e slave--lived as slaves, were
sold as slaves, and died as slaves in Massachusetts. They never knew
they were freemen. The number of slaves in Massachusetts in 1776 was
5,249, about half of whom were owned in Boston, which had then a
population of 17,500. The proportion of slaves to the whole population
of Boston in 1776, was six times as great as the number of colored
persons in Cincinnati to-day is to the whole population, and ten times
as great as the present proportion of colored persons in Boston.[26]

The same declaration, that "all men are created equally free and
independent," is found in the constitutions of New Hampshire and
Virginia; but it did not in these states receive the same
construction as in Massachusetts. In New Hampshire it was construed to
mean that all persons _born_ after 1784--the date of the adoption of
the Constitution--were equally free and independent. In other words,
it brought about gradual emancipation. In Virginia, it was simply a
glittering generality--it had no legal meaning.[27]

In addition to the State Societies already named, there were several
local societies in Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. All the
abolition societies in the country were in correspondence and acted
together. At the suggestion of the New York Society, a convention of
delegates was called for the purpose of deliberating on the means of
attaining their common object, and of uniting in a memorial to
Congress. Delegates from ten of these societies, including the
Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York,
Connecticut, and Rhode Island State Societies, and two local societies
on the eastern shore of Maryland, met on the first day of January,
1794, at the Select Council Chamber in Philadelphia,[28] and drew up a
joint memorial to Congress, asking for a law making the use of vessels
and men in the slave trade a penal offense. Such a law was passed by
Congress without debate.[29] These societies held annual conventions
for many years. The convention recommended that such meetings of
delegates be annually convened; that annual or periodical discourses
or orations be delivered in public on slavery and the means of its
abolition, in order that, "by the frequent application of the force of
reason and the persuasive power of eloquence, slaveholders and their
abettors may be awakened to a sense of their injustice, and be
startled with horror at the enormity of their conduct."

The convention als