Jonathan Edwards was our great theologian, but at the very time that
Jonathan Edwards was writing his "Freedom of the Will" and preaching his
revival sermons on "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," he was the
owner of slaves. When that philosopher, whose writings had sent his name
into all Europe, died, he bequeathed a favourite slave to his
descendants. Whitefield was the great evangelist of that era, but
Whitefield during his visit to the colonies purchased a Southern
plantation, stocked it with seventy-five slaves, and when he died
bequeathed it to a relative, whom he characterizes as "an elect lady,"
who, notwithstanding she was "elect," was quite willing to derive her
livelihood from the sweat of another's brow.

And yet even in the Providence plantations, where more slaves were
bought and sold than in any other of the Northern colonies, the traffic
soon began to wane. The simple fact is that the rigour of the climate
and the severity of the winters of New England made the life of the
African brief. The slave was the child of a tropic clime, unaccustomed
to clothing, and the January snows and the March winds soon developed
consumption and chilled to death the child of the tropics. It was found
impracticable to use the black man in either the forests or fields, and
in a short time slaves were purchased only as domestic servants.

But about 1750 the conscience of New England awakened. Men in the pulpit
took a strong position against the traffic. The Congregational churches
of Vermont, Massachusetts, and Connecticut declared against slavery and
asked the legislatures to adopt the Jewish law, emancipating all slaves
whatsoever at the end of the tenth year of servitude. A little later,
slavery was made illegal in all the New England colonies, Pennsylvania
at length remembered William Penn, who had freed all his slaves in his
will, while the German churches of that State began to expel all members
who were known to have bought or held a slave. When, therefore, the
convention met in Philadelphia, in 1776, preparatory to the Declaration
of Independence, the delegates were able to say that as a whole the
Northern colonies had cleansed their borders of the abuse, and had
decided to build their institutions and civilization upon free labour,
as the sure foundation of individual and social prosperity.

But the antagonism to slavery in the Southern colonies was only less
pronounced, and this, not because of economic reason