The principal officers of these societies were not fanatics; they were
most eminent men in the land--judges of the courts, members of the
Constitutional Convention and of the Continental and United States
Congress.

It is to be observed that there was no anti-slavery society in
Massachusetts, which enjoys the reputation of originating all the
radicalism of the land.[22] Slavery had come to an end there, about
the year 1780; but when, or how, nobody is able to say definitely.
Some even say that it was abolished there in 1776, by the Declaration
of Independence declaring that "all men are created equal." Others
claim that, substantially the same clause, "all men are born free and
equal," incorporated into the declaration of rights in the State
Constitution of 1780, abolished slavery. There was no action of the
State Legislature on the subject, and no proclamation by the governor;
yet it was as well settled in 1783, that there was no slavery in
Massachusetts, as it is to-day. This came about by a decision of the
Supreme Court that there was no slavery in the State, it being
incompatible with the declaration of rights. "How, or by what act
particularly," says Chief Justice Shaw, "slavery was abolished in
Massachusetts, whether by the adoption of the opinion in Somerset's
case as a declaration and modification of the common law, or by the
Declaration of Independence, or by the constitution of 1780, it is not
now very easy to determine; it is rather a matter of curiosity than
utility, it being agreed on all hands that, if not abolished before,
it was by the declaration of rights." 18 Pickering, 209.[23]

Mr. Sumner asserted, in a speech in the Senate, June 28, 1854, that
"in all her annals, no person was ever born a slave on the soil of
Massachusetts." Mr. Palfrey, in his History of New England,[24]
says: "In fact, no person was ever born into legal slavery in
Massachusetts;" and Prof. Emory Washburn, in his Lecture, January 22,
1869, on "Slavery as it once prevailed in Massachusetts,"[25] says:
"Nor does the fact that they were held as slaves, where the question
as to their being such was never raised, militate with the position
already stated--that no child was ever born into _lawful_ bondage in
Massachusetts, from the year 1641 to the present hour."

These statements, in substance the same, seem like a technical
evasion. Thousands were born into actual slavery--whether it were
legal or not was poor consolation to th