resaid clause in the declaration
of rights. The judges and jury were of opinion that he had
no right to imprison or beat the negro. He was found guilty
and fined 40 shillings. This decision put an end to the idea
of slavery in Massachusetts."[635]

There are two things in the above that throw considerable uncertainty
about the subject as to the precise date of the end of slavery in the
Commonwealth. First, the suit referred to was tried in 1783, three
years after the adoption of the new Constitution. Second, the good
doctor does not say that the decision sealed the fate of slavery, but
only that it "was a mortal wound to slavery in Massachusetts."

From 1785-1790, there was a wonderful change in the public opinion of
the Middle and Eastern States on the subject of slavery. Most of them
had passed laws providing for gradual emancipation. The Friends of New
York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania began to organize a crusade against
domestic slavery. In the fall of 1789, while the Congressional debates
were still fresh in the minds of the people, the venerable Dr.
Benjamin Franklin, as president of the "Pennsylvania Society for
Promoting the Abolition of Slavery," etc., issued the following
letter:--

"AN ADDRESS TO THE PUBLIC.

_From the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition
of Slavery, and the Relief of Free Negroes unlawfully held
in Bondage_.

It is with peculiar satisfaction we assure, the friends of
humanity, that, in prosecuting the design of our
association, our endeavors have proved successful, far
beyond our most sanguine expectations.

"Encouraged by this success, and by the daily progress of
that luminous and benign spirit of liberty which is
diffusing itself throughout the world, and humbly hoping for
the continuance of the divine blessing on our labors, we
have ventured to make an important addition to our original
plan; and do therefore earnestly solicit the support and
assistance of all who can feel the tender emotions of
sympathy and compassion, or relish the exalted pleasure of
beneficence.

"Slavery is such an atrocious debasement of human nature,
that its very extirpation, if not performed with solicitous
care, may sometimes open a source of serious evils.

"The unhappy man, who has long been treated as a brute
animal, too frequently sinks beneath the common