Art. III. "The several States hereby severally enter into a firm league of friendship with each other for their common defence, the security of their liabilities and their mutual and general welfare, binding themselves to assist each other against all force opposed to, or attacks made upon them, or any of them, on account of religion, sovereignty, trade or any other pretence whatever."
The other articles of confederation conferred upon Congress very little more power than it had been exercising. All important measures required the concurrence of nine States, the votes being given by the delegates from each State as a unit, and not in their individual capacity.
The right of the States to recall their delegates and to appoint others was expressly reserved, so that five States acting together, could at any time block the government, and the latter had no means of enforcing its decrees when made, but had to rely upon the voluntary compliance of the States as before. It will thus be seen that the government organized under the articles of confederation remained still a mere confederacy of several independent States. When peace was finally made with Great Britain, that power recognized the sovereignty and independence of the several States of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia by name, and not the sovereignty and independence of the United States.
After the treaty of peace, under the navigation laws of Great Britain, American vessels trading with that country, were restricted to the importation of products of the several States to which they belonged, which put those States upon the footing of so many separate nations.
The action of the several States upon the subject of slavery and the slave trade during the war and afterwards to the time of the adoption of the Constitution of the United States was as follows:
Delaware, as before stated, by her constitution adopted in 1776, prohibited the further introduction of slaves.
Virginia did the same thing by her law adopted in 1778.
Pennsylvania, whose legislature had ceased to be under the control of the Quakers, as they refused to take part in the Revolution, adopted a law in 1780, prohibiting the further introduction of slaves and giving freedom to all children of slave mothers born after its passage.
Massachusetts incorporated a declaration in her bill of rights adopted in 1780, that "all men are born free and equal," and under that declaration it was decided by the Supreme Court of that State in 1783, that slavery was prohibited. It cannot be claimed that this declaration was intended to have that effect, for if such had been the case it would not have been left to judicial interpretation to give it, but an express provision would have been incorporated on the subject. It was a species of judicial legislation which was submitted to because no important interest was at stake. There were a little over 6,000 slaves in Massachusetts at the date of the Revolution, distributed in small numbers among the owners and employed mostly as household servants. The population was largely engaged in commerce, fisheries, manufactures, etc., and the character of the agriculture was not at all adapted to slave labor. Nothing of consequence therefore, was to be gained by contesting the validity of the decision, and it was the easiest way of getting rid of the matter by quiet submission.