It is not to be supposed that such sentiments were by any means general; nevertheless these instances alone show that some men at least in the colonies were willing to carry their principles to their logical conclusion.  Naturally opinion crystallized in formal resolutions or enactments.  Unfortunately most of these were in one way or another rendered ineffectual after the war; nevertheless the main impulse that they represented continued to live.  In 1769 Virginia declared that the discriminatory tax levied on free Negroes and mulattoes since 1668 was “derogatory to the rights of freeborn subjects” and accordingly should be repealed.  In October, 1774, the First Continental Congress declared in its Articles of Association that the united colonies would “neither import nor purchase any slave imported after the first day of December next” and that they would “wholly discontinue the trade.”  On April 16, 1776, the Congress further resolved that “no slaves be imported into any of the thirteen colonies”; and the first draft of the Declaration of Independence contained a strong passage censuring the King of England for bringing slaves into the country and then inciting them to rise against their masters.  On April 14, 1775, the first abolition society in the country was organized in Pennsylvania; in 1778 Virginia once more passed an act prohibiting the slave-trade; and the Methodist Conference in Baltimore in 1780 strongly expressed its disapproval of slavery.

2. The Negro in the War

As in all the greater wars in which the country has engaged, the position of the Negro was generally improved by the American Revolution.  It was not by reason of any definite plan that this was so, for in general the disposition of the government was to keep him out of the conflict.  Nevertheless between the hesitating policy of America and the overtures of England the Negro made considerable advance.

The American cause in truth presented a strange and embarrassing dilemma, as we have remarked.  In the war itself, moreover, began the stern cleavage between the North and the South.  At the moment the rift was not clearly discerned, but afterwards it was to widen into a chasm.  Massachusetts bore more than her share of the struggle, and in the South the combination of Tory sentiment and the aristocratic social system made enlistment especially difficult.  In this latter section, moreover, there was always the lurking fear of an uprising of the slaves, and before the end of the war came South Carolina and Georgia were very nearly demoralized.  In the course of the conflict South Carolina lost not less than 25,000 slaves,[1] about one-fifth of all she had.  Georgia did not lose so many, but proportionally suffered even more.  Some of the Negroes went into the British army, some went away with the loyalists, and some took advantage of the confusion and escaped to the Indians.  In Virginia, until they were stopped at least, some slaves entered the Continental Army as free Negroes.