Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/413

 Rights, that "all men arc born free and equal," washeld 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 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 farther 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 stales, 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 In 1782, the old colonial statute was repealed, which forbade emancipations except for meritorious services, to be adjudged by the governor and council.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 reënactment of the old restrictions, the free colored population of Virginia might now have exceeded the 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. denounced the whole system of slavery, in the most emphatic terms, 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. "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