GHIST 225: US History
Kevin R. Hardwick
Spring 2012
LECTURE 12
Slavery and the US Constitution
Slavery is a labor regime premised on legally
sanctioned violence.
When masters cannot use violence, slavery does not
work.
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.”
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.
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.
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.”
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.”
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.”
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.”
Pro-Slavery Petition to the Virginia Legistlature, 1786:
“Under the Old Testament dispensation, slavery was
permitted by the deity himself.”
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.
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.”
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.”
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.”
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.”
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.