# Notes on the History of Slavery in Massachusetts/Chapter 10

X.
We have still to notice two acts of legislation in Massachusetts, which were passed in the year 1788—eight years after the alleged termination of slavery in that State by the adoption of the Constitution. These acts were passed just after the adoption of the Federal Constitution by the State Convention.
The first is the only one directly and positively hostile to slavery to be found among all their statutes. It is a very remarkable fact that the reluctance of the Legislature to meet the subject fairly and fully in front should have left their statute-book in so questionable a shape. With Portia, glowing with delight at the unsuccessful choice of her fable suitor, they seem to have wished to say,
"A gentle riddance: draw the curtains; go— Let all of his complexion chuse me so."
Merchant of Venice, Act II., Sc. VIII.
But neither the cupidity of their slave-trading merchants, nor the peculiar improvidence of the negro—the one sharpened by successful gain, the other hardened into hopeless acquiescence with pauperism—would permit this "gentle riddance," and although the "curtains" have been "drawn" over these disagreeable features for nearly a century, the historian of slavery must let in the light upon them.
As early as 1785, the Legislature instituted an inquiry as to the measures proper to be adopted by them to discountenance and prevent any inhabitant of the Commonwealth being concerned in the slave-​Page:Notes on the History of Slavery - Moore - 1866.djvu/234 ​Page:Notes on the History of Slavery - Moore - 1866.djvu/235 ​Page:Notes on the History of Slavery - Moore - 1866.djvu/236 ​Page:Notes on the History of Slavery - Moore - 1866.djvu/237 ​Page:Notes on the History of Slavery - Moore - 1866.djvu/238 ​Page:Notes on the History of Slavery - Moore - 1866.djvu/239 ​Page:Notes on the History of Slavery - Moore - 1866.djvu/240 ​Page:Notes on the History of Slavery - Moore - 1866.djvu/241 ​Page:Notes on the History of Slavery - Moore - 1866.djvu/242 ​Page:Notes on the History of Slavery - Moore - 1866.djvu/243 ​Page:Notes on the History of Slavery - Moore - 1866.djvu/244 ​Page:Notes on the History of Slavery - Moore - 1866.djvu/245 ​Page:Notes on the History of Slavery - Moore - 1866.djvu/246 ​Page:Notes on the History of Slavery - Moore - 1866.djvu/247 ​Page:Notes on the History of Slavery - Moore - 1866.djvu/248 ​Page:Notes on the History of Slavery - Moore - 1866.djvu/249 ​Page:Notes on the History of Slavery - Moore - 1866.djvu/250 ​England. Of the latter Lord Mansfield said, in 1785, that "villains in gross may in point of law subsist at this day. But the change of manners and customs has effectually abolished them in point of fact." Ante, p. 115, note. If the parallel may be continued, it could be said with equal justice that slavery, having never been formally prohibited by legislation in Massachusetts, continued to "subsist in point of law" until the year 1866, when the grand Constitutional Amendment terminated it forever throughout the limits of the United States. It would be not the least remarkable of the circumstances connected with this strange and eventful hifsory, that, although virtually abolished before, the actual prohibition of slavery in Massachusetts as well as Kentucky, should be accomplished by the votes of South Carolina and Georgia.