Crucially, revolutionary American leaders want freedom in the form of a free
market—the ability to trade beyond the British Empire (and thus exponentially increase the profits from slavery and the slave trade). Scottish philosopher and economist
Adam Smith supports this in his enormously influential
The Wealth of Nations. In it, Smith calls Africa “barbarous and uncivilized” and praises the new system of government being developed in America. Following the resolution to declare independence in 1776,
Jefferson’s fellow delegates edit the
Declaration. A group of Southern representatives remove a reference to slavery as a “cruel war against human nature,” worrying that this will stimulate the abolitionist movement.