thstanding this interpretation of the Declaration, free negroes
fought for American independence at Bunker Hill; and although later
it was decided that colored men should not be accepted as enlisted
soldiers, General Washington did accept them, and thereafter they
served in his army to the end of the war,(13) notably in large
numbers at Yorktown.

The Royal Governor of Virginia in vain tried to induce slaves to
revolt against their masters by promising them their freedom.

During Lord Howe's march through Pennsylvania it is said the slaves
prayed for his success, believing he would set them free.

The British Parliament discussed a measure to set the slaves in
the colonies free with a view to weaken their masters' ardor for
freedom. In Rhode Island slaves were, by law, set free on condition
that they enlisted in the army for the war.

(10) Parton's _Life of Jefferson_, p. 138.

(11) _History Ready Reference_, etc., vol. iv., p. 2923.

(12) Sparks's _Life of Washington_, vol. ii., p. 494.

(13) Bancroft, _History of the United States_, vol. iv., 223,322.

IV
CONTINENTAL CONGRESS--ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION 1774-1789

The Continental Congress, which assembled for the first time,
September 5, 1774, at Carpenters' Hall, Philadelphia, assumed few
powers, and its proceedings were, until the adoption by it of the
Declaration of Independence, little more than protests against
British oppression. Nor was any central government formed on the
adoption of the Declaration. That Congress continued, by common
agreement, to direct affairs, though, in the beginning, possessing
no delegated political or governmental powers.

Slavery existed in the colonies or States prior to the Declaration
by the connivance of British colonial authorities without the
sanction of and against English law; and after the Declaration, by
mere toleration as an existing domestic institution, not even by
virtue of express colonial or State authority.

In 1772 Lord Mansfield, from the Court of the King's Bench, announced
that slavery could not exist under the English Constitution.

The Articles of Confederation did nothing more than formulate, in
a weak way, a government for the United States, solely through a
Congress to which was delegated little political power. This
Congress continued to govern (if government it could be called)
until the Constitution went into effect, March 4, 1789.

The "_Articles of Confederation_," adopted (July