rodigious development of
manufactures in England, greatly stimulated the growth of cotton in the
ever-enlarging area of the Gulf states, and created an immense demand
for slave-labour, just at the time when the importation of negroes from
Africa came to an end. The breeding of slaves, to be sold to the
planters of the Gulf states, then became such a profitable occupation in
Virginia as entirely to change the popular feeling about slavery. But
until 1808 Virginia sympathized with the anti-slavery sentiment which
was growing up in the northern states; and the same was true of
Maryland. Emancipation was, however, much more easy to accomplish in the
north, because the number of slaves was small, and economic
circumstances distinctly favoured free labour. In the work of gradual
emancipation the little state of Delaware led the way. In its new
constitution of 1776 the further introduction of slaves was prohibited,
all restraints upon emancipation having already been removed. In the
assembly of Virginia in 1778 a bill prohibiting the further introduction
of slaves was moved and carried by Thomas Jefferson, and the same
measure was passed in Maryland in 1783, while both these states removed
all restraints upon emancipation. North Carolina was not ready to go
quite so far, but in 1786 she sought to discourage the slave-trade by
putting a duty of L5 per head on all negroes thereafter imported. New
Jersey followed the example of Maryland and Virginia. Pennsylvania went
farther. In 1780 its assembly enacted that no more slaves should be
brought in, and that all children of slaves born after that date should
be free. The same provisions were made by New Hampshire in its new
constitution of 1783, and by the assemblies of Connecticut and Rhode
Island in 1784. New York went farther still, and in 1785 enacted that
all children of slaves thereafter born should not only be free, but
should be admitted to vote on the same conditions as other freemen. In
1788 Virginia, which contained many free negroes, enacted that any
person convicted of kidnapping or selling into slavery any free person
should suffer death on the gallows. Summing up all these facts, we see
that within two years after the independence of the United States had
been acknowledged by England, while the two southernmost states had done
nothing to check the growth of slavery, North Carolina had discouraged
the importation of slaves; Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, and New Jersey
h