all men are created equal
environment as the nation divided over the question of slavery.
In the North, Vermont became the first to stipulate in its state constitution in 1777 that no person should be enslaved at the“ age of twenty-one years, unless bound by the person’ s own consent.” Although vague, allowing the practice of enslavement to continue in the state, it set a precedent for other northern states to slowly phase out slavery. Pennsylvania did so in 1780, followed by Massachusetts and New Hampshire in 1783, and Connecticut and Rhode Island in 1784.
But in the South, slavery remained deeply embedded in the culture and commerce of the region. This was due largely to the South’ s reliance on the labor of enslaved Blacks to produce its cash crops of cotton, tobacco, sugar and rice. So dependent on slavery were slave owners in South Carolina and Georgia that they broke their pledge of freedom to the enslaved people who helped the colonies win independence from England.
The nation’ s early divide over slavery was also evidenced by Congress’ passage of the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, which banned slavery in the newly acquired territories from which the states of Ohio, Illinois and Indiana would come, and its enactment of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, which gave slave owners the right to reclaim them from any part of the United States to which they escaped.
However, organized coalitions of Blacks fought back. In 1799, the cofounder of the Free African Society of Philadelphia, Absalom Jones and 70 other men petitioned Congress to end the transatlantic slave trade and the enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act.
Nestled on the document’ s third page, the authors declared themselves as a part of the“ all men” referenced in the Declaration of Independence. They wrote:
“ In the Constitution and the Fugitive bill, no mention is made of Black people or Slaves-- therefore if the Bill of Rights, or the declaration of Congress are of any validity, we beseech that we as men, we may be admitted to partake of the Liberties and unalienable Rights therein held forth firmly believing that the extending of justice and equity to all Classes …”
Their appeal fell on deaf ears – making it to the floor of the House of Representatives where it sparked debate but ultimately failed to win passage.
But it was not until 1803 that Blacks faced one of the most significant setbacks to the abolition of slavery: the Louisiana Purchase. In that land deal the United States acquired from France 820,000 square miles of territory that stretched from the Gulf of Mexico to the Canadian border. While the purchase of this large swath of land nearly doubled the size of this country, it undermined the movement to end slavery.
The Haitian Revolution, which ended slavery on that Caribbean island, forced France to sell its North American territory to the United States. Ironically, while Haiti became the first free Black republic in the Americas, the land this country gained from France sparked an expansion of slavery in the United States as members of Congress clashed over where the“ peculiar institution” would be allowed in the new territory.
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