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Show 220 DESPOT IBM cral opponents of slavery "tool~ occasion public1J: to remonstrate against the inconststency c;f conte1~d~ n g for our own liberty, and at t he sa~e t1me dcpnvmg other people of theirs." Nathamel AJ~pl~ton. and James Swan merchants of Boston, dH:itmgmshcd themselves as 1writers on the side of liberty. "Those on the other side generally concealed t heir names, but their arO'uments were not suffered to rest long without an ~nswer. rl'he controversy began about the year 1766, and was renewed at various times till 1773, when i t was very warmly agitated, and became the subject of forensic disputation at the public Commencement in Harvard College." So far, at least, as concerned the further impor· t.ation of negroes and others "as ~5I aves," the subject was introduced a lso into the General Court; but neither Bernard, Hutchinson, nor Gage would concur in any lccrislation upon it. " 'l'he blacks," says Belknap, "had better success in t he judicial courts. A pamphlet containing the case of a negro '~ho had accompanied his master from the West Ind1es to England, and had t here sued for and obtained his freedom, was reprinted" at Boston, in 1771, "and this encouraged several negroes to sue their masters for their freedom, and for recompense of t heir services after they had attained the age of twenty-one years." " 'rhe ne· groea collected money among themselves to carry ?" the suit, and it terminated favorably. Other su1ts were instituted between that hme and the Revolution, and t he juries invariably gave their verdict in favor of liberty." 'The old fundament<tllaw of Mas- sachuBetts authorizing the slavery of Indians and negroes was no longer in force; it had fallen with the first charter. Under t he second charter no such statute had been reenacted, but slavery had con· tinued by custom, and had apparently been recognir. ed by the statutes of the prov1nce, as a legal relation. " The pleas on the part of the masters were, t hat the negroes were purchase.d in ~pen market, and bills of sale were produced 10 ev1dence; that the .. JN AMERICA. 221 !aws of the province recognized slavery as existing in 1t, by declarmg that no person should manumit his slave without giving bond for his maintenance, &c. On the part of the blacks it was pleaded, that the royal charter expressly declared all persons born or residing in the province to be as free as the king's subjects in Great Britain; that by the law of England, no man could be deprived of his liberty but by the judgment of his peers; that the Jaws of t he province rc!:!pecting an evil existing, and attemptin("l" to mitigate or regulate it, did not authorize it; a ndb on some occasions the plea was, that though the slavery of the parents be admitted, yet that no disability of that kind could descend to the children." "'The juries invariably gave t heir verdict in favor of liberty;" nor does it appear that these verdicts were in any respect inconsistent wit~ the instructions of the judges as to matter of law. 'The blow thus dealt at slavery in Massachusetts might perhaps have been repeated in other colonies ; but before t here was time for any thing of the sort, the Revolution occurred, and new governments stepped in to take the places of the old ones. 'This brings us back to the question started at t he close of the preceding section: Did the new governments, established at the Revolution, do any t hing, or could they do any thing, to give an additional character of legality to the institution of slavery? Let us begin with the commonwealth of Virginia. The convention of delegates and representatives from the several counties and corporations which assumed the responsibility of framing a new government for that state, very properly prefaced their labors by settmg for~h a Declaration of Rights, as its "basis and foundatwn.'' This Declaration of Rights, bearing date June 12, 1776, a nnounced, among other things, "that all men are by nature equally free and inde~ pendent, and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot by 19. |