That is not a rebuttal to the principle that a people have a right to independence. Perhaps it wasn't a centerpiece of 1776 because nobody was making a major butt-hurt issue about it at the time.
Of course the British were offering Freedom to any slave that would join them in the fight against the Colonists. Does this make the British side the more moral of the two?
Things were more ambiguous in the 1770s.
Less ambiguous. Slavery was accepted in all the colonies at that time. Everyone knew exactly where the nation stood on this issue, and there was no confusion about the legality of slavery. It wasn't a centerpiece of the conflict precisely because it was not a bone of contention amidst any of the involved parties.
African-Americans were fighting in the patriot Army.
And the British Army. The ones in the British army were already free, but many in the American army went back to being slaves after the war ended. Oh yes, some brave and courageous men were manumitted, but not all.
Pennsylvania committed itself to the abolition of slavery in 1780
But didn't actually do it until 1840. There were still 64 slaves listed in Pennsylvania until then.
Massachusetts in 1783 (based on the 1780 state constitution).
Based on Liberal misinterpretation of the newly adopted State Constitution, you know, the way Liberal activist Judges always deliberately misinterpret laws they don't like. Having judges impose it on the rest of the state hardly constitutes a conscious decision on the part of the people.
It wasn't clear to everyone in the Revolutionary era that independence would mean the continuation of slavery.
It was very clear. In fact it was so clear, the Founders enacted a clause in the constitution that directly deals with it.
Article IV, Section II.
No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, But shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due.
I am presenting you with the UGLY parts of History. You may not like them, but they are accurate.
No Founder advocated an unlimited "right to secede" in 1776 or 1788 or later.
All believed independence could only legitimately come in two forms:
x: "Pennsylvania committed itself to the abolition of slavery in 1780."
DiogenesLamp: "But didn't actually do it until 1840.
There were still 64 slaves listed in Pennsylvania until then."
For comparison: between 1790 and 1840 the number of slaves in Virginia increased by 2/3 to 450,000 and in South Carolina by 375% to 327,000.
In Pennsylvania the number of African Americans increased by 500% to 50,000 from 1790 to 1840, but the number who remained slaves fell from 36% in 1790 to less than one tenth of one percent in 1840, none thereafter.
Finally, mentioning an old debate in passing: in the 1790s, while Philadelphia was the US capital, politicians like President Washington were forced to rotate their slaves frequently, to avoid running afoul of Pennsylvania's abolition laws.
DiogenesLamp: "Having judges impose it on the rest of the state hardly constitutes a conscious decision on the part of the people."
There is no record of serious objections to abolition in Massachusetts.
The Massachusetts census recorded only one slave from 1790 to 1830 (in 1830) and none thereafter.
Massachusetts had about 10,000 freed blacks in 1840.
x: "It wasn't clear to everyone in the Revolutionary era that independence would mean the continuation of slavery."
DiogenesLamp: "It was very clear.
In fact it was so clear, the Founders enacted a clause in the constitution that directly deals with it."
x is correct on this.
Most Founders, including Southerners like Washington, Jefferson and Madison, understood that slavery was evil and should be eventually abolished.
Northern Founders like Franklin and Adams soon began work to abolish slavery in their own states.
By the time of the Constitution in 1787, Washington himself said that if he had to chose between union and slavery, he would chose union.
But by 1787 other Southerners made clear that without slavery, there could be no Union, and so their demands were included in the new Constitution.
Still, leaders like Thomas Jefferson continued to design methods where the Federal government would purchase freedom for slaves and provide transportation back to Africa, or elsewhere.
All such plans came to nothing because slave-holders would have none of it.
Bottom line: unlike 1860 Fire Eater secessionists, our Founders in 1776 considered slavery an evil which should be eventually abolished.
DiogenesLamp: "I am presenting you with the UGLY parts of History.
You may not like them, but they are accurate."
No, ugly or not, most of what DiogenesLamp argues is pure rubbish and nonsense.
It's hard to say what would have happened if Davis and his team had had their way, but the future for systems of bound labor wasn't bleak or questionable. Of course, from our point of view, it's absurd to think that slavery would have lasted into the 20th century, but things didn't look that way at the time.
In the late 18th century, British courts had already ruled that slaves coming to Britain would become free. Pennsylvania, as I said, had already begun the process of emancipation, as had Massachusetts. It would take much time, but it was possible to view slavery as a relic of the past that would be discarded.
Virginians were beginning to be discontented with the tobacco plantation system and the state might have outgrown slavery, if the prospects for cotton growing in new lands to the South and West hadn't emerged.
Later wars for independence in South America brought freedom for the slaves. In retrospect it's surprising that North America, so much more devoted to individual liberty and self-government didn't pave the way in regard to slavery as well.
If members of some group are entitled to declare that they are oppressed and in justifiable revolution against their oppressors just because they feel like it, others are free to argue that from their point of view, members of the first group aren't oppressed and aren't entitled to rebel and may even be oppressors themselves -- and then where are we?
No. In disputes between people or peoples we can't just discard objective facts and values and argue that whatever one person or group thinks entitles them to whatever they want. Sure, if you live on a desert island you can do as you want, and we have a wide sphere of individual liberty, but if you're part of an ongoing partnership, you can't simply take everything that's not nailed down and skip out on your partners just because you happen to feel like it.