Revolutionary Era Slavery

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During the Revolutionary era, a confluence of factors encouraged the morality of slavery to be questioned and the majority of these factors were secular rather than religious. According to scholar Peter Kolchin, the flourishing of Enlightenment thought amongst intellectuals in America, brought with it changing attitudes towards such matters as “cruelty, rights, fair play, and toleration of differences: in short, how human beings should treat one another.” As a result, slavery came under scrutiny. The major factors that brought a challenge to slavery during the Revolutionary era were new concerns about the humane treatment of those who were different, changing beliefs about human malleability, and the spread of capitalism. The restriction against “cruel and unusual punishments” in the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution brought about a substantial decline in the corporal punishment of free adults. While this did not extend to slaves, it did encourage many American colonists to question the cruelty and mistreatment of slaves that they witnessed. In addition to changing attitudes about cruelty towards persons came changing attitudes about human nature. Prior to the second half of the eighteenth century, …show more content…

After an anti-slavery bill was brought before the Pennsylvania legislature, Quaker anti-slavery activist Anthony Benezet encouraged Rush to compose an anti-slavery pamphlet. In response, Rush penned An Address to the Inhabitants of the British Settlements in America, Upon Slave-Keeping in 1773. In the pamphlet, Rush asserted that the Old Testament sanction of slavery provided a series of specific permissions for the Israelites only and that the “Golden Rule” of Christian morality trumped the temporary permissions granted in the Law of Moses. According to

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