What Lincoln and Other Yankees Knew:
THE EVIDENCE THAT
PRE-CIVIL WAR U.S. SLAVERY
WAS ILLEGAL AND UNCONSTITUTIONAL:

Evidence from the English Common Law, Court Precedents,
The Declaration of Independence, State Constitutions, The U.S. Constitution,
The Bill of Rights, The Many Anti-Kidnaping Precedents
And Rescue Doctrine and Incidents

In Context of Who Did It, Why, States' Rights,
Expansionism, White Slavery, Politician Character,
Genocide, The Emancipation Proclamation,
Reparations, and Current Impact

Bibliography Below

The fact that slavery was unconstitutional was widely known in the North. A number of law suits had been won against slavery. Abolitionists called attention to these precedents far and wide. So why don't 21st century Americans know this? Answer: Due to disproportionate Southern influence on text-book writing, this type information (deemed 'offensive' to that section) is de-emphasized if not omitted altogether! This site reveals (as Lincoln and others did) the truth about slavery unconstitutionality that pre-1861 Americans knew. Now you can too!

To overcome the lack of information or disinformation, the references for this are thoroughly cited. In essence, this site is heavily foot-noted so you can, if you wish, verify any and all the source material.

1. First, Read The Law, Don't Assume That
Practice (Tradition, What People Do) Is Legal

         It may be “practice,” history, or “tradition” for people to jaywalk or rob or kidnap or enslave, for example, as pro-slavers argued. That is what people historically do (they said), therefore, that is what the law and Constitution allow! But such circular reasoning is wrong reasoning.

“Right is still right, even if nobody is doing it. And wrong is still wrong, even if everybody is doing it.”—Texas Ranger saying.
“An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody sees it.”—Mohandas Gandhi.

Personal behavior, what people do, is not the standard of what is lawful, constitutional. The standard is what the law says, defines as within legal and constitutional limits. To find out what laws say, what the Constitution requires, do not compare with tradition, with practice, with what people do. Read the law, the Constitution. Here is why:

“what ought to be done is fixed by a standard . . . whether it usually is complied with or not.”—Texas
& Pac Ry v Behymer, 189 US 468, 470; 23 S Ct 622, 623; 47 L Ed 903 (U.S. Supreme Court, 1903).

Law, including constitutional law, is designed for a purpose. That is, it is

“designed to disrupt” nonconforming practice (or lower laws), says
U.S. v City of Los Angeles, 595 F2d 1386, 1391 (CA 9, 1979).

A “practice” [or state law] “not based upon any rule of law” [or Constitution] must be reversed and rejected, Biafore v Baker, 119 Mich App 667; 326 NW2d 598 (1982); The T. J. Hooper, 60 F2d 737, 740 (CA 2, 1932). Such "practice" must be superseded and ended.

That principle of law was the same during slavery. As you will learn here, slavery was not allowed. But it was being done, despite the law.

Abolitionist Rep. Owen Lovejoy cited slavery as mere “practice” in his “The Barbarism of Slavery” (5 April 1860), House of Representatives, 36th Cong, 1st Sess., Vol 29, Appendix, pp 203, 203 again, 204a, 204a again, 204b, 204c, 205a, 205a again, 205b, 206c, and 207a.

Just as there was defiance of the Fourteenth Amendment for a century until the recent [1950's - 1960's] civil rights movement, so likewise

“[g]ross outrages, in open defiance of Magna Charta and common law, have been continued through entire generations.” Nonetheless, law is “designed to disrupt” practice, so “customs and usages do not define or create law, but should be controlled by it.”—William Goodell, Slavery and Anti-Slavery (New York: William Harned, 1852), p 576.

And to the same effect, see Frederick Douglass, Unconstitutionality of Slavery, (London: William Tweedie, 1860), p 7. In torture context, see Richard Hildreth, Atrocious Judges (New York and Auburn: Orton & Mulligan, 1856), p 33.

In short, the fact that people do something, doesn't tell us what laws actually say.

An Abolitionist Example
Abolitionist Rep. Thaddeus Stevens once gave an example of the above concept. He cited the story of someone who was disagreeing.

Later that same individual mentioned a recent murder, “Did you hear of that atrocious murder committed in our town? A [criminal] deliberately murdered [someone] .”

The respondent said, “I think you are mistaken.”

“How so? I saw it myself.”

“You are wrong, no murder was or could be committed, for the law forbids it!!”

Point made!—Rep. Thaddeus Stevens, Congressional Globe, 39th Cong, 1st Sess, 18 Dec 1865, pp 72-75. (Full Text) Likewise, re slavery! Just because something (e.g., kidnaping, rape, slavery, murder, secession) is illegal, doesn't mean it doesn't happen.
Harriet Beecher Stowe, Key (1853), p 92, had made the same point.

A number of abolitionists said, "When we say that slavery is illegal, we mean not merely that it is morally wrong, wicked, or sinful, in the sight of God, but that it is likewise unlawful, by the established principles of human jurisprudence, just as murder, arson, robbery, theft, and assault and battery, are unlawful, and that there is no more valid law for [favoring] the one than there is for the other. We mean that slaveholding is illegal, as other criminal practices are illegal. We affirm that there is no legislation in any of the States that makes it legal. . . . Slavery can not possibly be legalized. In its very nature it is incapable of legalization. The standard writers on common law affirm the impossibility of legalizing slavery, even by positive municipal law. They declare the right to liberty to be inalienable, and that statutes against fundamental morality are void. . . . The nature of civil government and of civil law, as defined by all standard writers on those subjects, proves it impossible to legalize slavery. 'To secure' man’s inalienable rights, 'governments are instituted among men.' And consequently they can have no lawful authority to violate the rights which they exist only to protect." See Lewis Tappan, et al., Proceedings of Convention (New York, 1855), pp 10-11.

2. Colonies Were To Obey English Law Whereby Slavery Was Unlawful

American colonies' laws were derived from England, the 'mother country.' Their charters issued pursuant to the British Constitution, required obeying English law including the "common law":

(1) "there were no English statute laws . . . authorizing the holding of slaves, either in England or in the American colonies," and

(2) "the common law of England was incompatible with slavery, and neither recognized nor permitted its existence." Goodell, supra, pp 18 and 49-51; and Benjamin Shaw, Illegality of Slavery (Boston, 1846), p 2.

Note well that "the status of slavery was not recognized in English law"—Lawrence Henry Gipson, The Coming of the Revolution 1763-1775, in Henry Steel Commager and Richard B. Morris, eds., The New American Nation Series (New York: Harper & Row, Torchbooks University Library, 1954 and 1962), p 4.

Since slavery was not a legal recognized status, the high court decision, Somerset v Stewart, Lofft 1, 18-19; 20 Howell's State Trials 1, 79-82; 98 Eng Rep 499, 509-510 (King's Bench, June 1772), said so. That decision thus further precluded slavery here in the colonies and subsequent U.S.

The slavery immediately at issue in the U.S. abolitionist era had begun in the 1600's. By the 1800's, slavers deemed the passage of time as a ratification of what they were doing. But mere passage of time does not turn the illegal into legal! Every bank robber knows that: delay in apprehension does not thereby make the robbery legal and the loot his legal possession or property!

"Quod ab initio non valet in tractu temporis non convalescet. That which is bad in its commencement improves not by lapse of time. Quod initio non valet, tractu temporis non valet. A thing void in the beginning does not become valid by lapse of time."—Black's Law Dictionary (St. Paul: West Pub, 5th ed, 1979), pp 1126-1127.

The above-cited Somerset case showed that slavery had never legally begun.

Somerset impacted America "because the precedent had become part of American common law."—William M. Wiecek, "Somerset's Case," Encyclopedia of the American Constitution, Leonard W. Levy and Kenneth L. Karst, eds. (New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 2000), Vol 5, pp 2451-2452.

Saying likewise, that slavery was always contrary to common law, thus illegal and unconstitutional in America, were other, additional authors, at the time:
  • Gerrit Smith, Letter of Gerrit Smith to Hon. Henry Clay (New York: American Anti-Slavery Society, 21 March 1839), p 19;

  • Alvan Stewart, Legal Argument For the Deliverance of 4,000 Persons from Bondage (New York: Finch & Weed, 21-22 May 1845), p 19;

  • Rep. Horace Mann, Slavery and the Slave-Trade . . . (23 February 1849), pp 27-32;

  • Rev. William Goodell, Slavery and Anti-Slavery (New York: Wm. Harned Pub, 1852), pp 572-576;

  • Abraham Lincoln, "Speech at Peoria" (16 Oct 1854), p 221; and

  • Edward C. Rogers, Slavery Illegality in All Ages and Nations (Boston: Bela Marsh, 1855), pp 82-83.

    • One of the British Constitution 'rights of Englishmen' was to not be enslaved.

    Please re-read that.

    One of the British Constitution 'rights of Englishmen' was to not be enslaved.

    That's the Constitution the Colonies were supposed to follow.

    The British Constitution did not allow slavery. One of the 'rights of Englishmen' was to not be enslaved.

    This right applied here in the U.S. colonies. Reason: Pre-Revolution, the British Constitution WAS the U.S. Constitution.

    The 'no slavery allowed' aspect of the British Constitution, and common law, followed the Roman law concept cited by, for example, Roman Byzantine Emperor Justinian (527 C.E. - 565 C.E.):

    "Captivity and servitude are both contrary to the law of nature; for by that law all men are born free." (Institutes, 21 November 533 C.E.)
    The Institutes were following ancient Roman law, "that by nature all men are free [a legal principle] as old as ancient Rome; and the law of Rome repeatedly asserts, that all men by nature are free, and that slavery can subsist only by the laws of the State. (Digests, B. 1, T. 1, s. 4; B. 1, T. 5, ss. 4, 5.)" Cited in People ex rel. Napoleon v Lemmon, 5 Sand SCR 681; 7 N Y Super 681 (12 Nov 1852) aff'd 26 Barb 270, 287-289 (30 Dec 1857) aff'd 20 NY 562; 1860 WL 7815 (March 1860).

    That in turn followed Christian doctrine.

    In fact, "All presumptions of law are in favor of liberty. It is a maxim older than Christianity itself, Presumitur pro libertate; that the presumption is always to be in favor of liberty. . . . it was the maxim of ancient Rome before Christ was born, it is the maxim of the Christian Era, and of everybody, the world over, today; it is the maxim of the civil law of Europe, coming from the early ages of the Republic, through the Empire, and surviving the Empire, a system of law matured for twenty-five hundred years, into the most perfect embodiment of human reason to which the world has given birth; this law cried through all time, All men are by nature free; it is the great cry of Pagandom to Christendom, and Christendom echoes it back; it is the maxim of the common law of England; it is the maxim of the common law of Massachusetts; it is the maxim of the whole world, save only the slaveholding States of this Union," says Robert Rantoul, Jr., The Fugitive Slave Law (3 April 1851), p 13.

    In "1102 a council held in London saw fit to decree: 'Let no one hereafter presume to engage in that nefarious trade in which hitherto in England men were usually sold like brute animals.'"—New Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol 13 (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co, 1967), p 284. (See background, theological and historical.) For centuries, there is no record of noncompliance.

    An Irish decree, "that all the English slaves in the whole of Ireland, be immediately emancipated and restored to their former liberty," was issued in 1171. Slavery in England was abolished by a general charter of emancipation in 1381, says The Anti-Slavery Examiner (American Anti-Slavery Society, 1838)

    Then in 1569, an enslaving incident was attempted in England under Queen Elizabeth I. The 'master' attempted to beat the 'slave.' This violence was deemed then, as now, 'assault and battery.' A lawsuit ensued. In that case, Matter of Cartwright, 11 Elizabeth; 2 Rushworth's Coll 468 (1569), a court found slavery unconstitutional, saying, "England was too pure an air for slaves to breathe in," Goodell, supra, p 50.

    This precedent was confirmed two centuries later. In Shanley v Hervey, 2 Eden 126 (Chancery, March 1762), a court said that

    "As soon as a man puts foot on English ground, he is free: a Negro may maintain an action against his master for ill usage [modern term, reparations], and may have a Habeas Corpus, if restrained of his liberty."

    Three years later, in Smith v Brown and Cooper, 2 Ld Raym 1274; 2 Salk 666; 91 Eng Rep 566 (1765), Chief Justice Holt said "that as soon as a negro comes into England, he becomes free: one may be a villein [serf] in England, but not a slave." Goodell, supra, p 48.

    These precedents should have ended slavery. But like any crime, it kept on recurring.

    And since slavery kept recurring, just as civil rights violations did in the U.S. despite the Constitution, a "class action" in-effect case came about. This "class action" case was filed via a writ of habeas corpus.

    An alien, non-citizen of England, James Somerset, was taken by his "master" Charles Stewart, from the colonies to England, 7 Mass Hist Soc Proc 322-326. To challenge his enslavement, his lawyers used that well-established common law writ (habeas corpus) to challenge his enslavement (essentially, detention without charges being filed).

    A person can obtain a writ of habeas corpus without being a citizen, as it covers anyone unlawfully detained.—Lysander Spooner, The Unconstitutionality of Slavery [Boston: Bela Marsh, 1845], pages 105 and 276).

    That case, Somerset v Stewart, Lofft 1, 18-19; 20 Howell's State Trials 1, 79-82; 98 Eng Rep 499, 509-510 (King's Bench, June 1772), sponsored by British abolitionists including Granville Sharp, via Judge William Murray, L. Mansfield, reconfirmed that “there neither then was, nor ever had been, any legal slavery in England.” Goodell, supra, pp 18 and 49-51.

    In fact, two years before, a colonial court had found likewise (pursuant to the common law) here in the colonies, in James v Lechmere (Mass Superior Ct, 1770). See Goodell, supra, p 112; Spooner, supra, p 287, and Emory Washburn, Sketches of the Judicial History of Massachusetts from 1630 to the Revolution in 1775 (Boston: Charles C. Little & James Brown, 1840), p 202.

    See also the Quock Walker Cases (Mass, 1783), analyzing slavery as to whether it had ever been legally and constitutionally established and allowed:

  • “nowhere is it expressly enacted or established.

  • “It has been a usage [practice contrary to] the natural rights of mankind, and to that natural, innate desire of Liberty, with which Heaven (without regard to color, complexion, or shape of noses) has inspired all the human race.

  • “And upon this ground [basis] our Constitution of Government . . . sets out with declaring that all men are born free and equal—and that every subject is entitled to liberty, and to have it guarded by the laws, as well as life and property—and in short is totally repugnant to the idea of being born slaves. . . .

  • “the idea of slavery is inconsistent with our own conduct and Constitution; and there can [constitutionally] 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.”

    • In Joseph Knight, a Negro v Wedderburn, 33 Dict of Dec 14545 (Scotland, Jan 1778), the court held that defendant slaver Wedderburn "had no right to the Negro's service for any space of time. . . ."

    When for example, the English colony Virginia was established, it was provided a constitution, a "charter." That charter specified that the people in the Virginia colony

    "shall have and enjoy all liberties, franchizes and immunities within any of [England's] other dominions, to all intents and purposes as if they had been abiding and born within the realm of England." The mandate was to follow "the common law and the equity thereof."—William J. Wood, "The Illegal Beginning of American Negro Slavery," 56 American Bar Ass'n Journal (#1) 45-49 (Jan 1970).

    Overall, all the various colonies had charters to this effect:

    "[T]he colonial charters, authorizing the colonial Legislatures to enact laws, gave no license to slavery, and contained the general proviso, that the laws of the colonies should 'not be repugnant or contrary, but as nearly as circumstances would allow, conformable to the laws, statutes, and rights of our kingdom of England.'"

    "The charters of Virginia, Maryland, the Carolinas, and Georgia, as well as of Pennsylvania and the New England colonies, were essentially alike in this regard." Wherefore, "there were no colonial enactments that authorized the holding of slaves, or defined the relation and condition of slavery." Goodell, supra, p 18; Spooner, supra, pp 21-31.

    [Instead, for example:] "The first settlement of Georgia was commenced under auspices decidedly hostile to slavery. Gen. James Oglethorpe [1696-1785], a member of the British Parliament, 'conceived the idea of opening for the poor of his own country, and for persecuted Protestants of all nations, an asylum in America.' [So he set up Georgia. The governing] Trustees strictly prohibited slavery, and 'declared [it] to be not only immoral, but contrary to the laws of England.'" Goodell, supra, pp 20-21, citing, with emphasis added, Marcius Willson, American History (NY: Ivison, Phinney, Blakeman & Co, 1846), pp 261-262.

    In Forbes v Cochrane, 2 Bran & Cressw 448; 3 Dowl & Ryl 679; 107 Eng Rep 450 (England, 1824), it was again noted that the English legal system does not allow for slavery, so

    "if a man wishes to preserve his slaves, let him attach them to him by affection, or make fast the bars of their prison, or rivet well their chains [details], for the instant they get [away] they have broken their chains, they have escaped from their prison, and are free." [See Context.]

    The colonial charters were of course law, Town of Pawlet v Daniel Clark, et al, 13 US (9 Cr) 292, 332-333; 3 L Ed 735, 749-750 (10 March 1815):

    "we take it to be a clear principle that the common law in force at the emigration of our ancestors is deemed the birth right of the colonies unless so far as it is inapplicable to their situation, or repugnant to their other rights and privileges." (This is a federal Supreme Court case referencing the common law.)

    "Every Englishman treasured his birthright of liberty under the common law, which forbad slavery." "Slavery was . . . illegal in Virginia and the other English colonies."—Wood, "The Illegal Beginning of American Negro Slavery," 56 Am Bar Ass'n J, supra.

    The Somerset decision had verified this. Somerset impacted America "because the precedent had become part of American common law."—William M. Wiecek, "Somerset's Case," Encyclopedia of the American Constitution, Leonard W. Levy and Kenneth L. Karst, eds. (New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 2000), Vol 5, pp 2451-2452.

    And in fact, "Chief Justice Marshall (12 Wheat. 653, 654 [Ramsay v Allegre, 25 US 611, 653-4; 6 L Ed 746, 827]) lays great stress on the framers of the constitution having been acquainted with the principles of the common law, and acting in reference to them. Most of them were able lawyers; and certainly able lawyers drew up, and revised the instrument. Are we, then, to believe, that if they had any design to take away the common law right, or to authorize congress to take it away or to impair it; they would, knowing the rules of construction cited, and like common law maxims, have used the language they have? There is the strongest reason to believe, from the language, it was adopted for the purpose of preserving it [the right], and to reserve from congress any power over it. This probability arises, almost irresistibly, from the language used; and under the circumstances that it was used. . . . This case, and all the law on this subject, discussed and decided by it, must have been known to the lawyers of the [constitutional] convention." Wheaton v Peters, 33 US 591, 602; 8 Peters, 8 L Ed 1055, 1059 (1834).

    Pursuant to these pro-freedom facts, Virginia Governor John Murray issued a proclamation 7 Nov 1775 concerning "freedom to all slaves."—Page Smith, Ph.D., A New Age Now Begins: A People's History of the American Revolution (New York: Penquin Books, 1976), Vol. 1, p 621. For additional background, see e.g., Jill Lepore, "Goodbye Columbus: When America won its independence, what became of the slaves who fled for theirs?," The New Yorker, pp 74-78 (8 May 2006).

    In the pro-freedom enthusiasm of the Revolutionary era, there were significant numbers of voluntary manumissions. A large population of free blacks resulted. See Gary B. Nash and Jean R. Soderlund, Freedom by Degrees: Emancipation in Pennsylvania and its Aftermath (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991) (and its excellent statistical data).

    The bottom line was "that colonists should enjoy all liberties of Englishmen as if they dwelt within the English realm."

    The personal behavior known as slavery was already illegal, incompatible with established rights, when the colonists arrived here; their colonial charters were their local constitutions specifying likewise.

    3. The Declaration of Independence Was Anti-Slavery

         


    You undoubtedly already know the reason for the 1776 American Revolution and Declaration of Independence. Colonists were complaining that they were not being given their "birthright," their "inalienable rights," the full rights and liberties of Englishmen! That's the same argument the abolitionists made re slaves, not given the full rights of Englishmen!

    One of those rights was that, pursuant to English common law, you couldn't be made a slave! Reason: slavery was illegal in the British Empire, including the U.S. colonies, meaning, it was not authorized.

    One issue of the era was the 33¢ cent tea tax!—See George Mellen, Unconstitutionality of Slavery (Boston: Saxton & Pierce, 1841), p 40.

    For background from that era, see also "African Slavery In America," by Thomas Paine, in Pennsylvania Journal and the Weekly Advertiser (8 March 1775). Within weeks, on 14 April 1775, in Philadelphia, the first anti-slavery society in America was established in Philadelphia, with Paine a founding member. Paine was also author of Common Sense, the document that explained in everyday language, reasons for independence from Britain.

    In 1776, the Revolution came, and the Declaration of Independence. It affirmed the rights and liberties of Englishmen for colonists! and equality of all people in terms of fundamental rights. The stage had been set for the Declaration by the consensus created by Paine's Common Sense, says, e.g., Howard Fast, Citizen Tom Paine (Cleveland and New York: World Pub Co, 1943), pp 119-122.

    That Revolutionary era's view, the Founding Fathers' view, was,
  • "The right to freedom being the gift of Almighty God, it is not in the power of man to alienate this [original grant] gift and voluntarily become a slave [e.g., be taxed 33¢ for tea!]."—Samuel Adams, "The Rights of the Colonists" (Boston: 20 Nov 1772). Adams was a Revolutionary leader.

  • "Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God."—John Bradshaw (1602-1659).

  • Britain "covenanted with the first settlers . . . that we should enjoy 'all the Libertys of free natural born subjects of Great Britain.'"—Paul Revere, Letter, c 1782. Revere was the famous 'Midnight Rider' warning that 'the British are coming.'

  • "I was involved in several causes [lawsuits] in which negroes sued for their freedom, before the [1776] Revolution. The [legal] arguments in favour of their liberty were much the same as have been urged since . . . arising from the rights of mankind."—John Adams, Letter, 21 March 1795. Adams became U.S. President, 1797-1801.

    "Early in the agitation against Great Britain, individuals had remarked on the inconsistency of a people holding slaves and at the same time complaining that Parliamentary taxation would reduce them to slavery. As the struggle progressed, more and more Americans came to see the need for casting out this beam."—Prof. Edmund S. Morgan, The Birth of the Republic 1763-1789 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1956), p 96.

    "Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God."—Thomas Jefferson. "Opposition to tyrants is obedience to God."—New Haven (cited by Alexander Winston, "The Hunt for the Regicides," 16 American Heritage (# 1) pp 26-29, 90-93 (December 1964), at p 93.

    The American Revolution was therefore deemed a "holy resistance to oppression."—Marquis de Lafayette, Bunker Hill Anniversary Speech (17 June 1825).

    • Note also stylistic background for the Declaration of Independence, and that era's school textbook, with a compilation of republican, pro-emancipation writings of the era, becoming a symbol of human rights and the power of eloquence and articulation: The Columbian Orator, Caleb Bingham, ed. (1797). (Decades later, when Frederick Douglass discovered this book, containing a master-slave dialogue ending in a slave being freed, this book was a factor in inspiring him to seek freedom.)

    "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that ALL MEN are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

    "That, TO SECURE THESE RIGHTS, GOVERNMENTS ARE INSTITUTED AMONG MEN, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed;

    "THAT WHENEVER ANY FORM OF GOVERNMENT BECOMES DESTRUCTIVE OF THESE ENDS, IT IS THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO ALTER OR ABOLISH IT, and to institute a new Government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.”—2/4 July 1776.

    The Declaration of Independence in Paragraph 1 refers to "The Laws of Nature and of Nature's God.” This alludes to the "Natural Law" doctrine, as detailed by e.g., John Locke and William Blackstone, especially the latter's Commentaries on the Law. Blackstone wrote: "Man, considered as a creature, must necessarily be subject to the laws of his Creator, for he is entirely a dependent being . . .. And consequently, as man depends absolutely upon his Maker for everything, it is necessary that he should in all points conform to his Maker's will. This will of his Maker is called the law of nature."

    The Declaration's Paragraph 2 reference to mankind as "endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness" rebuts the slaver view that rights come from government, the Declaration was founded on the view that God, not government, is the author and grantor of independence, and that government's purpose is to "secure [protect] these Rights." This is all part of the "Natural Law" concept of law known in the Revolutionary Era. The "Natural Law" concept is evident in Romans 2:14-16. God as giver of life is evident in, e.g., Genesis 2:7. That God is pro-freedom is evident from, e.g, Galatians 5:1. The "Pursuit of Happiness" concept is evident in Ecclesiastes 3:13.

    It (the Declaration of Independence) of course, as long as the U.S. remains independent,

    "has never been repealed. It was, for years, the only Constitutional law of the United States, and it is no less Constitutional law now, than formerly," citing a then authority, John C. Spencer, saying that "'The first act of our nation (the Declaration of Independence) being a solemn recognition of the liberty and equality of ALL MEN, and that the rights of liberty and happiness are inalienable—was the corner-stone of our [nation], and is above all Constitutions and all laws.'" Goodell, supra, p 574.

    Alvan Stewart, Legal Argument For the Deliverance of 4,000 Persons from Bondage, supra, pp 28-31, cited scientific evidence from nature confirming the validity and accuracy of the Declaration's 'all men are created equal' concept; and, poetically, at pp 43-45, the Declaration's anti-slavery impact in other nations.

    The Declaration contains language against people denying others their rights, against oppression of man by man. Spooner, supra, pp 36-39.

    The Declaration "estops" (prevents) doing the same to others, say
  • George Mellen, Unconstitutionality of Slavery (Boston: Saxton & Pierce, 1841), p 28 and p 34;
  • Joel Tiffany, Unconstitutionality of American Slavery (Cleveland, Ohio: J. Calyer, 1849), pp 27-32; and
  • Sen. Charles Sumner, LL.D., The Barbarism of Slavery (Washington, DC: 4 June 1860), p 226.

    The issue of applying the Declaration to slavery in the U.S. arose. Courts found "that the Declaration had abolished slavery." Goodell, supra, pp 111 and 574, citing cases such as Commonwealth v Aves, 35 Mass (18 Pick) 193, 209 (27 Aug 1836), a habeas corpus case, which in turn cited earlier cases, e.g., Littleton v Tuttle, 2 Dane Abr 413 (1796) and Winchendon v Hatfield, 4 Mass 123 (1808). These cases too were published.

    The ex-colonies, now states, wrote new Constitutions, with bills of rights, using Declaration of Independence style wording, all thus (redundantly) banning slavery. Goodell, supra, p 78.

    OF all the state constitutions, that were in force at the adoption of the constitution of the United States, in 1789, not one of them established, or recognized slavery," says Lysander Spooner, Unconstitutionality of Slavery (Boston: Bela Marsh, 1845, 3rd ed, 1860 p 39

    Soon, four years before the 1787 U.S. Constitution, Commonwealth v Nathaniel Jennison (Worcester, Mass, 1783) found that slavery had

    "nowhere [been] expressly enacted or established. It had been a . . . practice.

    "[Now] the people of America [are] more favorable to the natural rights of mankind, and to that natural, innate desire of Liberty, which the Heaven (without regard to color, complexion . . .) has inspired all the human race.

    "[So] our Constitution . . . declaring that all men are born free and equal [renders] slavery . . . totally repugnant . . . inconsistent. . . . there can be no such thing."

    "As a result all slaves in Massachusetts were thenceforth free." "Here the [Massachusetts] constitution adopted in 1780 [had] declared in its first article, 'All men are born free and equal.'"—Prof. Edmund S. Morgan, The Birth of the Republic 1763-1789 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1956), p 97.

    Pursuant to that 1780 document, the lawsuit of Elizabeth Freeman, et al. v John Ashley (Great Barrington Mun Ct, Aug 1781), freed Freeman et al and directed Ashley to pay "thirty shillings lawful silver money" in damages and "five pounds fourteen shillings and four pence" attorney costs. See Howard W. Felton, Mumbet (New York: Dodd, Meade & Co, 1970), p 8; and Cokie Roberts, Founding Mothers: The Women Who Raised Our Nation (New York: William Morrow, 2004), pp 153-154.

    Prominent abolitionists in that era believed that the abolition of the slave trade would mean the end of slavery. Cut off the stream into the lake; the lake dries up. Doing that to slavery, ending the slave trade, would mean, slavery was on the way out. See, e.g., F. Douglas, Unconstitutionality of Slavery, supra, p 10; and Goodell, Slavery and Anti-Slavery, supra, p 84. "In most of the northern states the abolition of the slave trade was followed shortly by the abolition of slavery itself."—Morgan, Birth of Republic, supra, p 97.

    And U.S. leaders (the Founding Fathers) intended, in addition, retaining the English anti-slavery concept of Somerset v Stewart.—Sen. Charles Sumner, Barbarism of Slavery, supra, p 224. This would assure slavery ending via the litigation route as per the ongoing line of precedents.

    Between the time of the Declaration of Indpendence and the current U.S. Constitution, there was a short time when the U.S. was organized under the "Articles of Confederation."

    No one charges upon [accuses] the old "Articles of Confederation" any recognition of slavery. And no one supposes that the Federal Constitution originated it, or gave to it any legal validity which it did not possess before. The absolute illegality of slavery, at the time the Federal Constitution was adopted, is hence as certain as any legal fact of history can be, and no one pretends that it has acquired any additional legality since that time." See Lewis Tappan, et al., Proceedings of Convention (New York, 1855), p 14.

      4. The Constitution Banned Slavery  

    So, as slavery was seen as on the way out, the Constitution's authors, the Founding Fathers, used words chosen and crafted to not "recognize . . . the legality of slavery" as it had never been legal, merely illegal practice. As we saw at the beginning, practice is NOT law.

    Wherefore, "neither the terms 'slave' nor 'slavery' are to be found there [in the Constitution]." Goodell, supra, p 84; and Gerrit Smith, Letter (New York: American Anti-Slavery Society, 1839), pp 18-19.

    The Founding Fathers were defended by abolitionists against slaver claims that the Founding Fathers were hypocrites, i.e., intending freedom for themselves but pro-slavery for others. See, e.g.,
  • George Mellen, Unconstitutionality of Slavery (Boston: Saxton & Pierce, 1841), pp 29-30
  • Lewis Tappan, et al., Proceedings of Convention (1855), pp 5-6.
  • Sen. Charles Sumner, The Barbarism of Slavery (Washington, D.C.: 1860), p 224 (observing that the
    Founding Fathers retained English anti-slavery legal doctrine in the Constitution).
  • Lewis Tappan, et al., Proceedings of Convention (New York, 1855), p 40 (noting that the term "the
    compromises of the Constitution" was invented after 1820, i.e., was "a phrase never before heard").

    As a matter of background, see Lysander Spooner's
  • summary of the pro-slavery interpretation of the Constitution, pp 205-236
  • his rebuttal, pp 155-205
  • his presentation, pp 61-114
  • his analysis of the Founders' intent, pp 114-123, and
  • of the people's, pp 124-126.

    • The Founding Fathers deemed rights' origin as God. Rights thus were not "derived from the Constitution, but [each] a preexisting right of man, secured by . . . the Constitution . . . the framers of the Constituion would have repudiated the idea that they were giving to the people the right of petition [for example]. No, sir. That right God gave to the whole human race," said Hon. John Quincy Adams (Congressional Globe, 9 February 1837).

    Note also that, in law, the framers of a constitution are presumed to have knowledge of judicial construction of existing constitutional provisions. Jones v Ypsilanti, 26 Mich App 574; 182 NW2d 795 (1970). Somerset was existing judicial construction of the existing constitution.

    Also: “The citizens are the authors of the law, and therefore its owners, regardless of who actually drafts the provisions, because the law derives its authority from the consent of the public, expressed through the democratic process,” citing BOCA v Code Technology, Inc., 628 F2d 730, 734 (CA 1, 1980), says State of Georgia v The Harrison Company, 548 F Supp 110, 114 (DND Ga, Atl Div, 1982). The public both owns and is presumed to know the law and court precedents, e.g., Wheaton v Peters, 33 US 591; 8 Peters, 8 L Ed 1055 (1834); Davidson v Wheelock, 27 F 61 (CCD Minn, 1866); and Howell v Miller, 91 F 129 (CA 6, 1898); related federal law 17 U.S.C. § 105, and the fact that “The 'law' is owned by the public and cannot be copyrighted.” Legally, you know what you own. The Founders "owned," knew, the "rights of Englishmen" set forth by the "common law" and precedents such as Somerset against slavery.

    "In the Virginia Convention that ratified the Constitution, Patrick Henry, (a member of the Federal Convention,) said that Congress, by the Constitution, 'had power to pronounce all slaves free.' 'There is,' said he, 'no ambiguous implication or logical deduction. The paper speaks to the point. They have the power in clear and unequivocal terms, and will clearly and certainly exercise it.'

    "In the same Convention, Gov. Randolph said: 'They insist that the abolition of slavery will result from this Constitution. I hope there is no one here who will advance an objection so dishonorable to Virginia. I hope that at the moment they are securing the rights of their citizens, an objection will not be stated that those unfortunate men now held in bondage BY THE OPERATION OF THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT, may be made FREE.'

    "With this 'understanding' the Constitution was ratified by Virginia.

    "General Wilson, another member of the Federal Convention, from Pennsylvania, assured the people of that State that the Constitution "laid a foundation for banishing slavery out of this country." See Lewis Tappan, et al., Proceedings of Convention (New York, 1855), p 19.

    Notwithstanding such data from the time, subsequent slavers and their apologists claim that the Founding Fathers either (a) deferred the issue of slavery or (b) somehow wrote slavery into the Constitution. And, contradictorily, slavers admit that words such as “slave” and “slavery” are not in the Constitution! How do slavers and their apologists reconcile their contradictory stories?!

  • By claiming the Founders somehow magically “intended” slavery, even though the words say no such thing!

  • Or, that the Founders were too ignorant to know the difference between the words "servant" and slave."

    • The bottom line is, the Founders' words either meant what they said, or they don't. They either express the Founders' meaning, their intent, or they don't!

    So let's actually read, examine, study the words in the Constitution! Let us determine the actual "intent" that the Founders had by examining the actual words the Founders used. That's what abolitionists did!!

    The Founders knew about habeas corpus, knew that pertinent courts had struck down slavery on that basis, knew "The Illegal Beginning of American Negro Slavery," supra, etc.

    Knowing all this, the Founders begin the Constitution begins its Preamble with an all-encompassing term, "we the people" excluding nobody, and stating the Constitution's purposes, including to promote liberty for all by a "more perfect" government than hitherto [under the Articles of Confederation]. The purpose of a constitution is to defend, not subvert, rights. Stewart, supra, p. 24.

    "Slavery is unconstitutional because it is irreconcilably opposed to the declared objects [purposes] of the Constitution, namely, 'to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.' These grand objects [purposes] of the Constitution [stated in the Preamble] can never be secured so long as slavery is permitted to exist in the nation," say Lewis Tappan, et al., Proceedings of Convention (New York, 1855), p 15.

    In Article I § 9, the Founders had the Constitution recognize and adopt habeas corpus—the right the Founders knew had been and was being used by alleged slaves including non-citizens such as Somerset, supra, to obtain freedom via anti-slavery court orders—and the Founders have the Constitution ban interference with habeas corpus. "It is this writ," (says [Edward] Christian, the annotator of [lawbook author] Blackstone,) "which makes slavery impossible in England." Its proper application [meaning, enforcement] would make slavery impossible here," says Lewis Tappan, et al., Proceedings of Convention (1855), p 16.

    The Founders write the Constitution's Article 4 § 4 to guarantee "to every State . . . a republican form of government" (the fundamental rights/legal equality of all people to self-determination and participation in the governmental process). "For in reason, all government without the consent of the governed is the very definition of slavery."—Jonathan Swift (1667-1745).   (Reference to slavery being contrary to republican government is cited in Madison's Papers.)

    "It is essential to" a republican government "that it be derived from the great body of . . . society, not from an inconsiderable proportion, OR a favored class of it."   (Madison, in No. 39 of the Federalist ¶ 4.) This was written for the especial object of persuading the people to adopt the Constitution, by convincing them that it provided a republican government.

    "The true foundation of republican government is the equal rights of every citizen in his person and property, and in their management." (Jefferson.)

    The word "master" was a title of nobility, i.e., from the feudal nobility's "lord paramount" concept, a monarchy notion. Feudal nobles had had "serfs." America had rejected feudalism and monarchy ("divine right" rule by supposedly "God-ordained" kings and nobility). So Article I § 9 and Art. I § 10 ban "nobility" (a master concept). See, e.g., Abraham Lincoln, Peoria Speech (Illinois, 1854), p 253; Spooner, supra, p 109; Rep. Horace Mann, Slavery and the Slave-Trade (1849), pp 44-45; Stewart, supra, p 36; Lewis Tappan, Address to the Non-slaveholders of the South: on The Social and Political Evils of Slavery (New York: S.W. Benedict, 1843), pp 1-2 and 53; and Tappan, et al., Proceedings of Convention (1855), p 16.

    "Servitude [is] the state of voluntary or compulsory subjection to a master." Hodges v U.S., 203 US 1, 17; 27 S Ct 6; 51 L Ed 65 (1906); 58 CJ 745, 746 n 1.

    And, "the slaveholder [is] the most absolute and shameless of all despots," says Rev. Beriah Green, The Chattel Principle (1839), p 18.

    The word "master" was a title of nobility, tantamount to the "lord paramount" concept of Medieval Feudalism. Feudal masters had had "serfs." The master-slave concept came from the monarchy and the old "divine right of kings" notions. The Founding Fathers wanted to prevent a monarchy / nobility here in America. So they wrote words to make the Constitution carefully reject and ban these aspects (fundamental ones to slavery, one person lording it over another person).

    Later, following the Founders' view, Abraham Lincoln said this anew in his Speech at Peoria, p 253 (16 October 1854).

    Modern research verifies. "The framers of the Consitution had not intended to make slavery a national institution supported by the Union's fundamental law." Moreover, its words "were not intended to make the Constitution a proslavery compact."—Prof. Don E. Fehrenbacher, Ph.D., The Slaveholding Republic: An Account of the United States Government's Relation to Slavery, ed. Ward M. McAfee (New York; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp ix-x.

    A number of abolitionists added, "We deny that the Constitution could have contained any valid recognition of slavery, because there was never any legalized slavery in this country, to be the subject of such recognition . . . We affirm that the general structure of the Federal Constitution, as well as its particular provisions, preclude the legal existence of slavery, forbid the States to maintain it, provide for the liberation of the enslaved, and authorize and require, at the hand of the Federal Government, its suppression." See Lewis Tappan, et al., Proceedings of Convention (1855), p 7.

    The Old South defied these facts, established monarchy and nobility via slavery ("lord paramount" masters and their serfs/slaves)—Rev. John Rankin, Letters on American Slavery (Ohio: 1823), p 69; Richard Hildreth, ed., Atrocious Judges (New York and Auburn: Orton & Mulligan, 1856), p 36.

    Establishing nobility such as "lords paramount" (masters) in America violates the "republican government" clause. The Constitution made the federal government responsible to stop such a thing from occurring.

    For such a state of affairs to exist, was not allowed by law, but merely derived from force, Com v Aves, 35 Mass 193 (1836), supra. To claim to be a "master" and hold a person by force = kidnapping.

    Once kidnapped persons escape or are otherwise outside the kidnapper's raw power, they are free. Pertinent precedents on this type concept include e.g.,

    Forbes v Cochrane, 2 Bran & Cressw 448; 3 Dowl & Ryl 679; 107 Eng Rep 450 (1824);
    Lunsford v Coquillon, 14 Martin 401 (Louisiana, May 1824) [cited by S. P. Chase, Brief, 1837];
    Julia v McKinney, 3 Mo 270 (Missouri, Oct 1833);
    Marie Louise v Marot, et al, 8 La (Curry) 475 (June 1835) and 9 La (Curry) 473 (Louisiana, May 1836) [cited by Chase, Brief, supra, 1837];
    and
    Nancy Jackson v Bulloch, 12 Conn 38 (Connecticut, June 1837).

    The Founders in the Constitution's Article I § 9 and Art. I § 10 also ban "ex post facto" laws, and "bills of attainder" (penalty or detention in servitude without prior notice, without charges first being filed, and without due process of law). For details, see Rep. Horace Mann, Slavery and the Slave-Trade (1849), p 44. These constitutional prohibitions rendered unconstitutional all Southern laws aiding and abetting slavery.

    "Slavery is an 'attainder' because it 'attaints the blood,' and imposes disabilities on the child, on account of the condition of the parent. It establishes an order of nobility by that same process, and by conferring hereditary or transferable powers of subjugation and control upon one class or order of men over another class, [unconstitutionally made] their [supposed] hereditary inferiors and subjects," says the Radical Abolitionist Convention (1855), p 16.

    The Founders in Article I § 10 also ban states' obstructing people's right to make contracts, e.g., to marry, to acquire property, to not labor except for pay from a person of one's own choosing, etc. The clause also bans states from creating a Confederacy with other states.

    These clauses enable the federal government to enforce people's rights, including the right to freedom, i.e., no slavery recognized. The federal government would have been of no value if it and its courts could NOT enforce all aspects of the Constitution.—Cohens v Common-wealth of Virginia, 19 US (6 Wheat) 264; 5 L Ed 257 (1821); Ableman v Booth, 62 US (21 How) 506; 16 L Ed 169 (1859); Alpheus T. Mason and William M. Beaney, American Consitutional Law, 5th ed (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc, 1972), p 118.

    Article I § 8 grants Congress various powers; none of them include creating or continuing slavery. See Rep. Horace Mann, Slavery and the Slave-Trade . . . . (1849), pp 37-40.

    Included in Article 1 § 8 is a grant of power to wage war and create a military. The clause has no words limiting it to any specific group of people. Congress could put slaves in the military, train them, arm them, then they could, constitutionally, overpower their 'masters.'

    The Article 1 § 8 war power is what President Abraham Lincoln relied on in the Emancipation Proclamation, depriving the enemy of the wherewithal to wage war. Ex-President John Quincy Adams (1825-1829) had said that clause empowered ending slavery.

    “The very act [of enslaving] was a declaration of war upon human [kind].”—Rev. Beriah Green, The Chattel Principle (1839), p 18. Clearly “a forced system of labour endangers the peace.”—Frederick Douglass, Unconstitutionality of Slavery (London: William Tweedie, Pub, 1860), p 11.

    Indeed, “denial of [fundamental rights] would, upon principles of public law, be just cause of war.”—Mitchell v Wells, 37 Miss 235, 282 (1859) (dissent by J. Handy).

    “This [allowing rights denial via slavery, unconstitutional detentions] was allowing a state of war de jure in the body politic, which could not be prevented from becoming a war de facto to the destruction of the commonwealth [society].”—Edward C. Rogers, Slavery Illegality (1855), p 9.

    Congress has power to declare war and make peace. Slavery is an outrage on the slaves, and they are necessarily [inherently] enemies to the nation that permits it. Congress, therefore, has power to make peace with the slaves by restoring to them their rights. . . . until slavery is abolished, we are continually exposed to a state of war. And the same principle affirmed by Mr. Adams would warrant abolition as a means of preserving peace or of being prepared for war." See Lewis Tappan, et al., Proceedings of Convention (New York, 1855), p 17.

    Though Lincoln cited that Article 1 § 8 'war power,' he need not have done so, as even in peacetime, the President had emancipation authority, pursuant to Article 2 § 3, "take care that the laws be faithfully executed" (each of these constitutional laws herein cited [as e.g., Tiffany, supra, p 140, had urged]).

    Some black slaves had already obtained their rights and been freed in court precedents above cited, e.g., via the habeas corpus process. Now the Founders write an equality clause, Article 4 § 2, saying, "The citizens of each state shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states." This mandate included the states in the South.

    Clauses that slavers pretend relate to slavery, the so-called "three-fifths" clause, and the so-called "fugitive slave" clause, were actually on other subjects!
  • representation of citizens-in-process, aliens, of which America (a land of immigrants) had so many; and
  • indentured servants (then common) to whom salary/wages had been advanced, respectively.
    Even if such clauses had related to slavery (they did not), they would have been effectively superseded and repealed by the subsequent adoption of the Bill of Rights, which of course, have authority over any clause prior to them.
    Benjamin Franklin, signer of both the Declaration of Independence and Constitution, was elected in 1787, as president of America's first anti-slavery society! He certainly never deemed the Constitution compatible with slavery!
    See also the analysis of clauses such as the "three-fifths" clause, by Lysander Spooner, Unconstitutionality of Slavery (1845), pp 73-81 and 242-70.
    The bottom line is this: "The framers of the Consitution had not intended to make slavery a national institution supported by the Union's fundamental law." Moreover, its words "were not intended to make the Constitution a proslavery compact."—Fehrenbacher, The Slaveholding Republic, supra, pp ix-x.

    • "Congress shall have power to establish a uniform rule of naturalization." [Article 1, § 8.] To "naturalize" a man is to change his condition from that of an alien to that of a free citizen. Under this clause Congress may determine whether or no the slaves are already free citizens. If they are, it can declare them to be so. If they are not, it can naturalize them, and make them such." See Lewis Tappan, et al., Proceedings of Convention (New York, 1855), p 17.

    The bottom line is, says George Mellen, supra, pp 30-33, the Founding Fathers were not hypocrites, professing support of liberty while enacting bondage. They meant to, and did, establish a pro-liberty government, p 33.

    Alvan Stewart, supra, p 42, and Sumner, The Barbarism of Slavery, supra, p 224, noted likewise.

    The Founders knew that, when you win your freedom on a writ of habeas corpus, you do NOT pay the loser, whomever had detained you illegally. The U.S. system is based on a type of 'loser pays,' not 'winner pays'! Likewise, when slavery is banned by law, just as by a court habeas corpus order, no payment is made to the slaver. The Founders were aware of this principle having been followed in Somerset v Stewart (1772).

    The Founders make the Constitution, by words they wrote in Article VI § 2, "the supreme law of the land . . . anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding." Goodell, supra, pp 575-576; Spooner, supra, p 270; and Shaw, supra, p 1. Remember that, the Constitution is supreme. (Naturally, this supremacy enables the federal government to protect people's rights against violations by any state.)

    The effect of such legal language, separately and collectively, was to abolish slavery, if such prohibition/abolition had not been sooner effected by, e.g., litigation pursuant to the already existing common law and Declaration of Independence. Goodell, supra, pp 84-85 and 574-577, citing, e.g., 3 Madison Papers 1429 and 1569; 2 Elliott's Debates 452 and 484; 3 Elliott's Debates 598; and Debates of the Virginia Convention, p 463.

    Indeed, while the Constitutional Convention was in session in 1787,

    "the Old Congress passed an ordinance abolishing slavery in the North-Western Territories, and precluding its future introduction there.

    "The first Congress under the new Constitution ratified this ordinance . . . the ratification in the new Congress received the vote of every member except Mr. Yates, of New York, the entire Southern delegation voting for its adoption.

    "By this ordinance slavery was excluded from Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Iowa."—Goodell, pp 83 and 574; Smith, supra, p 17, Spooner, supra, p 288, Stewart, supra, p 17; and, Lincoln, "Peoria Speech, 16 Oct 1854," Nicolay, John G. and John Hay, eds., Complete Works of Abraham Lincoln, Vol II (New York: Francis D. Tandy Co, 1894 and 1905), p 194.

    There had been another weaker Ordinance, 1784. The one of 1787 was markedly more anti-slavery, because in three years, "New Englanders by this time had become strongly opposed to slavery."—Prof. Edmund S. Morgan, The Birth of the Republic 1763-1789 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1956), p 116. "It [the Ordinance of 1787] was formed before the dogma that THE NATION [the federal government] could not SUPPRESS [ban] SLAVERY had ever been heard of."—Lewis Tappan, et al., Proceedings of Convention (New York, 1855), p 41.

    The Ordinance became an issue in subsequent court cases (just as laws do now). It was

  • UPHELD, pursuant to Congress' plenary authority in the territories, as having banned slavery, Jarrott v Jarrott, 7 Ill 1 (Dec 1845).

  • APPLIED and ENFORCED in a Mississippi case! yes, Mississippi!: Harry v Decker, 1 Miss (1 Walker) 36, 42-43 (1818) ("Slavery is condemned by reason and the laws of nature. It exists, and can only exist, through municipal regulations, and in matters of doubt, is it not an unquestioned rule, that courts must lean 'in favorem vitæ et libertatis.' . . . How should the Court decide . . .? I presume it would be in favor of liberty.")

  • And see Spooner, supra, p 200; and Salmon P. Chase, Anti-Slavery Legal Brief (1837), p 235.

    •          The proposed Constitution did not take effect automatically. It needed voter approval. Due to some voter fears that it lacked a "bill of rights," its defenders in The Federalist Papers,

    "assured them that the Constitution was more than the equivalent of such bills of rights" under which slavery had already been recognized as banned, and assured them that the clauses stating its purpose, e.g., to "secure the blessings of liberty" to "the people of the United States" constituted "'a better recognition of popular rights' than could otherwise have been framed."

    Thus assured "that the Constitution was in favor of freedom," the voters ratified it. Goodell, supra, pp 87-89. One cannot write more comprehensive language!! Enforced, it would have helped stop tobacco planters' (to be elaborated, § 13, below) and accessories' family destroying behavior.

    5. The Bill of Rights Banned Slavery

    But even those reassuring words were not enough to satisfy some people, e.g., Thomas Jefferson (as shown by writings of his at the time).

    So the Constitution was immediately amended to add the "Bill of Rights."

    For example, the First Amendment forbids laws "prohibiting the right of the people peaceably to assemble together." Southern states passed such laws regularly, to promote slavery, and to prevent peaceable efforts against it.

    Another example, the Second Amendment protects the "right to bear arms." That right to defend oneself, would end slavery, as noted by Tiffany, supra, pp 117-120.

    The Fourth Amendment "forbids slavery by providing that 'the right of the people to be secure in their persons . . . shall not be violated,'" says the Radical Abolitionist Convention (1855), p 16. Reference Deut. 24:10-11.

    The Fifth Amendment says that
    "No person shall be . . . deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." "'Due process of law' includes an indictment, trial by jury, and judgment rendered in open court." See Rep. Horace Mann, Slavery and the Slave-Trade . . . . (Washington, D.C.: 23 Feb 1849), pp 41-44; Alvan Stewart, Legal Argument For Deliverance from Bondage, supra, pp 34-35; Goodell, Slavery and Anti-Slavery, supra, pp 575-576, and Tappan, Proceedings, supra, p 15. "No one will pretend that any slave in the United States ever lost his liberty by this process, or that 'due process of law' could ever reduce any man to slavery, though it may deprive him of liberty by imprisonment for crime."

    The the Sixth Amendment guarantees the right to speedy trial, and to jury trial, rights from the English 'common law.' See references including:
  • The Wrongful Imprisonment/SpeedyTrial Act (1701);
  • Patton v United States, 281 US 276, 288; 50 S Ct 253; 74 L Ed 854 (1930);
  • Duncan v Louisiana, 391 US 145, 149; 88 S Ct 1444; 20 L Ed 2d 491 (1968).
    Slaves were being held without jury trial at all, much less 'speedy.'

    The Eigth Amendment precludes "cruel and unusual punishment." Reference Deut. 15:2-3.

    The right to freedom is part of the "common law." The "common law" is mandated recognition by the Seventh Amendment.

    Thus, with these amendments, even if some words of the pre-Bill of Rights Constitution could somehow be construed as somehow pro-slavery (though no colonial charter, state constitution or law had established it, and the common law precluded it)—inconceivable in view of the multiple prohibitions of so many aspects of slavery, the Bill of Rights repeals and overrules any such prior words. Goodell, supra, p 89. So slavery, already illegal, remained illegal, as, in law,

    "Where rights are infringed [e.g., if the Constitution writers intended to suddenly constitutionalize and legalize slavery] . . . the legislative intention must be expressed with irresistible clearness to induce a court of justice to suppose a design to effect such objects." U.S. v Fisher, 6 US (2 Cranch) 358, 390; 2 L Ed 304, 314 (1804). Goodell, supra, p 574; and Spooner, supra, pages 18 and 63.

    "As men whose intentions require no concealment generally employ the words which most directly and aptly express the ideas they intend to convey, the enlightened patriots who framed our Constitution, and the people who adopted it, must be understood to have employed words in their natural sense, and to have intended what they have said." Gibbons v Ogden, 22 US (9 Wheat) 1, 188; 6 L Ed 23, 68 (1824) (stating a "rule of construction of constitutional provisions").

    And, "a legislative act founded on a mistaken opinion of what was law, does not change the actual state of the law as to pre-existing cases." Talbot v Seaman, 5 US (1 Cranch) 1, 35; 5 L Ed 15 (1801). (Goodell, supra, p 570; and Spooner, supra, p 276).

    Soon came the case of Commonwealth v Holloway, 2 Serg & Rawle 305, 306 (1816), a habeas corpus case, applying the "irresistible clearness" principle to slavery [it had not been constitutionalized by words in the Constitution] and freeing an alleged slave.

    And see other "freedom is presumed" cases, e.g.,

    Fisher v Fisher, 2 NY Common Law Rpts (2 Johnson's Cases) 88 (Oct 1800);
    State v Lasselle, 1 Blackf 60 (Indiana, 1820);
    Flack v Cunningham, 1 Blackf 107 (Indiana, 1820);
    Le Grand v Darnall, 27 US (2 Pet) 664; 7 L Ed 555 (Jan 1829) (Taney as attorney);
    Stoutenborough v Haviland, 15 NJL 266 (Feb 1836);
    State v Dillahunt, 3 Del 551 (April 1840);
    Bailey v Cromwell, 4 Ill (3 Scam) 71 (July 1841);
    Kinney v Cook, 4 Ill 232 (Dec 1841);
    Hone v Ammons, 14 Ill 29 (Nov 1852);
    Rodney v Illinois Central Ry Co, 19 Ill 42 (1857);
    Miller v McQuerry, 17 Fed Cas 335 (#9,583); 5 McLean 469; 10 West Law J 528
    (D Ohio, Sep 1853); and
    Wood v Ward, 30 Fed Cas 476 (#17,965); 24 Int Rev Rec 180; 6 Am Law Rec 675
    (April 1878); 58 CJ 745, 749 n 44.

    Indeed, the mere application itself by habeas corpus to be discharged from servitude, is proof of the detention being unlawful, i.e., involuntary within the meaning of the prohibition of involuntary servitude, In re Clark, 1 Blackf 122; 12 Am Dec 213 (Indiana, Nov 1821).

    In another habeas corpus case, Sewall's Slaves, 3 Am Jurist 404 (Indiana, 1829), a Virginian, Mr. Sewall, was traveling through Indiana with slaves intending to move to Illinois, a State with anti-slavery laws. When the habeas corupus petition was applied, the Indiana court freed the slaves. (Sewall had pretended he was really moving to Missouri, a pro-slavery area; but the pretense came out in court!)

    Soon slavery's illegality was so well-established that in Commonwealth v Aves, 35 Mass 193, 209, supra, the issue was deemed "rather a matter of curiosity than of utility, it being agreed on all hands that, if not abolished before

  • [by the common law,
  • the 1641 Massachusetts ban,
  • Somerset, 20 How St Tr 1, supra, or
  • by the Declaration of Independence],

    • it was so [abolished] by the declaration of rights," Goodell, supra, p 111. See also Stewart, supra, pp 26-27.

    Thus, in 1850, during the abolitionist era, three years after Jefferson Davis (1808-1889) became a senator (D., Miss.) in 1847, his colleague, a prominent pro-slavery senator, Senator James M. Mason (Virginia), admitted against interest that no southern state had any constitution or "positive law" [meaning 'written' law] saying

    "that slavery is established in [any slave] State . . . it is impossible to [find such a clause] . . . for no such proof [law] can be produced . . . in any of the slave States." Cong Globe, 31st Cong, I Sess, App (19 August 1850), pp 1583-1584. Goodell, supra, p 571; Rogers, supra, p 106; Spooner, supra, p 280; and Sumner, supra, Barbarism of Slavery, p 140.

    Two analyses citing certain scholarly material elaborating this type abolitionist data are

    Spooner's Analysis Showing Slavery Unconstitutional from "Was Slavery Constitutional Before the Thirteenth Amendment?: Lysander Spooner's Theory of Interpretation," by Randy E. Barnett

    Thomas G. West, Vindicating the Founders, "Was the American Founding Unjust? The Case of Slavery."

    The language of the Thirteenth Amendment was “not the language of repeal; it does not acknowledge that slavery ever rested upon statute law, or upon right; but it denies its authority longer to exist.” McElvain v Mudd, 44 Ala 48; 4 Am Rep 106, (Jan 1870) (Dissent by J. Peters, ¶23).

    In 1837, James Birney was arrested for knowingly harboring a fugitive slave. He retained Salmon P. Chase as his defense attorney. The defense had three parts:
    • (a) slavery is unconstitutional, so

    • (b) Birney couldn't have harbored a slave (as it is a non-existent status in law) and

    • (c) certainly not "knowingly."
    The Ohio Supreme Court unanimously ruled in Birney's favor. Ohio v Birney, 8 Ohio 230 (1837). An earlier precedent to the same effect is Windsor v Jacob, 2 Tyler 192 (Vermont, Aug 1802).

    This type anti-slavery, pro-rights, decision helped fulfill Founding Fathers pro-liberty desires. For example, Thomas Jefferson favored "individual [rights] as against the states," says Alistair Cooke's America (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1973), p 150. Jefferson opposed governmental secrecy, e.g., at the Constitutional Convention ("so abominable a precedent"). He lacked others' fear of "the tyranny of majority opinion." Jefferson "pictured life in America as a long pastoral symphony, a continuing Utopia of chivalrous and learned rulers walking hand in hand with good, honest farmers in--a favorite phrase--"'perfect harmony,'" p 153. See also Thom Hartmann's "To Restore Democracy: First Abolish Corporate Personhood" (17 February 2007) (on Jefferson's opposition to monopolies).

    6. Kidnaping People Was Illegal Then, As Now

    Kidnaping people was illegal then as now, see numerous state precedents, for example:

    Lunsford v Coquillon, 14 Martin 401 (La, May 1824);
    Julia v McKinney, 3 Mo 270 (Oct 1833);
    Marie Louise v Marot, et al, 8 La (Curry) 475 (June 1835) and 9 La (Curry) 473 (May 1836);
    Nancy Jackson v Bulloch, 12 Conn 38 (June 1837);
    Com v Griffin, 42 Ky (3 B Mon) 208 (Fall 1842);
    Anderson v Thoroughgood, 5 Del 199 (June 1847);
    Taylor v Horsey, 5 Del 131 (April 1849); and
    State ex rel Savary v Caroline, 20 Alabama 19 (January 1852); 58 CJ 745, 747 n 19.

    There were also federal precedents against engaging in kidnaping (alias the 'slave trade'), involving both criminal penalties and forfeiture of the ship. See Supreme Court precedents such as

    The Merino, 22 US (9 Wheat) 391; 6 L Ed 118 (5 March 1824);
    U.S. v Gooding, 25 US (12 Wheat) 460; 6 L Ed 693 (16 March 1827);
    U.S. v Preston, 28 US (3 Pet) 57; 7 L Ed 601 (Jan 1830);
    U.S. v The Ship Garonne, 36 US (11 Pet) 73; 9 L Ed 527 (Jan 1837);
    U.S. v Morris, 39 US (14 Pet) 464; 10 L Ed 543 (Jan 1840); and
    The Amistad, 40 US (15 Pet) 518; 10 L Ed 826 (March 1841).

    See also lower federal court precedents such as

    U.S. v Smith, 27 F Cas 1158 (#16,332); Brunn Col Cas 82; 4 Day 121; NC Cas 81 (D Conn, 1809);
    U.S. v Andrews, 24 F Cas 815 (#14,454); Brunn Coll Cas 423; 5 City Hall Rec 120 (SD NY, 15 Sep 1820);
    U.S. v LaCoste, 26 F Cas 826 (#15,548); 2 Mason 129 (D Mass, Oct 1820);
    U.S. v Malebran, 26 F Cas 1145 (#15,711); Brunn Col Cas 426; 5 City Hall Rec 122 (D NY, 1820);
    U.S. v The Francis F. Johnson, 25 F Cas 1200 (#15,157a); 20 Niles Reg 137 (D SC, 6 April 1821);
    U.S. v Kennedy, 26 F Cas 762 (#15,525); 4 Wash CC 91 (D Penn, April 1821);
    U.S. v La Jeune Eugenie, 26 F Cas 832 (#15,551); 2 Mason 409 (D Mass, May 1822);
    Strohm v U.S., 23 F Cas 240 (#13,539); Taney 413 (D Md, April 1840);
    U.S. v Libby, 26 F Cas 928 (#15,597); 1 Woodb & M 221 (D Maine, May 1846) (has
    a detailed history of laws banning the slave trade);
    The Porpoise, 19 F Cas 1064 (#11,284); 2 Curt 307 (D Mass, May 1855);
    U.S. v Naylor, 27 F Cas 78 (#15,858); 13 Law Rep 449 (D NY, 19 Nov 1856);
    Charge to Grand Jury, 30 F Cas 1026 (#18,269a); 3 Phila (Pa) 527 (D Georgia, Nov 1859);
    U.S. v Gould, 25 F Cas 1375 (#15,239); 8 Am Law Reg 525 (SD Alabama, Spring 1860);
    U.S. v Haun, 26 Fed Cas 227 (#15,329); 8 Am Law Reg 663 (SD Alabama, 30 June 1860); and
    58 CJ 745, 747 n 20 and n 23 (summary).

    Related cases upheld assisting slaves to escape to obtain freedom, e.g., Drayton v U.S., 7 F Cas #4,074; 1 Hayw & H 369 (D DC, 19 Feb 1849) (dismissing a larceny charge against a person helping a slave escape on a ship, as such aid is not a conversion to one's own use); and State v Hawkins, 8 Port (Ala) 461; 33 Am Dec 294 (Jan 1839); 58 CJ 745, 751 n 72[b] (likewise dismissing a larceny charge).

    It was separately illegal, as per U.S. anti-piracy law, to be engaged in the business of the slave trade, or even being employed on such a voyage, The Alexander, 1 F Cas 362 (#165); 3 Mason 175 (CA Mass, May 1823); Charge to Grand Jury, 30 F Cas 1026 (#18,269a); 3 Phila (Pa) 527 (D Georgia, Nov 1859); and 58 CJ 745, 747 n 21.

    It was separately illegal to outfit vessels for the slave trade,

    The Caroline, 5 F Cas 90 (#2,418); 1 Brock 384 (D Virginia, Nov 1819);
    Strohm v U.S., 23 F Cas 240 (#13,539); Taney 413 (D Md, April 1840);
    U.S. v The Catherine, 25 F Cas 332 (#14,755); 2 Paine 721; 3 Law Rep 255 (NY, 1840);
    U.S. v The Augusta, 24 F Cas 892 (#14,477) (SD NY, Sep 1861);
    U.S. v Nathaniel Gordon, 25 F Cas 1364 (#15,231); 5 Blatchf 18 (SD NY, 8 and 30 Nov 1861)
    (death sentence); and
    58 CJ 745, 747 n 22 (summary).

    Criminal penalties or forfeitures were imposed even if the ship captain did not know or believe the people on board were slaves, The Porpoise, 19 F Cas 1064 (#11,284); 2 Curt 307 (CA Mass, May 1855). A vessel became liable to forfeiture if built or equipped in the United States for use in transporting slaves from country to country, as soon as the unlawful process began, whether completed or not, Charge to Grand Jury, 30 F Cas 1026 (#18,269a); 3 Phila (Pa) 527 (D Georgia, Nov 1859).

    If slavery be illegal it is unconstitutional, of course. If it was illegal when the Constitution was adopted, then the Constitution can contain no legal recognition of it—no binding compromise with it. The Constitution could not have recognized as legal what did not legally exist—could not have formed any valid compromise with it. See Lewis Tappan, et al., Proceedings of Convention (New York, 1855), p 15.

    United States v Amy, 24 F Cas 792 (CCD Va, 1859) (Taney as judge), denied slaver property rights in a slave, vis-a-vis the U.S. government. The case denied coverage of the slaveholder by the Fifth Amendment 'taking' concept. The federal government had prosecuted a a slave for stealing mail. The slaveholder alleged a property right! and that allowing the successful prosecution would cause him to lose the alleged right! Since there was no such right, the slaveholder clearly could not lose the right, due to the successful federal prosecution.

    People own themselves. Any Fifth Amendment
    'taking' violates their rights, not the taker's -
    kidnapper's - man-stealer's!
    Parker Pillsbury, Acts of Anti-Slavery Apostles, p 72
    Edward Rogers, Slavery Illegality, p 93
    John Rankin, Letters on Slavery, p 99
    Charles Sumner, Barbarism of Slavery, pp 131-132

    In Groves v Slaughter, 40 US (15 Pet) 449; 10 L Ed 1060 (1842), the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Mississippi's ban on importing slaves. The Mississippi Supreme Court was likewise doing so, in, e.g., Green v Robinson, 5 How 80, 99-109; 4 Miss Annot Ed 28 (Dec 1840); Cowen v Boyce, 5 How 769; 4 Miss Annot Ed 310 (Jan 1841); and Wooten v Miller, 7 S & M 380; 8 Miss Annot Ed 139 (Nov 1846).

    These anti-slavery court precedents were all published--in permanent volumes for permanent retention by libaries. That is how we can know of them! If you think it is laborious just to read the lists of precedents cited here, think of going to your local law library, locating each volume and case, and reading them all! There are quite a number of them, you'll agree!

    A 1640's precedent on returning slaves as kidnaping victims is cited in Commonwealth v Aves, 35 Mass 193, 208 (1836), in its discussion of the history of colonial law.

    "[B]y the constitution and laws of this Commonwealth, before the adoption of the constitution of the United States, in 1789, slavery was abolished, as being contrary to the provisions of the declaration of rights . . . . By a very early colonial ordinance, (1641), it was ordered, that there should be no bond slavery, villenage, or captivity . . .

    "And by an act a few years after, (1646,) manifestly alluding to some transaction then recent, the general court [legislature] . . . to bear witness against the heinous and crying sin of manstealing, &c., ordered that certain negroes be sent back to their native country (Guinea) . . . . See Ancient Charters, &c., 52, c. 12, § 2, 3."

    It quoted the declaration of rights, "'All men are born free and equal, and have certain natural, essential, and unalienable rights. . . .' It would be difficult to select words more precisely adapted to the abolition of negro slavery. . . . That [it] was broad enough in its terms to embrace negroes, and that it was intended by the framers of the constitution to embrace them, is proved by the earliest contemporaneous construction, by an unbroken series of judicial decisions, and by a uniform practice from the adoption of the constitution to the present time. The whole tenor of our policy, of our legislation and jurisprudence, from that time to the present, has been consistent with this construction, and with no other."

    The court further said "the law of this State is analogous to the law of England, in this respect; that . . . slavery is considered as unlawful and inadmissible in both . . . because contrary to natural right and to laws designed for the security of personal liberty." (Pp 210-211).

    Slavery was not based on law, but on force (kidnaping/rapine/conquest). The Supreme Court, in the case of The Antelope, 23 US (10 Wheat) 66, 120; 6 L Ed 268, 281 (18 March 1825), so stated:

    "That it [slavery] is contrary to the law of nature will scarcely be denied. That every-man has a natural right to the fruits of his own labor, is generally admitted; and that no other person can rightfully deprive him of those fruits, and appropriate them against his will, seems to be the necessary result of this admission. . . . Slavery, then, has its origin in force. . . ."
    As the world's worst court [says Tiffany, supra, pp 49-50], the Supreme Court did not decide for the 'rule of law,' AGAINST that 'practice,' but FOR the practice, contrary to its duty, supra, and falsified as well, citing war as a basis for slavery, contrary to information in the Somerset case briefing, p 28.
    "And this, you understand, in lands where rapine and conquest, class-tyranny and priestly domination have been the custom since the dawn of history; in which no property-right can possibly trace back to any other basis than force," says Upton B. Sinclair, The Profits Of Religion (1917), in § 3.17, Das Centrum.

    To the same effect, see also Alvan Stewart, Legal Argument, supra, p 27 (citing this Supreme Court decision), and p 48 (citing the fact that all U.S. slaves had been stolen from themselves).

    7. The Immoral "Fugitive Slave Act"

    Using "force" to kidnap people into slavery is, abolitionists said, a sin, i.e., immoral, and had never been legal here. So how could it be occurring? Everyone, including Southern legislators and congressmen, knew the information herein.

    For example, secessionist James A. Bayard said at the time of secession,

    "The sole cause of the existing disunion excitement which is about to break up the government is the . . . antislavery . . . sentiment." (Cited in Allan Nevins, The Emergence of Lincoln, vol II [New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1950], section on secession in the Lower South, pp. 328-335.)
    "I have, senators, believed from the first that the [First Amendment freedom of speech and press] agitation of the subject of slavery would, if not prevented by some [unconstitutional] timely and effective measure, end [result as people became aware of slavery's characteristics] in disunion."—South Carolina Senator John C. Calhoun, 4 March 1850.

    Here is another example. Alexander H. Stephens, the Vice-President of the Confederacy, knew the information herein stated. He so stated shortly after the secession leading to the Confederacy. He admitted that the South DISAGREED with the views of the Founding Fathers and Constitution about slavery being a sin and violation of natural rights as the above references discuss. On Thursday, 21 March 1861, in his "Cornerstone Speech" (extract below), he specifically so stated in a public and published analysis, concerning the issue of:

    “. . . African slavery as it exists among us . . . . This was the immediate cause of the late rupture [secession] and present revolution.

    “[Thomas] Jefferson, in his forecast [prediction of possible U.S. history], had anticipated this [disunionism over slavery], as the 'rock upon which the old Union would split.' He was right.

    “What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact [March 1861, secession in effect]. But whether he [Jefferson] fully comprehended . . . may be doubted.”

    “The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old Constitution were,

    • [1] that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature [natural/inalienable right as referenced above];

    • [2] that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically. . . . the general opinion of the men of that day was, that, somehow or other, in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away . . . .”

    “This was an error. . . . It [Slavery] is, indeed, in conformity with the Creator. It is not for us to inquire into the wisdom of His ordinances or to question them.”—Reprinted by Frank Moore (ed.), The Rebellion Record: A Diary of American Events, 11 vol (New York: G. P. Putnam, 1868), Vol. I, pp 44-49.

    President Jefferson Davis said likewise, emphasizing slavery as the underlying factor, in his Message to Congress (29 April 1861)—Moore, supra, pp 166-175.
    Emphasis on slavery as THE issue, was cited by the Charleston, SC Mercury (11 Oct 1860); and the New Orleans, LA Bee (14 Dec 1860).
    General Ulysses S. Grant concurred in Southerners' analysis of slavery as causing the War. “The cause of the great War of the Rebellion against the United States will have to be attributed to slavery.”—Personal Memoirs (New York: C.L. Webster & Co, 1885-1886), Vol. II, Chapter XXI, Conclusion, first sentence.

    What was the problem? There are several aspects to the answer. For example, there was plain disagreement with the 'slavery is sin' and 'slavery violates natural right' beliefs of Northerners and religious people. So the issue is, why did they disagree? Moral people understand that they personally do not want to be kidnapped, nor their spouses or children. So in principle, they should understand this in others!

    While the South pretended to be the "Bible-Belt," Southrons in fact directly violated basic Bible principles:
  • They placed their own traditions above Bible laws, contrary to Bible direction, e.g., Matthew 15:2-3, 6, and Mark 7: 8-9, 13.
  • They focused on exceptions and labels, contrary to Bible principles to deal with the statistical norm, the long-term norm, the substance, e.g., Proverb 22:13, Psalm 73:17, Matthew 7:3-5, Luke 6:41-42.
  • They focused on actual or perceived Northerner flaws, and though claiming to be Bible authorities, the "Bible-Belt," disregarded Bible retribution-process principles and examples, e.g., Exodus 12:29-30, Exodus 14:24-28, Leviticus 26:14-39, Numbers 14:41-45, Deuteronomy 28:15-68, Judges 3:12-13, Judges 4:1-2, 2 Kings 15:17-20, Jeremiah 34:17, 2 Kings 24:2, Habukkuk 1-4, Matthew 23:35, etc.
  • With respect to the Civil War, Southrons ever-after whined, and still whine, about the alleged tariff issue! about Lincoln's alleged abuses of their rights! his allegedly unconstitutional acts! and about Northern racists and drunks having fought them! -- anything and everything but the real issue, slavery and their obsession to expand it to more and more people. On the tariff and similiar issues, such whiny Southrons carefully avoid mention of the fact of their near 100% control over the federal government 1793-1861!
  • Such whining Southrons disregard the basic human fact that even racists and drunks will fight to protect themselves and their women, a very pertinent fact in view of Southerners' expansionist policy including to expand slavery to whites and white women.

    • What was the problem with Southern legislators? Here's an answer. Some Southern legislators were described as "a set of drunkards, gamblers, and whoremongers," words by abolitionist Daniel Worth cited by Prof. Clement Eaton, The Freedom-of-Thought Struggle in the Old South (Duke Univ Press, 1940, and New York: Harper & Row, 1964), p 140.

    "When the elections for Burgesses [representatives] were held, the planters [e.g., of tobacco] were usually the overwhelming choice of the voters," says Alistair Cooke's America (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1973), p 68. "The . . . social types who were plantation owners, and therefore generally Burgesses [representatives], was always a shock to the visiting English, one of whom made the sniffy comment, in 1662, that you couldn't expect much wisdom from the Burgesses [politicians], for "they are usually such as were our servants thither, and though by time and industry they may have attained competent estates [money], yet by their poor and mean education, they are unskillful in the judging of [political matters]," pp 68-69.

    For politicians, content is a mere 10%!! Non-verbal communication is 60%! with vocal tonality, pitch, and pauses 30%. Recall is a mere 25%. Reference: Stanley Zareff, "Literally Speaking," 14 Worth (#1) 46-48 (January 2005).

    Here is another answer: “The readiness with which Southern [politicians] prefer the most false and audacious claims . . . exhibits a state of society in which truth and honor are but little respected.”—Lewis Tappan, Address to the Non-slaveholders of the South: on The Social and Political Evils of Slavery (New York: S.W. Benedict, 1843), p 36. Of course they'd lie!

    Walt Whitman deemed "seven-eighths of [such politicans] the meanest kind of bawling and blowing officeholders, office-seekers, pimps, malignants, conspirators, murderers, fancy-men, custom-house clerks, contracts, kept-editors, spaniels well train'd to carry and fetch, jobbers, infidels, disunionists, terrorists, mail riflers, slave-catchers, pushers of slavery, creatures of the President, creatures of would-be Presidents, spies, bribers, compromisers, lobbyists, spongers, ruin'd sports, expell'd gamblers, policy-backers, monte-dealers, duellists, carriers of conceal'd weapons, deaf men, pimpled men, scarred inside with vile disease, gaudy outside with gold chains made from the people's money and harlots' money twisted together; crawling, serpentine men, the lousy combinings and born freedom-sellers of the earth." Source: Prof. Joseph R. Conlin, The American Past: A Survey of American History (Vol I, to 1877), 6th ed. (Fort Worth: Harcourt College Pubs, 2001), p 414.

    Note pertinent medical / analytical findings on politicians' widespread mental abnormality:

  • World Health Organization, “Wide research needed to solve the problems of mental illness,” World Mental Health, Vol 12, pages 138-141 (WHO Press Release, October 1960) says that “people with psychopathic make-up often become leaders” / “les postes de commandement sont souvent assumés par des personnes à tendances psychopathiques”

  • Robert Payne, The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler (New York: Praeger Pub, 1975), says at p xi, “The psychopath in a position of supreme power is almost a common-place.”

  • Abnormal Psychology and Modern Life, 5th ed (Scott, Foresman & Co, 1976), p 10, by James Covington Coleman, Ph.D., summarizes the 1960 WHO data thus: “individuals with psychopathic personality makeup, who tend to exploit power for selfish purposes and have little concern for ethical values or social progress, often become leaders”;

  • Prof. Michael P. Ghiglieri, Ph.D., Dark Side of Man (Reading, MA.: Perseus Books, 1999), says at p 230, “. . . madmen—and slightly mad men—still rise to lead nations”; and

  • “Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition,” by John T. Jost, Jack Glaser, Arie W. Kruglanski, Frank J. Sulloway, 129 Psychological Bulletin (#2) 339-375 (July 2003), cites politician symptoms.

  • “The Authoritarians," by Robert Altemeyer (Univ of Manitoba, 2006) (concerns such individuals as "very aggressive . . . hostile . . . almost totally uninfluenced by reasoning and evidence . . . dogmatic . . . hypocrites, from top to bottom . . . two-faced, and . . . one face never notices the other [and] give the flimsiest of excuses and even outright lies about things they’ve done wrong [and] the rank-and-file believe them?")

  • H.L. Mencken says, “People constantly speak of 'the government' doing this or that, as they might speak of God doing it. But the government is really nothing but a group of men, and usually they are very inferior men.”

  • Aspects of politican mental disorder include but are not limited to abulia, dyscalculia, dyslexia, fragmentation, confabulation, delusions including of grandeur, time disorientation, unresponsiveness to normal stimuli, and anosognosia.

    • A method by which such depraved people attained such disproportionate influence in America, enabling their obstructing the Constitution, was this. The South was able to install in office a disproportionate number of
  • Presidents
  • Representatives in Congress
  • Electors in the Electoral College.
    • Background on this situation is cited by, e.g.
  • Gerrit Smith, Letter (1839), p 26
  • Lewis Tappan, Address (1843), pp 50-52
  • Rev. William Goodell, Slavery and Anti-Slavery (1852), p 224
  • Abraham Lincoln, Peoria Speech (1854), pp 233-234
  • Sen. Charles Sumner, Barbarism of Slavery (1860), p 230.

    • The resultant was the South's disproportionate control in the courts, the civil service, and the military. Abolitionist Senator and Secretary of State William H. Seward "analyzed the civil service of the national government and could descry [identify] not a single person . . . who was 'false to the slave holding interest' [i.e., respected the rights herein cited]." See Charles A. and Mary R. Beard, The Rise of American Civilization, II (NY: The Macmillan Co, 1927), p 8. "Our Civil Service was becoming a system of political prostitution. Roguery and plunder . . . had steadily crept into the management of public affairs." See Prof. Kenneth M. Stampp, The Era of Reconstruction (NY: Random House, 1965), p 191.

    Such politicians were aided and abetted by depraved clergymen.

    Southrons did not respect education, see background and examples 1, 2, 3, and 4. Southrons deemed educated people capable of detecting lies, inconsistencies, politician fabrications, etc., to be “elite.” This Southron politician attitude continues to present, e.g., by George W. Bush (18 April 2004).

    Such politicians deem that there are enough non-elite ("idiots") who will believe anything they say, to keep being elected. Audacious, pro-falsehood politicans rely on significant numbers of uninformed people, who pay little heed to events and are essentially unaware of rebuttals and alternate views, to therefore believe only such politican's claims, regardless of how blatantly false.

    And on Constitutional Law matters (despite slavery being so clearly unconstitutional), the typically uneducated Southron would believe their politican words over against and instead of the clear words of the Constitution itself! This ignorance continues to present, among "unreconstructed" Southrons.

    Note explanatory background data by the

  • World Health Organization, “Wide research needed to solve the problems of mental illness,” 12 World Mental Health 138-141 (WHO Press Release, October 1960) (“people with psychopathic make-up often become leaders” / “les postes de commandement sont souvent assumés par des personnes à tendances psychopathiques”) (additionally, such psychopaths are supported by vast numbers!!)

  • Abnormal Psychology and Modern Life, 5th ed (Scott, Foresman & Co, 1976), p 10, by James C. Coleman, Ph.D. (summarizes pertinent 1960 data thus: “individuals with psychopathic personality makeup, who tend to exploit power for selfish purposes and have little concern for ethical values or social progress, often become leaders”) (again, such psychopaths are supported by vast numbers!!);

  • “Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition,” by John T. Jost, Jack Glaser, Arie W. Kruglanski, Frank J. Sulloway, 129 Psychological Bulletin (#2) 339-375 (July 2003) (cites conservative politician symptoms pursuant to multiple studies);

  • Polybius [205 B.C. - 125 B.C.], “none but unprincipled and beastly men in society assume the mastery over their fellows. . . .” (Volume 4). [See context by E. C. Rogers, supra, p 17].

  • Examples of Such Politicians' Manipulations, e.g., on Abortion (Pretending To Oppose It While Actually Helping Cause It By Supporting Tobacco; By Never Ending It, They Keep The Uneducated Voting For Them Indefinitely);

  • Unthinking of the Uneducated (for background, see The New Yorker (30 August 2004);

  • Medical History Site (Tobacco-caused-Brain-Damage) (significant in view of the slavery-tobacco link.

    • The pro-slavery legislators and congressmen had the data and references to know slavery to be unconstitutional. But numbers of their constituents enjoyed family destroying activities such as rape, forced prostitution, torture.

    Examples
    Axe-Murder Concubines-for-Clergy Eye-Gouging Racking and Salting
    Skinning Slave-Driving Torture-Murder Whip-to-Death

    They [Southern politicians] already for a century, had a record of passing pro-rape laws. Many Southern clergy favored this, as shown by the evidence from Rev. Stephen S. Foster, Brotherhood of Thieves (New-London: William Bolles Pub, 1843), pp 71-73.

    So following that pattern was continued in 1850. That year, they (with Northern congressional accomplices) passed a law (the “Fugitive Slave Act”—something NOT provided for by the Constitution, Goodell, supra, pp 227-233, and Lewis Tappan, The Fugitive Slave Bill: Its History and Unconstitutionality (New York: William Harned, 1850), pp 17-28, in essence abolishing the Constitutional right to trial by jury for one group of accused persons (i.e., persons accused of being a slave, a status without moral and constitutional basis) and in essence abolishing habeas corpus notwithstanding the Constitution's Article I § 9 clause for habeas corpus—the right long used by alleged slaves to become freed, as the above-cited court cases show.

    Click here for the FSA Text.

    Southern congressmen realized that honest, moral Northern juries would be a threat to their continuing criminal enterprise. Northern juries would foreseeably be a slavers' nightmare (fully informed jurors), blow the whistle, deem slavery illegal (as so many courts had already done), vote accused slaves "not guilty," and find slave-catchers guilty of kidnaping. The southern "drunkards, gamblers, whoremonger, and asses" and their Northern accessories (during Pres. Millard Fillmore's administration) in the 1850 Congress that passed the "Fugitive Slave Act" banned Northern jury review as they knew slavery was illegal and unconstitutional. As noted above, Senator Mason admitted against interest why slavers feared Northern juries:

    "A trial by jury necessarily carries with it a trial of the whole right, and a trial of the right to service will be gone into . . . in determining upon any other fact."

    There was no "right" to service by slaves. No slave had signed a contract to serve! (This is in contrast to indentured servants, who had signed such contracts). See, e.g.,
  • Lysander Spooner, Unconstitutionality of Slavery (Boston: B. Marsh, 1845, 3rd ed, 1860), pp 67-73
  • Benjamin Shaw, Illegality of Slavery (Boston: 1846), pp 10-11
  • Lewis Tappan, The Fugitive Slave Bill: Its History and Unconstitutionality (New York: Wm. Harned, 1850), pp 25-26.

    • So, knowing slavery to be unconstitutional, Sen. James M. Mason admitted that Southern fear of a jury trial arose as slavers would be required to show evidence

    "that slavery is [by law] established in the State from which the fugitive has absconded.

    "Now, this very thing, in a recent case in the city of New York, was required by one of the judges of that State."

    "In that case, the judge of the State court . . . went so far as to say that the only mode of proving it was by reference to the statute book. . . . it is impossible to comply . . . for no such proof [law] can be produced . . . in any of the slave States." Cong Globe, 31st Cong, I Sess, App, pp 1583-1584 (19 Aug 1850).

    Sen. James M. Mason

    "said distinctly [p 1589] that he was not willing the trust the question with the Courts in the free states. . . Hence . . . the peculiar structure of the infamous Fugitive Slave bill, allowing no litigation, no counter evidence, no habeas corpus, no 'due process of law.' If slavery were believed by the slave-holders to be legal, would they fear to have the question litigated in the Courts?" Goodell, supra, p 571.

    New York case law, including the earlier case alluded to, applied the above-cited "natural law" concepts against slavery. See People ex rel. Napoleon v Lemmon, 5 Sand SCR 681; 7 N Y Super 681 (12 Nov 1852) aff'd 26 Barb 270, 287-289 (30 Dec 1857) aff'd 20 NY 562; 1860 WL 7815 (March 1860). The decision
  • followed the principle cited in 1849 by Rep. Horace Mann, Speech, pp 30-31

  • cited a number of anti-slavery court precedents including The French Slave Case, 13 Causes Célèbres 49 (1738); Somerset v Stewart, 20 Howell's State Trials 1 (1772); Sewall's Slaves, 3 Am Jurist 404 (Indiana, 1829); and Commonwealth v Aves, 35 Mass 193 (1836), supra.

    • Explanation for citing a French case: French policy stated in 1571, affirmed in 1607, said: "All persons are free in this kingdom; as soon as a slave has reached these frontiers and becomes baptized, he is free."
    This case had been cited in briefing in Somerset v Stewart, 20 Howell's 1, 12 (1772).

    Sen. Mason, in denouncing Northern courts, disregarded a precedent from his own state of Virginia, DeLacy, Vice Consul v Antoine, 34 Va (7 Leigh) 438 (April 1836) refusing a claim to a slave!

    The Constitution's the Sixth Amendment, guarantees the right to jury trial. This right is one of the ancient 'rights of Englishmen,' part of the common law:

    Patton v United States, 281 US 276, 288; 50 S Ct 253; 74 L Ed 854 (1930)
    Duncan v Louisiana, 391 US 145, 149; 88 S Ct 1444; 20 L Ed 2d 491 (1968)

    Here is a reprint of key aspects of the position of the government of Massachusetts in Commonwealth v Aves, 35 Mass (18 Pick) 193, 202-203 (1836):

    "[N]o people are bound to enforce or hold valid in their courts of justice, any contract or law, which offends their morals, or contravenes their policy, or violates a public law, or offers a pernicious example. . . . Slavery is within all these. . . . It is offensive to morals. The testimony of ethical writers against slavery is unanimous and decisive. And some of the most eminent statesmen of the South, as Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, William Pinckney, have concurred with the moralist . . . . Slavery sets before our citizens a pernicious and detestable example."

    The position paper also refuted the notion that the North was like the South, in having had slavery. Not so, for example, "Massachusetts has known nothing like the slave system . . . The slavery which was abolished here nearly sixty years ago [before 1836] resembled little more than in name the . . . South [system]. It was far milder than the ancient English villenage [during Middle Ages feudalism], and differed from apprenticeship only its duration."

    Sen. Charles Sumner

    As the common law applied throughout the nation, freedom was a national principle, said scholar Charles Sumner, in

  • "Freedom National, Slavery Sectional," Congressional Globe, 32th Cong, 1st Sess,