John Laurens, a born and raised southerner, derived from a deeply patriotic environment believed that the idea of  “all men are created equal” was a hypocritical notion. He thought it was morally wrong to say, as a country who hadn’t followed through since most of the south had owned plantations and slaves. Therefore, during the Revolutionary War he established a plan to negotiate with the Congress in order to get black men the right to fight with the Continental Army in return for their freedom. Unfortunately, in South Carolina in 1782 he died and along with him, the movement he’d started in order to free black men. Until a little more than 80 years later, in 1864, when black men joined the Union army to fight in the Civil War.