this disfranchisement was cited the example of Pennsylvania. "Should the clause not be reprobated by the con