f a white church, served at the Battle of
Ticonderoga. According to many reports, Peter Salem killed the British
major, John Pitcairn, at the Battle of Bunker Hill.

Gradually, the colonies were split into two sections by differing
attitudes towards slavery. In 1780 the Pennsylvania Legislature passed a
law providing for the gradual abolition of slavery. The Preamble to the
legislation argued that, considering that America had gone to war for its
own freedom, it should share that blessing with those who were being
subjected to a similar state of bondage in its midst. Three years later
the Massachusetts Supreme Court decided that slavery was contrary to that
state's constitution and that it violated the natural rights of man.
Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Jersey, and New York all passed laws
providing for gradual emancipation. Although the liberal philosophy of
the revolution did lead these states to end slavery, most Northern
citizens were not genuinely convinced that natural law had conferred full
equality on their Afro-American neighbors. Racial discrimination
remained widespread.

At the same time, the Southern states which were dependent on slavery for
their economic prosperity showed little interest in applying the
doctrines of the Declaration of Independence to either the slaves or the
free blacks in their midst. If anything, the passage of stiffer black
codes increased the rights of the masters while diminishing those of
slaves and freedmen. Some Southern states had qualms about the
advisability of continuing the slave trade, but this did not mean that
they had doubts about the value of slavery. Rather, the number of slave
insurrections which swept through South America, highlighted by the
bloody revolt in Haiti, led them to fear possible uprisings at home.
They had always been cautious about bringing unbroken slaves directly
from Africa, and now they were also afraid to import unruly slaves from
South America.

In 1783 Maryland passed a law prohibiting the importation of slaves, and
in 1786 North Carolina drastically increased the duty on the importation
of slaves, thereby severely reducing the flow. The Federal Government
finally took action to terminate the slave trade in 1807, but a vigorous,
illegal trade continued until the Civil War. The first sectional
conflict over slavery had taken place at the Constitutional Convention.
Those Northerners who had hoped to see slavery abolished by this new