The British Parliament discussed a measure to set the slaves in the colonies free with a view to weaken their masters' ardor for freedom. In Rhode Island slaves were, by law, set free on condition that they enlisted in the army for the war.
(10) Parton's Life of Jefferson, p. 138.
(11) History Ready Reference, etc., vol. iv., p. 2923.
(12) Sparks's Life of Washington, vol. ii., p. 494.
(13) Bancroft, History of the United States, vol. iv., 223,322.
IV CONTINENTAL CONGRESS—ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION 1774-1789
The Continental Congress, which assembled for the first time, September 5, 1774, at Carpenters' Hall, Philadelphia, assumed few powers, and its proceedings were, until the adoption by it of the Declaration of Independence, little more than protests against British oppression. Nor was any central government formed on the adoption of the Declaration. That Congress continued, by common agreement, to direct affairs, though, in the beginning, possessing no delegated political or governmental powers.
Slavery existed in the colonies or States prior to the Declaration by the connivance of British colonial authorities without the sanction of and against English law; and after the Declaration, by mere toleration as an existing domestic institution, not even by virtue of express colonial or State authority.
In 1772 Lord Mansfield, from the Court of the King's Bench, announced that slavery could not exist under the English Constitution.
The Articles of Confederation did nothing more than formulate, in a weak way, a government for the United States, solely through a Congress to which was delegated little political power. This Congress continued to govern (if government it could be called) until the Constitution went into effect, March 4, 1789.