Shit was so bigoted back then they said that unironically and everyone immediately understood it only applied to rich white men who owned land.
Its not quite that simple. You had a lot of discourse on and around the concept of liberty, particularly in the major urban centers and universities. But like a great deal of revolutionary sentiment, the theory of liberty was precluded by the reality of economic incentives.
The Continental Army was funded by the Virginia plantation class largely thanks to their response to the Dunmore Proclamation. Northern territories more predisposed to emancipation were crippled by the merchantalist system of England and could not assert themselves financially or militarily until some 80 years after the American Revolution. Southern territories, which had rapidly depleted their agricultural soils thanks to aggressive tobacco harvesting and poor crop rotation strategies, were cash rich but labor poor.
So you had a marriage of convenience between plantation states and industry states for the purpose of kicking out British colonial military. But it wasn’t as simple as saying “Everyone quietly agreed on slavery”. The abolitionist movement existed during the colonial era, it simply didn’t exist in the states with the economic and military supremacy… yet.
Its not quite that simple. You had a lot of discourse on and around the concept of liberty, particularly in the major urban centers and universities. But like a great deal of revolutionary sentiment, the theory of liberty was precluded by the reality of economic incentives.
The Continental Army was funded by the Virginia plantation class largely thanks to their response to the Dunmore Proclamation. Northern territories more predisposed to emancipation were crippled by the merchantalist system of England and could not assert themselves financially or militarily until some 80 years after the American Revolution. Southern territories, which had rapidly depleted their agricultural soils thanks to aggressive tobacco harvesting and poor crop rotation strategies, were cash rich but labor poor.
So you had a marriage of convenience between plantation states and industry states for the purpose of kicking out British colonial military. But it wasn’t as simple as saying “Everyone quietly agreed on slavery”. The abolitionist movement existed during the colonial era, it simply didn’t exist in the states with the economic and military supremacy… yet.