"All Men Are Created Equal."

During the Revolutionary period Americans described their slavery under British rule and proclaimed their fight for liberty, equality, and natural rights. Samuel Johnson, the English author and critic, wondered: "How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?" Americans in the Revolutionary period also questioned the hypocrisy of their devotion to liberty and their practice of slavery. No group of people was more troubled by the existence of slavery or expected more from the American Revolution and its promise of liberty and equality than African Americans, some of whom earned their freedom fighting in the Revolutionary War. The Confederation Congress did forbid slavery in the Northwest Territory in 1787, but in the Constitutional Convention economic and political self-interest defeated antislavery sentiment. Delegates from South Carolina and Georgia, whose rice planters were increasing...