re born free and equal," and
the courts ruled that these words in the state constitution had the
effect of liberating the slaves and of giving to them the same rights as
other citizens. This is a perfectly logical application of the doctrine
of the Revolution.

The African slave-trade, however, developed earlier than the doctrine
of the Declaration of Independence. Negro slavery had long been an
established institution in all the American colonies. Opposition to the
slave-trade and to slavery was an integral part of the evolution of
the doctrine of equal rights. As the colonists contended for their own
freedom, they became anti-slavery in sentiment. A standard complaint
against British rule was the continued imposition of the slave-trade
upon the colonists against their oft-repeated protest.

In the original draft of the Declaration of Independence, there appeared
the following charges against the King of Great Britain:

"He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most
sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of distant people
who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in
another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation
thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is
the warfare of the Christian King of Great Britain. Determined to keep
open a market where men should be bought and sold, he has prostituted
his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to
restrain this execrable commerce."

Though this clause was omitted from the document as finally adopted,
the evidence is abundant that the language expressed the prevailing
sentiment of the country. To the believer in liberty and equality,
slavery and the slave-trade are instances of war against human nature.
No one attempted to justify slavery or to reconcile it with the
principles of free government. Slavery was accepted as an inheritance
for which others were to blame. Colonists at first blamed Great Britain;
later apologists for slavery blamed New England for her share in the
continuance of the slave-trade.

The fact should be clearly comprehended that the sentiments which led to
the American Revolution, and later to the French Revolution in Europe,
were as broad in their application as the human race itself--that there
were no limitations nor exceptions. These new principles involved
a complete revolution in the previously recognized princ