people owned very few slaves themselves, at the time of the writing of
the Declaration of Independence, yet they had been pretty considerable
carriers of slaves to others. In 1761 Virginia and South Carolina,
alarmed at the rapid increase of slaves, passed an act restricting
their importation, but as many persons in England were growing rich
from the trade the act was negatived, or vetoed. While providing in the
Constitution of the United States for the Southern planters to hold
slaves, the North thought that the laws that were in the course of
events to be passed for prohibiting their foreign importation, would so
work out so that the institution would die a natural death. They little
dreamed that economical and political conditions were destined to fasten
it upon the South. At the framing of the Constitution slaves were held
in all the States except Massachusetts, and she had only very lately
abolished the institution. The South owned twice as many, by reason
of her special agricultural products, and even at this early day the
slavery question became sectional. Mason's and Dixon's line, which was
an imaginary boundary between Pennsylvania and Maryland, was recognized
as the division line between the free and slave states.

* * * * *

(Here are omitted several pages illustrating the utter absence of
affinity between the two sections of the country, introduced in the
manuscript as social, not historical, matter.)


During the Revolutionary war it was deemed expedient to enlist the
colored race as soldiers. In Rhode Island they were made free by law,
on condition that they enlisted in the army, and this measure met with
Gen'l Washington's approval. After the Declaration of Independence, in