Pennsylvania had existed for four years; slaveholding had been present for at least three of those. These Dutch Christians, alluding to Matthew 7:12, believed that Jesus' morality demanded a higher standard: "Is there any that would be . . . sold or made a slave for all the time of his life? …There is a saying, that we shall doe to all men as we will be done ourselves."

For the next half-century, similar scattered protests against the slavery system were offered to an indifferent or actively hostile North American public. Before the Revolution, Quakers like George Keith and Samuel Sewall criticized the common practice of purchasing Africans who had been made captive in wars. Since "every War is upon one side Unjust," Sewall observed, "an Unlawful War can't make lawful Captives. And by receiving, we are in danger to promote, and partake in their Barbarous Cruelties." Early opponents of slavery often paid a high price for their outspokenness. They were disowned by family and fellow congregants, and faced public ostracization. Despite their efforts, the moral question of slavery would not be joined nationally until a decade before the Civil War.