Some people said the answer was "no," and some said it was "yes." That's why there was a civil war about 80 years later. The American Revoltion actually sparke

Some people said the answer was "no," and some said it was "yes." That's why there was a civil war about 80 years later. The American Revoltion actually sparked a first round of antislavery laws and court cases, which eliminated slavery in the northern states within a generation. Even in parts of the South, there was increasing questioning of slavery. The US banned the international slave trade. Virginia made it legal (for the first time) to free slaves, and there was a small wave of manumissions. People like Thomas Jefferson admitted that there was something wrong with slavery, even if they were so financially dependent on it that they didn't free their own slaves. Jefferson even drafted a new constitution for Virginia that would have freed anyone born after 1800, but shelved it when he decided it wouldn't have enough support to pass. Vehement proslavery ideology really developed a few decades after the revoltion.