[4] It specified that Every Negro and Mulatto child born within the State after the passing of the Act (1780) would be free upon reaching age twenty-eight.
[4] Four other Northern states adopted policies to at least gradually abolish slavery: New Hampshire and Massachusetts in 1783, and Connecticut and Rhode Island in 1784.
[3] By 1808, the importation of enslaved people was prohibited (though smuggling continued), and by the 1820s all Northern states enacted laws for either gradual or immediate emancipation.
[6][circular reference] Starting in the early 19th century, the concept of gradual abolition spread from the US to Latin America, where it became known as Freedom of wombs.
Abraham Lincoln proposed an amendment to the Constitution for gradual emancipation in 1861 and 1862, culminating with the Second Message to Congress in December 1862.