evolutionary liberalism had but the slightest of echoes there.

[Footnote 20: Frank Moore ed., _Correspondence of Henry Laurens_ (New York,
1861), pp. 20, 21. The version of this letter given by Professor Wallace in
his _Life of Henry Laurens_, p. 446, which varies from the present one, was
derived from a paraphrase by John Laurens to whom the original was written.
Cf. _South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine_, X. 49. For
related items in the Laurens correspondence _see_ D.D. Wallace, _Life of
Henry Laurens_, pp. 445, 447-455.]

In North Carolina the prevailing lack of enterprise in public affairs had
no exception in regard to slavery. The Quakers alone condemned it. When in
1797 Nathaniel Macon, a pronounced individualist and the chief spokesman of
his state in Congress, discussed the general subject he said "there was not
a gentleman in North Carolina who did not wish there were no blacks in the
country. It was a misfortune--he considered it a curse; but there was no
way of getting rid of them." Macon put his emphasis upon the negro problem
rather than upon the question of slavery, and in so doing he doubtless
reflected the thought of his community.[21] The legislation of North
Carolina regarding racial control, like that of the period in South
Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee and Kentucky, was more conservative than
liberal.

[Footnote 21: _Annals of Congress_, VII, 661. American historians, through
preoccupation or inadvertence, have often confused anti-negro with
anti-slavery expressions. In reciting the speech of Macon here quoted
McMaster has replaced "blacks" with "slaves"; and incidentally he has made
the whole discussion apply to Georgia instead of North Carolina. Rhodes
in turn has implicitly followed McMaster in both errors. J.B. McMaster,
_History of the People of the United States_, II, 359; J.F. Rhodes,
_History of the United States_, I, 19.]

The central government of the United States during the Revolution and the
Confederation was little concerned with slavery problems except in its
diplomatic affairs, where the question was merely the adjustment of
property in slaves, and except in regard to the western territories.
Proposals for the prohibition of slavery in these wilderness regions were
included in the first projects for establishing governments in them.
Timothy Pickering and certain military colleagues framed a plan in 1780 for
a state beyond the Ohio River with slavery excluded; but it w