Many circumstances now combined to quiet the apprehensions of the fugitive bondmen in Florida. The elder Adams had been elected President in the autumn of 1796, and assumed the duties of his office on the fourth of March following. A descendant of the Pilgrims, he had been reared and educated among the lovers of liberty; he had long served in Congress; he had reported upon the rights of the people of the Colonies in 1774, and was chairman of the committee who reported the Declaration of Independence, in 1776, and to its doctrines he had ever exhibited an unfaltering devotion. From such an Administration the claimants in Georgia could expect but little aid. Another consideration, cheering to the friends of Freedom, was the total failure of the claims on Great Britain, for slaves lost during the War of the Revolution. The influence of those claimants was no longer felt in the Government. The public indignation was also somewhat excited against the institution of Slavery by incidents of a barbarous character, which had then recently transpired in North Carolina. After the promulgation of the Declaration of Independence, the Quakers of that State, conscious of its momentous truths, proceeded in good faith to emancipate their slaves; believing that the only mode in which they could evince their adherence to its doctrines. The advocates of oppression were offended at this practical recognition of the "equal right of all men to liberty," and, to manifest their abhorrence of such doctrines, arrested the slaves so emancipated as _fugitives from labor_. The Quakers, ever true to their convictions of justice, lent their influence, and contributed their funds, to test the legal rights of the persons thus set at liberty, before the proper tribunals of the State; and the question was carried to the Court of Appeals, where a final judgment was rendered in favor of their freedom. This decision appears to have disappointed general expectation among the advocates of slavery, and created much excitement throughout the State. At the next session of the Legislature, an act was passed authorizing persons possessing landed property to seize and reënslave the people thus emancipated. But the planters of that State were usually possessed of wealth and intelligence, and, holding principles of honor, they refused to perform so degrading a service; and the liberated negroes continued to enjoy their freedom. But the opponents of liberty became so clamorous against the example thus set in favor of freedom, that the Legislature passed an amendatory act, authorizing _any person_ to seize, imprison and sell, as slaves, any negro who had been emancipated in said State, _except those who had served in the army of the United States during the war of the Revolution_.