| Existing comment:
At the Constitutional Convention and in his essays in the Federalist, Hamilton said nothing about the Constitution's provisions protecting slavery. He feared that advocating action against slavery would imperil national unity. At the local level, however, he was an early member of the New York Manumission Society, founded in 1785 to promote the gradual abolition of slavery. The society's president, John Jay, owned domestic slaves, as did about half its members, and Hamilton's proposal that they immediately free their slaves was rejected. In 1787, the Manumission Society established the African Free School, open to the children of enslaved and free black New Yorkers, and lobbied for legislation to bring freedom to all enslaved New Yorkers, enlisting state assemblyman Aaron Burr (also a slave owner) as a sponsor. The law would not be passed until 1799. |