Thus the Revolution found slavery in all the colonies, north as well as
south. But it was then, so far south as Virginia, thought to be an evil.
That commonwealth had passed many laws to restrain it, but the King had
commanded the Governor not to assent to any of them. The Legislature,
replying, stigmatized the traffic as inhuman and a threat to the very
existence of the colony. Hostility extended from the trade to slavery
itself. Jefferson was for emancipation with deportation, and trembled
for his country as he reflected upon the wrong of slavery and the
justice of God. Patrick Henry, George Mason, Peyton Randolph,
Washington, Madison, in a word all the great Virginians of the time held
similar views.

The Quakers of Pennsylvania were, however, the most aggressive of
slavery's foes. So early as 1775 a society, the first in America if not
in the world for promoting its abolition, was formed in Pennsylvania. In
1789 it was incorporated, with Franklin for president. Similar
organizations soon rose in several northern States, numbering among
their members many of the most eminent men in the land. The British
Abolition Society, formed in 1787, and the labors of Wilberforce,
Clarkson, and Zachary Macaulay against the slave trade in the West
Indies, had influence here, as had still more the French Assembly's bold
proclamation of the Rights of Man.

The Ordinance of 1787 for the Northwest Territory marked a most decisive
point in the history of slavery. By its decree, in Jefferson's language,
there was never to be either slavery or involuntary servitude in the
said territory otherwise than in punishment for crimes. It is to the
everlasting honor of the southern members then in the Continental
Congress that they all voted for this inhibition. Virginia, whose assent
as a State was necessary to its validity, she having at this time rights
over much of the domain in question, also concurred. Whatever the
strictly legal weight of this prohibition over the immense Louisiana
purchase, it certainly aided much in confirming freedom as the
presupposition and maxim of our law over all our national territory.

Vermont had never recognized slavery save to prohibit it in its first
constitution. In New Hampshire it existed but nominally. The
Massachusetts constitution of 1780 virtually ended it in that State.
Gradual abolition statutes passed in Pennsylvania in 1780, in Rhode
Island and Connecticut in 1784. The constitution made it possib