doctrine of equality had been developed in Europe without special
reference to questions of distinct race or color. But the terms,
which are universal and as broad as humanity in their denotation,
came to be applied to black men as well as to white men.
Massachusetts embodied in her state constitution in 1780 the
words, "All men are born free and equal," and the courts ruled
that these words in the state constitution had the effect of
liberating the slaves and of giving to them the same rights as
other citizens. This is a perfectly logical application of the
doctrine of the Revolution.

The African slave-trade, however, developed earlier than the
doctrine of the Declaration of Independence. Negro slavery had
long been an established institution in all the American
colonies. Opposition to the slave-trade and to slavery was an
integral part of the evolution of the doctrine of equal rights.
As the colonists contended for their own freedom, they became
anti-slavery in sentiment. A standard complaint against British
rule was the continued imposition of the slave-trade upon the
colonists against their oft-repeated protest.

In the original draft of the Declaration of Independence, there
appeared the following charges against the King of Great Britain:

"He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating
its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of
distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying
them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable
death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare,
the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian