At the close of the revolution, slavery existed in most of the colonies, if not all, and their statute books contained laws relating to that condition, and to the condition of "free persons of color." However, as time passed and the institution of slavery disappeared, we find these laws disappearing or becoming greatly modified or mitigated in their provisions. For instance, March 26, 1783, Massachusetts passed a law forbidding an African or Negro to tarry within the commonwealth for a longer time than two months unless such person could produce a certificate from the secretary of State of which such person claimed to be a citizen, showing that he was such, and that where such persons did not have the required certificate they should be ordered to depart from the State, and upon failure to do so be committed to any house of correction, and that such punishment should be repeated whenever and as often as the order to depart was disobeyed. This law was repealed, however, in 1786. It seems that slavery was abolished in Massachusetts by operation of the constitution of 1780, which declares that "All men are born free and equal." Harry St. George Tucker, president of the Virginia Court of Appeals, said in 1833, speaking of this constitutional utterance, that "We should be disposed to take this declaration less as an abstraction than we regard that which is contained in our own bill of rights" (5th Leigh Rep., 622). By 1786, it appears that Massachusetts had abolished all distinctions in law based on race except that in relation to marriage, which appears to have been repealed in 1843. In 1833, Connecticut enacted a law forbidding the setting up or establishment of any school, academy or literary institution for the instruction or education of colored persons who were not inhabitants of the State. This law was repealed in 1838. The constitution of Rhode Island of 1843, conferred the elective franchise on persons of the male sex qualified by residence and property without distinction of color. In New Hampshire the constitution of 1783 contains the principle that all men are born equally free, and no distinction on account of color is found in any of her statutes except in a law of 1792, which specified that enlistment in the militia should be confined to white people. In the law of 1857, relating to the subject of militia, color is not mentioned. Neither in the constitution nor laws of Vermont does one find for this period any distinction based on color, so that in Vermont the term "free colored person" had no existence and consequently no meaning. In Maine no distinctions based on color are to be found for the period under consideration either in the constitution or the statutes. In Pennsylvania colored people exercised the elective franchise and enjoyed full citizenship with the whites up to 1838, when the elective franchise, by the constitution of that year, was confined to whites.