es for the war, giving full "compensation to
the proprietors of such negroes," South Carolina refused to do so, and
Georgia had been already overrun by the British when the advice was
brought.

Notwithstanding the early adoption of a resolution against the
importation of slaves into any of the thirteen colonies (April 6, 1776),
Jefferson's fervid paragraph condemning the slave trade, and by
implication slavery, was struck out of the Declaration of Independence
in deference to South Carolina and Georgia, and a member from South
Carolina declared that "if property in slaves should be questioned there
must be an end to confederation." The resolution of Congress itself
against the slave trade bound no single State, although a law to this
effect was adopted by Virginia in 1778, and subsequently by all the
other States; but this was so entirely a matter of State concernment
that neither was any prohibition of the trade contained in the Articles
of Confederation, nor was any suffered to be inserted in the treaty of
peace.

The feeling against slavery itself was strong in the North. Vermont, in
forming a constitution for herself in 1777, allowed no slavery, and was
punished for doing so when she applied for admission as a State with the
consent of New York, from which she had seceded in 1781: the Southern
States refusing to admit her for the present, lest the balance of power
should be destroyed. Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, directly or
indirectly, abolished slavery in 1780, New Hampshire in 1783. They were
followed the next year by Connecticut and Rhode Island, so that by 1784
slavery would be practically at an end in New England and Pennsylvania.
Other States--Virginia, Delaware, New Jersey--went no further than to
pass laws for allowing voluntary emancipation. In strange contrast to
these, Virginia is found in 1780 offering a negro by way of bounty to
any white man enlisting for the war. The great Virginians of the day,
however--Jefferson, Patrick Henry, George Mason--were opposed to
slavery, and large numbers of slaves were emancipated in the State.

So much and no more did the black man get from the Americans. It seemed
at first, when Lord Dunmore issued his proclamation offering freedom to
all slaves who should join the British standard, as if they were to get
much more from England. Accordingly, Governor Rutledge of South Carolina
declared in 1780 that the negroes offered up their prayers in favor of
England. But a