must confess
that I am not at all astonished at the failure of your plan. That spirit
of freedom which, at the commencement of this contest, would have gladly
sacrificed everything to the attainment of its object, has long since
subsided, and every selfish passion has taken its place. It is not the
public but private interest which influences the generality of mankind;
nor can the Americans any longer boast an exception. Under these
circumstances, it would rather have been surprising if you had
succeeded; nor will you, I fear, have better success in Georgia."[1]

[Footnote 1: Sparks's _Washington_, VIII, 322-323.]

From this brief survey we may at least see something of the anomalous
position occupied by the Negro in the American Revolution. Altogether
not less than three thousand, and probably more, members of the race
served in the Continental army. At the close of the conflict New York,
Rhode Island, and Virginia freed their slave soldiers. In general,
however, the system of slavery was not affected, and the English were
bound by the treaty of peace not to carry away any Negroes. As late as
1786, it is nevertheless interesting to note, a band of Negroes calling
themselves "The King of England's soldiers" harassed and alarmed the
people on both sides of the Savannah River.

Slavery remained; but people could not forget the valor of the Negro
regiment in Rhode Island, or the courage of individual soldiers. They
could not forget that it was a Negro, Crispus Attucks, who had been the
patriot leader in the Boston Massacre, or the scene when he and one of
his companions, Jonas Caldwell, lay in Faneuil Hall. Those who were at
Bunker Hill could not fail to remember Peter Salem, who, when Major
Pitcairn of the British army was exulting in his expected triumph,
rushed forward, shot him in the breast, and killed him; or Samuel Poor,
whose officers testified that he performed so many brave deeds that "to
set forth particulars of his conduct would be tedious." These and many
more, some with very humble names, in a dark day worked for a better
country. They died in faith, not having received the promises, but
having seen them afar off.

3. _The Northwest Territory and the Constitution_

The materialism and selfishness which rose in the course of the war to
oppose the liberal tendencies of the period, and which Washington felt
did so much to embarrass the government, became pronounced in the
debates on the Northwest Territory