attendant evils that interest in the question leaped the boundaries
of religious organizations and became the concern of fair-minded men
throughout the country. Not only did Northern men of the type of John
Adams and James Otis express their opposition to this tyranny of men's
bodies and minds, but Laurens, Henry, Wythe, Mason, and Washington
pointed out the injustice of such a policy. Accordingly we find
arrayed against the aristocratic masters almost all the leaders of the
American Revolution.[1] They favored the policy, first, of suppressing
the slave trade, next of emancipating the Negroes in bondage, and
finally of educating them for a life of freedom.[2] While students of
government were exposing the inconsistency of slaveholding among a
people contending for political liberty, and men like Samuel Webster,
James Swan, and Samuel Hopkins attacked the institution on economic
grounds;[3] Jonathan Boucher,[4] Dr. Rush,[5] and Benjamin Franklin[6]
were devising plans to educate slaves for freedom; and Isaac Tatem[7]
and Anthony Benezet[8] were actually in the schoolroom endeavoring to
enlighten their black brethren.

[Footnote 1: Cobb, _Slavery_, etc., p. 82.]

[Footnote 2: Madison, _Works of_, vol. iii., p. 496; Smyth, _Works of
Franklin_, vol. v., p. 431; Washington, _Works of Jefferson_, vol.
ix., p. 163; Brissot de Warville, _New Travels_, vol. i., p. 227;
Proceedings of the American Convention of Abolition Societies, 1794,
1795, 1797.]

[Footnote 3: Webster, _A Sermon Preached before the Honorable
Council_, etc.; Webster, _Earnest Address to My Country on Slavery_;
Swan, _A Dissuasion to Great Britain and the Colonies_; Hopkins,
_Dialogue Concerning Slavery_.]