I Went Hunting for This as I Was Preparing for Spring Semester

 There is a famous quote from Samuel Johnson deriding Revolutionary whining about being treated like slaves: "how is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?"  There were Revolutionaries who saw the logic and freed their slaves.  After the war, northern states start to abolish slavery.  There is also a curious indirect way in which the Revolution frees many slaves.

Lord Dunmore was Virginia's last royal governor.  As he realized that the Patriots had him greatly outnumbered, he retreated to a Royal Navy warship and declared that slaves who fought for Britain would be freed:

On November 7, 1775, Dunmore issued a proclamation that established martial law and offered freedom to slaves who would leave patriotic owners and join the British army: "I do hereby farther declare all indented servants, Negroes, or others (appertaining to rebels) free, that are able and willing to bear arms, they joining his Majesty’s troops, as soon as may be, for the more speedily reducing this colony to a proper sense of their duty, to his Majesty’s crown and dignity."

Within a month 300 black men had signed up with Dunmore’s "Royal Ethiopian Regiment." While the regiment grew to only 800 men, his proclamation inspired thousands of enslaved people to seek freedom behind British lines throughout the Revolutionary War.

In addition, many masters sent their slaves to fight in the Revolutionary militaries with the promise of freedom.  Some failed to keep their promise so Virginia fixed that.  11 Hening 308 (1783)