A draft of the document denounced the transatlantic slave trade by accusing the British monarch of “violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people . . . captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither.” The antislavery clause was excised from the final draft of the declaration due to the objections of delegates from Georgia and South Carolina as well as some northern states that benefited from slavery.4
