“2.  We will neither import nor purchase, any slave imported after the first day of December next; after which time, we will wholly discontinue the slave-trade, and will neither be concerned in it ourselves, nor will we hire our vessels, nor sell our commodities or manufactures to those who are concerned in it."[520]

It, with the entire covenant, received the signatures of all the delegates from the twelve colonies.[521] The delegates from the Southern colonies were greatly distressed concerning the probable attitude of the slave element.  They knew that if that ignorant mass of humanity were inflamed by some act of strategy of the enemy, they might sweep their homes and families from the face of the earth.  The cruelties of the slave-code, the harsh treatment of Negro slaves, the lack of confidence in the whites everywhere manifested among the blacks,—­as so many horrid dreams, harassed the minds of slaveholders by day and by night.  They did not even possess the courage to ask the slaves to remain silent and passive during the struggle between England and themselves.  The sentiment that adorned the speeches of orators, and graced the writings of the colonists, during this period, was “the equality of the rights of all men.”  And yet the slaves who bore their chains under their eyes, who were denied the commonest rights of humanity, who were rated as chattels and real property, were living witnesses to the insincerity and inconsistency of this declaration.  But it is a remarkable fact, that all the Southern colonies, in addition to the action of their delegates, ratified the Non-Importation Covenant.  The Maryland Convention on the 8th of December, 1774; South Carolina Provincial Congress on the 11th January, 1775; Virginia Convention on the 22d March, 1775; North Carolina Provincial Congress on the 23d of August, 1775; Delaware Assembly on the 25th of March, 1775 (refused by Gov.  John Penn); and Georgia,—­passed the following resolves thereabouts:—­

     “1. Resolved, That this Congress will adopt, and carry
     into execution, all and singular the measures and
     recommendations of the late Continental Congress.

     “4. Resolved, That we will neither import or [nor]
     purchase any slave imported from Africa or elsewhere after
     this date.”

Meetings were numerous and spirited throughout the colonies, in which, by resolutions, the people expressed their sentiments in reference to the mother country.  On the 18th of July, 1774, at a meeting held in Fairfax Court-House, Virginia, a series of twenty-four resolutions was presented by George Washington, chairman of the committee on resolutions, three of which were directed against slavery.