"We conceive that it is our duty to extend a portion of that freedom to others, which hath been extended to us..."
Founding Quote of the Week
Eighty years before the Civil War and Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, the push to abolish slavery in the United States was well underway.
History is often thought of as singular days or years when everything changed, but that is rarely the case. The fight against slavery started long before the Union almost tore itself apart.
"We conceive that it is our duty to extend a portion of that freedom to others, which hath been extended to us, and release them from that thralldom, to which we ourselves were tyrannically doomed…It is not for us to inquire why, in the creation of mankind, the inhabitants of the several parts of the earth were distinguished by a difference in feature or complexion. It is sufficient to know that all are the work of the Almighty hand.” - Pennsylvania’s 1780 Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery
The words in the Declaration of Independence were written based on principles the men took seriously. Every word held its own weight. Those words are echoed in the statement above. When they wrote and signed off on the concept that “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,” it changed something. In order to fulfill that right they demanded of England, they necessarily looked around after the Revolutionary dust settled and questioned their own crimes.
By 1784, Rhode Island had adopted a similar ethos:
“Whereas all men are entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, yet the holding mankind in a state of slavery, as private property…is repugnant to this principle…be it therefore enacted…that no person or persons…born within the limits of this state, on or after the first day of March AD 1784, shall be deemed considered as servants for life or slaves.”
As of 1810, more than one hundred thousand slaves had been freed by political or individual action.
It took almost one hundred years and more than 620,000 deaths to finally end this peculiar institution. But the institution itself was not the only peculiarity. What was truly peculiar on a historical and global scale, was a people holding themselves to principles that dictated equality.
Abolishing slavery was not something Lincoln dreamed up in 1861 by delivering his Emancipation Proclamation, however justified it was. Abolition was the logical consequence of a people with deep emotional attachments to liberty, equality, and the word of their God.