-------
Pennsylvania 10,000 | Total 501,102
Delaware 9,000 |

Such a host of beings was not to be despised in a great military
struggle. Regarded as a neutral element that could be used simply to
feed an army, to perform fatigue duty, and build fortifications, the
Negro population was the object of fawning favors of the white
colonists. In the NON-IMPORTATION COVENANT, passed by the Continental
Congress at Philadelphia, on the 24th of October, 1774, the second
resolve indicated the feeling of the representatives of the people on
the question of the slave-trade:--

"2. We will neither import nor purchase, any slave imported
after the first day of December next; after which time, we
will wholly discontinue the slave-trade, and will neither be
concerned in it ourselves, nor will we hire our vessels, nor
sell our commodities or manufactures to those who are
concerned in it."[520]

It, with the entire covenant, received the signatures of all the
delegates from the twelve colonies.[521] The delegates from the
Southern colonies were greatly distressed concerning the probable
attitude of the slave element. They knew that if that ignorant mass of
humanity were inflamed by some act of strategy of the enemy, they
might sweep their homes and families from the face of the earth. The
cruelties of the slave-code, the harsh treatment of Negro slaves, the
lack of confidence in the whites everywhere manifested among the
blacks,--as so many horrid dreams, harassed the minds of slaveholders
by day and by night. They did not even possess the courage to ask the
slaves to remain silent and passive during the struggle between
England and themselves. The sentiment that adorned the speeches of
orators, and graced the writings of the colonists, during this period,
was "the equality of the rights of all men." And yet the slaves who
bore their chains under their eyes, who were denied the commonest
rights of humanity, who were rated as chattels and real property, were
living witnesses to the insincerity and inconsistency of this
declaration. But it is a remarkable fact, that all the Southern
colonies, in addition to the action of their delegates, ratified the
Non-Importation Covenant. The Maryland Convention on the 8th of
December, 1774; South Carolina Provincial Congress on the 11th
January, 1775; Virginia Convention on the 22d March, 1