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. Slavery in the United States was the legal institution of human chattel enslavement primarily of Africans and African Americans that existed in the United States of America in the 17th 18th and 19th centuries Slavery had been practiced in British America from early colonial days and was legal in all Thirteen Colonies at the time of the Declaration of Independence in 1776 it lasted in about half the states until 1865 when it was prohibited nationally by the Thirteenth Amendment As an economic system slavery was largely replaced by sharecropping and convict leasing. On January 16 1776 during the Revolutionary War Congress allowed free blacks to serve in the militia Washington initially protested the enlistment of slaves but later relented when the British emancipated and used slaves By the end of the war one-tenth of Washington's army were Blacks.

The United States delegation at the 1783 Treaty of Paris included John Jay John Adams Benjamin Franklin Henry Laurens and William Temple Franklin Here they are depicted by Benjamin West in his American Commissioners of the Preliminary Peace Agreement with Great Britain the British delegation refused to pose and the painting was never completed, A separate British force captured Alexandria on the south side of the Potomac River while Ross's troops were leaving Washington the mayor of Alexandria made a deal and the British refrained from burning the town, In Lincoln's first inaugural address he explored the nature of democracy He denounced secession as anarchy and explained that majority rule had to be balanced by constitutional restraints He said "A majority held in restraint by constitutional checks and limitations and always changing easily with deliberate changes of popular opinions and sentiments is the only true sovereign of a free people.":86. Emancipation Proclamation Ashley's Sack is a cloth that recounts a slave sale separating a mother and her daughter the sack belonged to a nine-year-old girl Ashley which was a parting gift from her mother Rose after Ashley had been sold Rose filled the sack with a dress braid of her hair pecans and "my love always", Many black slaves sided with the Loyalists Tens of thousands in the South used the turmoil of war to escape and the southern plantation economies of South Carolina and Georgia were disrupted in particular During the Revolution the British tried to turn slavery against the Americans. Historian David Brion Davis explains the difficulties with a policy of wholesale arming of the slaves:. !