152]
except in so far as it continued in the form of the vicious ethical
dualism which asserted that the slave could enjoy equality and freedom
in the spiritual sphere while enduring physical bondage. This provided
an effective salve for many a pious slaveholder's conscience.

At the time of the American Revolution before the real problem of
slavery was felt, except in the minds of a few prophetic spirits such
as Jefferson, we can still detect two clearly marked tendencies. At
the South economic forces were combining with the social and racial
conditions to fix the status of slave as the normal condition of the
Negro, a most portentous fact for the future of that section. At the
North economic and social conditions were pointing already towards a
gradual emancipation of the slave in a democratic order that was
becoming more and more conscious of the full significance of the ideas
of freedom and equality.

What was the effect upon the status of the slave North and South of
the struggle for independence and the adoption of a declaration to the
effect that all men are free and equal and possessed of certain
inalienable rights?[153] In Pennsylvania from the very beginning of
the war of independence interest in the manumission of slaves
increased until it finally culminated in the act of 1780, an "Act for
the Gradual Abolition of Slavery," by adopting which Pennsylvania
became the first State to pass an abolition law.[154] The preamble of
this act asserts it to be the duty of Pennsylvanians to give
substantial proof of their gratitude for deliverance from the
oppression of Great Britain "by extending freedom to those of a
different color but the work of the same Almighty hand." Previous to
1776 discussion had been going on also in Massachusetts looking to the
abolition of slavery and in 1777 there was introduced an act with the
preamble declaring that "the practice of holding Africans and the
children born of them, or any other persons in slavery, is
unjustifiable in a civil government, at a time when they are asserting
their natural freedom."[155] This act never became law and it is an
interesting commentary upon conditions in the North, and especially in
New England, that in Massachusetts slavery was not abolished by
legislation but by the slow working of public sentiment. The assembly
of Rhode Island, likewise, prefaced an act against the importation of
slaves in 1774 by asserting that those who were struggling for the