How did the American Revolution put "slavery on the permanent defensive"?

Answer 1

Fighting for freedom, especially alongside freed slaves, gave many a new perspective, and slavery essentially died out in the northern states because of it. I don't have contemporary figures available, but only a half century earlier a census of New York showed over 20% of the city's population were slaves, and they were a prime commodity on Wall Street. And the first colony to import slaves was not, as you might think, Virginia, but Massachusetts.
Once slavery went out in the north, it had to fail eventually in the south as well, since slavery requires secure borders. The Seminole Wars, for instance, and even the Mexican-American War to a large extent, were fought to deny avenues of escape, and the Mason-Dixon line was certainly no ironclad boundary despite Dred Scott, and with the northern states' population growth outstripping the south's, the slave-holders' grip on the Supreme Court and foreign policy couldn't last forever.

Answer 2

The Revolutionary War began in 1775. The Declaration of Independence sets forth the famous American credo "all men are created equal," which kind of speaks for itself and its importance was discussed by another user here.

Subsequent to the American Revolution, the colonies formed a loose confedration of states under the Articles of Confederation and then formed a more permanent union under the U.S. Constitution.

The constitutional authors were embarrased by the word "slave" as it didn't appear anywhere in the text. In fact, the authors utilized other words to avoid using the word slave.

Also, the founders thought they were putting the slave trade on the road to extinction by prohibiting the practice after 1808.

Answer 3

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--

Pretty hard to argue against that.

Slavery was a necessity in the south, the southern economy depended upon it. They did not have the population to employee workers, should they have did away with slavery. It is debatable as to if the southern states could have economically employee wage workers rather than slaves.
The south maintained slavery and resisted emancipation for so long for economic issues.

Answer 4

Well, one thing it did was make the idea that "it's what we've always done" a mute point.. Basically saying that just because it is tradition doesn't make it right.. Not the best answer for the question, but I'm not sure of the context.. and it's the only thing that popped into my head.