“In 1781, some negroes, prompted by private suggestion, maintained that they were not slaves:  they found advocates, among whom was Mr. Sedgwick, now a member of the Senate of the United States; and the cause was carried before the Supreme Court.  Their counsel pleaded, 1 deg..  That no antecedent law had established slavery, and that the laws which seemed to suppose it were the offspring of error in the legislators, who had no authority to enact them;—­2 deg., That such laws, even if they had existed, were annulled by the new Constitution.  They gained the cause under both aspects:  and the solution of this first question that was brought forward set the negroes entirely at liberty, and at the same time precluded their pretended owners from all claim to indemnification, since they were proved to have possessed and held them in slavery without any right.  As there were only a few slaves in Massachusetts, the decision passed without opposition, and banished all further idea of slavery."[634]

Mr. Nell gives an account of the legal death of slavery in Massachusetts, but unfortunately does not cite any authority.  John Quincey Adams, in reply to a question put by John C. Spencer, stated that, “a note had been given for the price of a slave in 1787.  This note was sued, and the Court ruled that the maker had received no consideration, as a man could not be sold.  From that time forward, slavery died in the Old Bay State.”  There were several suits instituted by slaves against their reputed masters in 1781-82; but there are strong evidences that slavery died a much slower death in Massachusetts than many are willing to admit.  James Sullivan wrote to Dr. Belknap in 1795:—­

“In 1781, at the Court in Worcester County, an indictment was found against a white man named Jennison for assaulting, beating, and imprisoning Quock Walker, a black.  He was tried at the Supreme Judicial Court in 1783.  His defence was, that the black was his slave, and that the beating, etc., was the necessary restraint and correction of the master.  This was answered by citing the aforesaid clause in the declaration of rights.  The judges and jury were of opinion that he had no right to imprison or beat the negro.  He was found guilty and fined 40 shillings.  This decision put an end to the idea of slavery in Massachusetts."[635]

There are two things in the above that throw considerable uncertainty about the subject as to the precise date of the end of slavery in the Commonwealth.  First, the suit referred to was tried in 1783, three years after the adoption of the new Constitution.  Second, the good doctor does not say that the decision sealed the fate of slavery, but only that it “was a mortal wound to slavery in Massachusetts.”

From 1785-1790, there was a wonderful change in the public opinion of the Middle and Eastern States on the subject of slavery.  Most of them had passed laws providing for gradual emancipation.  The Friends of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania began to organize a crusade against domestic slavery.  In the fall of 1789, while the Congressional debates were still fresh in the minds of the people, the venerable Dr. Benjamin Franklin, as president of the “Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery,” etc., issued the following letter:—­