An Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery, passed by the Fifth

Pennsylvania General Assembly The Pennsylvania General Assembly is the legislature of the U.S. commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The legislature convenes in the State Capitol building in Harrisburg. In colonial times (1682–1776), the legislature was known as the Pennsylvania ...

on 1 March 1780, prescribed an end for slavery in Pennsylvania. It was the first act abolishing slavery in the course of human history to be adopted by a democracy. The Act prohibited further importation of slaves into the state, required Pennsylvania slaveholders to annually register their slaves (with forfeiture for noncompliance, and

manumission Manumission, or enfranchisement, is the act of freeing enslaved people by their enslavers. Different approaches to manumission were developed, each specific to the time and place of a particular society. Historian Verene Shepherd states that t ...

for the enslaved), and established that all children born in Pennsylvania were free persons regardless of the condition or race of their parents. Those enslaved in Pennsylvania before the 1780 law came into effect remained enslaved for life. Pennsylvania's " gradual abolition"—rather than Massachusetts's 1783 "instant abolition"—became a model for freeing slaves in other Northern states.

1780 Act

The 1780 Act prohibited further importation of slaves into Pennsylvania, but it also respected the property rights of Pennsylvania slaveholders by not freeing slaves already held in the state. It changed the legal status of future children born to enslaved Pennsylvania mothers from "slave" to "

indentured servant Indentured servitude is a form of Work (human activity), labor in which a person is contracted to work without salary for a specific number of years. The contract, called an "indenture", may be entered "voluntarily" for purported eventual compensa ...

", but required those children to work for the mother's master until age 28. To verify that no additional slaves were imported, the Act created a registry of all slaves in the state. Slaveholders who failed to register their slaves annually, or who did it improperly, lost their slaves to manumission. The 1780 Act specifically exempted members of the U.S. Congress and their personal slaves. Congress was then the only branch of the federal government under the

Articles of Confederation The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union was an agreement among the 13 Colonies of the United States of America that served as its first frame of government. It was approved after much debate (between July 1776 and November 1777) by ...

, and met in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Since ...

Members of the Fifth Pennsylvania General Assembly

*member list incomplete / vote incomplete

Northumberland County

* William Montgomery — "yes"

City of Philadelphia

* George Bryan — "yes" * William Hollingshead * Jacob Schriener * Michael Shubart * Charles Wilson Peale

Philadelphia County

John Bayard John Bubenheim Bayard (11 August 1738 – 7 January 1807) was a merchant, soldier, and statesman from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He achieved the rank of colonel while serving with the Continental Army, and was a delegate for Pennsylvania t ...

* Robert Knox * Robert Lollar * Joseph M'Clean * Edward Heston — "yes" * William Coats *

Daniel Hiester Daniel Hiester (June 25, 1747 – March 7, 1804) was an American political and military leader from the Revolutionary War period to the early 19th Century. Born in Berks County in the Province of Pennsylvania, he was a member of the Hiester ...

* Samuel Mechlin * Joseph Blewer

Bucks County

* Gerardus Wynkoop II * Benjamin Fell * William Scott * Arthur Watts * Joseph Savage

Chester County

* David Thomas * Henry Hayes * John Fulton * James Boyd * Patrick Anderson * Joseph Park * William Harris * Sketchly Morton

Lancaster County

* James Anderson * John Smiley * John Gilchreest * Christopher Kucher * James Cunningham * William Brown Sr. * Emanuel Carpenter, Jr. * William Porter

Northampton County

York County

Cumberland County

Bedford County

Westmoreland County

1788 Amendment

An Amendment, created to explain and to close loopholes in the 1780 Act, was passed in the Pennsylvania legislature on 29 March 1788. The Amendment prohibited a Pennsylvania slaveholder from transporting a pregnant enslaved woman out-of-state so her child would be born enslaved; and from separating husbands from wives, and children from parents. It required a Pennsylvania slaveholder to register within six months the birth of a child to an enslaved mother. It prohibited all Pennsylvanians from participating in, building or equipping ships for, or providing material support to the

slave trade Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...

. The 1780 Act had allowed a non-resident slaveholder visiting Pennsylvania to hold slaves in the state for up to six months. But a loophole was soon identified and exploited: if the non-resident slaveholder took his slaves out of Pennsylvania before the 6-month deadline, even for one full day, it would void the residency of his slaves. The 1788 Amendment prohibited this rotation of slaves in and out-of-state to subvert Pennsylvania law.

Washington's dilemma

The 1780 Act had exempted personal slaves owned by members of Congress. By 1790, when Philadelphia became the temporary national capital for 10 years, there were three branches of the federal government under the

US Constitution The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It superseded the Articles of Confederation, the nation's first constitution, in 1789. Originally comprising seven articles, it delineates the nation ...

. There was confusion about whether or not the Pennsylvania law extended to all federal officials; members of Congress (legislative branch) remained exempt, but there was uncertainty regarding whether justices of the

US Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point of ...

(judicial branch) and the

US President The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States ...

and the US Cabinet (executive branch) would also be exempt.

Attorney General In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general or attorney-general (sometimes abbreviated AG or Atty.-Gen) is the main legal advisor to the government. The plural is attorneys general. In some jurisdictions, attorneys general also have exec ...

Edmund Randolph Edmund Jennings Randolph (August 10, 1753 September 12, 1813) was a Founding Father of the United States, attorney, and the 7th Governor of Virginia. As a delegate from Virginia, he attended the Constitutional Convention and helped to create ...

lost his personal slaves to manumission because of his misunderstanding of the state law. He conveyed his advice to President

George Washington George Washington (February 22, 1732, 1799) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797. Appointed by the Continental Congress as commander of ...

through the president's secretary, Tobias Lear:

This being the case, the Attorney General conceived, that after six months residence, your slaves would be upon no better footing than his. But he observed, that if, before the expiration of six months, they could, upon any pretense whatever, be carried or sent out of the State, but for a single day, a new era would commence on their return, from whence the six months must be dated for it requires an entire six months for them to claim that right.Tobias Lear to George Washington, 24 April 1791.

Washington argued privately that his presence in Philadelphia was solely a consequence of the city being the temporary national capital, and that he remained a citizen of

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth are ...

and subject to its laws on slavery. Still, he was careful not to spend six continuous months in Pennsylvania, which might be interpreted as establishing legal residency. Litigating the issue might have clarified his legal status and that of other slaveholding federal officials, but it also would have called attention to his slaveholding in the President's House and put him at risk of losing those slaves to manumission. It was thought that he followed Randolph's advice and knowingly and repeatedly violated the state's 1788 Amendment by rotating the enslaved Africans in his presidential household into and out of Pennsylvania. There is no record of Washington being challenged. According to Lear, the Pennsylvania Abolition Society seems to have turned a blind eye to the President's actions:

That the Society in this city for the abolition of slavery, had determined to give no advice and take no measures for liberating those Slaves which belonged to the Officers of the general Government or members of Congress. But notwithstanding this, there were not wanting persons who would not only give them (the Slaves) advise , but would use all means to entice them from their masters.

Federal officials

Other slaveholding officers of the executive and judicial branches faced a similar dilemma. Secretary of State

Thomas Jefferson Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, architect, philosopher, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the third president of the United States from 18 ...

swore that he would eventually free his enslaved cook, James Hemings, if Hemings would agree not take advantage of Pennsylvania's abolition law. Philadelphia's hostile environment for slaveholders was one of the reasons that the Constitution was written to give Congress exclusive control "over such District... as may... become the seat of the government of the United States".

Aftermath

Those enslaved in Pennsylvania before its 1780 Act became law continued to be lifelong slaves, unless manumitted. Also, the 1780 Act and its 1788 Amendment did not apply to

fugitive slave In the United States, fugitive slaves or runaway slaves were terms used in the 18th and 19th century to describe people who fled slavery. The term also refers to the federal Fugitive Slave Acts of 1793 and 1850. Such people are also called freed ...

s from other states or their children. Pennsylvania tried to extend rights to fugitive slaves through an 1826 personal liberty law, but it and the 1788 Amendment were ruled unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court in ''

Prigg v. Pennsylvania ''Prigg v. Pennsylvania'', 41 U.S. (16 Pet.) 539 (1842), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the court held that the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 precluded a Pennsylvania state law that prohibited blacks from being taken out of the free s ...

'' (1842). Although slavery steadily declined in Pennsylvania, the state that had initially led the way toward abolition tolerated it for decades after it ended in Massachusetts. The 1840 U.S. Census listed 47,854 (99.87%) of the state's blacks as free, and 64 (0.13%) as slaves.

Other states

*1777: The Constitution of Vermont bans slavery.This is a common citation in this context. It should be recognized that Vermont was not among the original 13 states. The land which 'Vermont' claimed was also claimed by New York. Vermont did not become the 14th state until the State of New York allowed that to happen. In that context, 'Vermont' was not a legitimate legal entity before 1791. *1783: Massachusetts Supreme Court rules slavery illegal based on the 1780

Constitution of Massachusetts The Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is the fundamental governing document of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, one of the 50 individual state governments that make up the United States of America. As a member of the Massachuset ...

. Slavery ended in Massachusetts by the time of the census in 1790. **

Maine Maine () is a state in the New England and Northeastern regions of the United States. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Quebec to the northeast and nor ...

was part of Massachusetts in 1783 and entered the Union as a free state in 1820. *1783:

New Hampshire New Hampshire is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec t ...

Constitution contains a bill of rights that is interpreted as ending slavery. In 1857, a law was approved that formally prohibited slavery. *1784:

Connecticut Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York (state), New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the ...

begins a gradual abolition of slavery. A law was approved in 1848 that freed any remaining slaves. *1784:

Rhode Island Rhode Island (, like ''road'') is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is the List of U.S. states by area, smallest U.S. state by area and the List of states and territories of the United States ...

begins a gradual abolition of slavery. *1791: Vermont enters the Union as a free state. *1799:

New York State New York, officially the State of New York, is a state in the Northeastern United States. It is often called New York State to distinguish it from its largest city, New York City. With a total area of , New York is the 27th-largest U.S. sta ...

begins a gradual abolition of slavery. A law was approved in 1817 that freed all remaining slaves on July 4, 1827. *1804:

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delawa ...

begins a gradual abolition of slavery. New Jersey's gradual abolition law freed future children at birth, but male children of enslaved women could be held until age twenty-five and females until age twenty-one. Those enslaved before passage of the 1804 law remained enslaved for life. The last vestiges of slavery remained in New Jersey until December 6, 1865, when ratification of the

Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution The Thirteenth Amendment (Amendment XIII) to the United States Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. The amendment was passed by the Senate on April 8, 1864, by the House of Representative ...

ended slavery in the United States. New Jersey's legislature did not approve the Thirteenth Amendment until February 1866, two months after it had been ratified by three-fourths of the states.

External links

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gradual Abolition of Slavery, An Act for the Abolitionism in the United States African-American history of Pennsylvania African-American documents Legal history of Pennsylvania United States slavery law 1780 in law 1780 in Pennsylvania