The Revolutionary generation of leaders was the first to confront the issue of slavery and to consider abolishing it....
In the northern states, which had fewer slaves than the southern, the doctrines of liberty led swiftly to emancipation for all either during the fighting or shortly afterward.
South of Pennsylvania the potential consequences of emancipation were so staggering - South Carolina had a black majority - that whites refused to extend the principle of liberty to their slaves.
The book goes on to state that at least the restrictions for manumission (freeing ones slaves) were relaxed in Virginia for one, as 10,000 were in that state alone during the 1780's (By way of contrast, the book states that 55,000 slaves had fled to the North and freedom during the American Revolution).
Worth noting that stricter manumission regulations were later applied in some locations, the presence of freed slaves coming to be regarded as a problem.
Birdwatcher
"...if the gentlemen of Virginia shall send us a dozen of their sons, we would take great care in their education, instruct them in all we know, and make men of them." Canasatego 1744
