Accordingly we find arrayed against the aristocratic masters almost all the leaders of the American Revolution.[1] They favored the policy, first, of suppressing the slave trade, next of emancipating the Negroes in bondage, and finally of educating them for a life of freedom.[2] While students of government were exposing the inconsistency of slaveholding among a people contending for political liberty, and men like Samuel Webster, James Swan, and Samuel Hopkins attacked the institution on economic grounds;[3] Jonathan Boucher,[4] Dr.Rush,[5] and Benjamin Franklin[6] were devising plans to educate slaves for freedom; and Isaac Tatem[7] and Anthony Benezet[8] were actually in the schoolroom endeavoring to enlighten their black brethren.
[Footnote 1: Cobb, _Slavery_, etc., p.

82.] [Footnote 2: Madison, _Works of_, vol.iii., p.

496; Smyth, _Works of Franklin_, vol.v., p.

431; Washington, _Works of Jefferson_, vol.
ix., p.

163; Brissot de Warville, _New Travels_, vol.i., p.