1775-1783.

     PROGRESS OF THE SLAVE-TRADE.—­A GREAT WAR FOR THE
     EMANCIPATION OF THE COLONIES, FROM POLITICAL
     BONDAGE.—­CONDITION OF THE SOUTHERN STATES DURING THE
     WAR.—­THE VIRGINIA DECLARATION OF RIGHTS.—­IMMEDIATE
     LEGISLATION AGAINST SLAVERY DEMANDED.—­ADVERTISEMENT FROM
     “THE INDEPENDENT CHRONICLE.”—­PETITION OF MASSACHUSETTS
     STATES.—­AN ACT PREVENTING THE PRACTICE OF HOLDING PERSONS
     IN SLAVERY.—­ADVERTISEMENT FROM “THE CONTINENTAL
     JOURNAL.”—­A LAW PASSED IN VIRGINIA LIMITING THE RIGHTS OF
     SLAVES.—­LAW DEMANDING ALL SLAVES WHO SERVED IN THE
     ARMY.—­NEW YORK PROMISES HER NEGRO SOLDIERS FREEDOM.—­A
     CONSCIENTIOUS MINORITY IN FAVOR OF THE ABOLITION OF THE
     SLAVE TRADE.—­SLAVERY FLOURISHES DURING THE ENTIRE
     REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD.

The thunder of the guns of the Revolution did not drown the voice of the auctioneer.  The slave-trade went on.  A great war for the emancipation of the colonies from the political bondage into which the British Parliament fain would precipitate them did not depreciate the market value of human flesh.  Those whose hearts were not enlisted in the war skulked in the rear, and gloated over the blood-stained shekels they wrung from the domestic slave-trade.  While the precarious condition of the Southern States during the war made legislation in support of the institution of slavery impolitic, there were, nevertheless, many severe laws in force during this entire period.  In the New England and Middle States there was heard an occasional voice for the oppressed; but it was generally strangled at the earliest moment of its being by that hell-born child, avarice.  On the 21st of September, 1776, William Gordon of Roxbury, Mass., wrote,—­

The Virginians begin their Declaration of Rights with saying,’that all men are born equally free and independent, and have certain inherent natural rights, of which they cannot, by any compact, deprive themselves or their posterity; among which are the enjoyment of life and liberty.’  The Congress declare that they ’hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.’  The Continent has rung with affirmations of the like import.  If these, Gentlemen, are our genuine sentiments, and we are not provoking the Deity, by acting hypocritically to serve a turn, let us apply earnestly and heartily to the extirpation of slavery from among ourselves.  Let the State allow of nothing beyond servitude for a stipulated number of years, and that only for seven or eight, when persons are of age, or till they are of age:  and let the descendants of the Africans born among us, be viewed as free-born; and be wholly at their own disposal when one-and-twenty, the latter part of which age will compensate