Abolition.
During the early years of our national history, abolition was a desire rather than a purpose, and every humane and thinking man, North and South, was an abolitionist.
Previous to the meeting of the first Continental Congress, in 1774, many of the colonies had made protests against the further importation of slaves, and at least two of them,
Virginia and
Massachusetts, had passed resolutions abolishing the traffic.
The
Quakers, or Society of Friends, had, since 1760, made slave-holding and slave-trading a matter of church discipline.
The War for Independence, and the adoption of the
Constitution, in 1787, which included the compromise resolution that provided for the continuation of the slave-trade, by permission, until 1808, caused very little change in the sentiment of the people, and all hoped that in some way, not yet imagined, the gradual and peaceful abolition of slavery would be accomplished.
In 1777,
Vermont, not yet admitted to the
Union, formed a State constitution abolishing slavery.
Like constitutions were adopted by
Massachusetts, including
Maine, in 1780, and by
New Hampshire in 1783.
Gradual abolition was secured by statute in
Pennsylvania in 1780, in
Rhode Island and
Connecticut in 1784, in New York in 1799, and in
New Jersey in 1804.
Abolition of slavery in the
Northwest Territory, north of the
Ohio and east of the
Mississippi, including the present States of
Ohio,
Indiana,
Illinois,
Michigan,
Wisconsin, and part of
Minnesota, was secured by the Ordinance of 1787.
In 1807, Congress passed an act for the abolition of the slave-trade on Jan. 1, 1808.
Slavery in part of the
Louisiana Purchase, including the present States of
Iowa,
Oregon,
Kansas,
Nebraska, part of
Colorado, and part of
Minnesota, was abolished by the
Missouri compromise (q. v..), whose validity was rejected by the Supreme Court (see
Dred Scott decision); but the provision for abolition was embodied in the constitutions of these States as they were severally admitted.
In course of tine gradual abolition took effect in the States which had adopted it by statute, and in 1850 slavery as an institution had practically disappeared from them.
Slavery was finally abolished from all the territory of the
United States by the
Emancipation Proclamation of
President Lincoln and the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment to the national Constitution, in 1863-65.
See
Constitution of the United States;
emancipation proclamations. 
