GHIST 225: US History Kevin R. Hardwick Spring 2012 LECTURE 12 Slavery and the US Constitution

1. GHIST 225: US History Kevin R. Hardwick Spring 2012 LECTURE 12 Slavery and the US Constitution

2. Slavery is a labor regime premised on legally sanctioned violence. When masters cannot use violence, slavery does not work.

3. Article IV, Section 2, United States Constitution: “No person held to service or labor in one state, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.”

4. Article One of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights: All men are born free and equal, and have certain natural, essential, and unalienable rights; among which may be reckoned the right of enjoying and defending their lives and liberties; that of acquiring, possessing, and protecting property; in fine, that of seeking and obtaining their safety and happiness.

5. Massachusetts Chief Justice William Cushing: Whatever sentiments have formerly prevailed in this particular or slid in upon us by the example of others, a different idea has taken place in America, more favourable to the natural rights of mankind, and to that natural, innate desire of liberty, which with heaven (without regard to color, complexion, or shape of noses—features) has inspired all the human race. I think the idea of slavery is inconsistent with our own conduct and Constitution; and there can be no such thing as perpetual servitude of a rational creature, unless his liberty is forfeited by some criminal conduct or given up by personal consent or contract.

6. Quaker Petition to the Continental Congress, 1783: “We find with great satisfaction . . . that those of them held in bondage by members of our religious society are generally restored to freedom, their natural and just right.” “We have long beheld with sorrow the complicated evils produced by an unrighteous commerce which subjects many thousands of the human species to the deplorable state of slavery.”

7. George Mason, Philadelphia Convention, 1787: Slaves “produce the most pernicious effect on manners. Every master of slaves is born a petty tyrant. They bring the judgment of heaven on a country. As nations can not be rewarded or punished in the next world they must be in this . . . providence punishes national sins by national calamities.”

8. Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia: “The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other.”

9. Pro-Slavery Petition to the Virginia Legistlature, 1786: “When the British Parliament usurped a right to dispose of our property without our consent, we dissolved the union with our parent state.” The purpose of the Virginia constitution was to create “a form of government of our own, that our property might be secure in the future.”

10. Pro-Slavery Petition to the Virginia Legistlature, 1786: “Under the Old Testament dispensation, slavery was permitted by the deity himself.”

11. New Testament: St. Paul’s letter to Ephesians, 6:5, for example: Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, single-mindedly, as serving Christ. Colossians, 3:22: Slaves, give entire obedience to your earthly masters, not merely with an outward show of service, to curry favor with men, but with singlemindedness, out of reverence for the Lord.

12. Pro-Slavery Petition to the Virginia Legistlature, 1786: “The freedom which the followers of Jesus were taught to expect, was a freedom from the bondage of sin and Satan and from the dominion of lusts and passions, but as to their outward condition whatever it was before they embraced Christianity, whether bond or free, it remained the same afterwards.”

13. Melancton Smith, New York Ratifying Convention, 1788: “Representatives and direct taxes, shall be apportioned among the several states, which may be included in this union, according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other persons.”

14. Melancton Smith, New York Ratifying Convention, 1788: “What a strange and unnecessary accumulation of words are here used to conceal from the public eye, what might have been expressed in the following concise manner: Representatives are to be apportioned among the states respectively, according to the number of freemen and slaves inhabiting them, counting five slaves for three free men.”

15. James Madison, Federalist 54: “We must deny the fact that slaves are considered merely as property, and in no respect whatever as persons. The true state of the case is, that they partake of both these qualities; being considered by our laws, in some respects as persons, and in other respects as property.”

16. James Madison, Federalist 54: Madison pointed out that slaves were “vendible by one master to another master,” and thus property, “degraded from the human rank, and classed with those irrational animals, which fall under the denomination of legal property.” But, on the other hand, Madison argued, the slave was by law “protected in his life and limb, against the violence of others,” and was “punishable himself for all violence committed against others,” and thus clearly accorded status as a human being.