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Philosophic, Theological and Legal Underpinning for the Abolition of Slavery HA-31-1-08

 

By Anthony J. Sanders

 

A. From the 16th to 19th Century the transatlantic slave trade is estimated to have deported some 15 to 18 million captives.  These millions of African captives sold as slaves in the Americas provided the labor required for the exploitation of mines and plantations of sugar cane, tobacco, coffee and cotton.  The experience of these people led philosophers to conclude that slavery was a particularly cruel and ruthless crime and that the deprivations and restrictions of slavery should only be to prevent and punish crimes.

 

1. More than half of African slaves were employed on the sugar cane plantations in the Caribbean and in Brazil, where their life expectancy did not exceed five to six years after their arrival. It was a deadly system in which it is estimated that for every African captive who reached the Americas alive, five others died during the various phases of raiding, conflict and capture in the villages of the continental hinterland, during the forced march towards the assembly centers and trading posts, and during imprisonment in the baracoons on the African shores and subsequently during the transatlantic crossing.

 

B. At that time of the Republic of Plato more than half the population of Athens were either slaves, by birth or prisoners of war, with no civic rights or resident aliens.  In democratic temperament the principle of freedom and equal rights for all is applied.  When the poor win, that is democracy.  In a democracy people are first of all free.  Liberty and free speech allow everyone to arrange their own manner of life and to protect themselves from crimes by individuals or the State. 

 

1. Acton said, “All power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely”.  The despotic character has not a friend in the world; he is sometimes master, sometimes slave, but never knows true friendship or freedom.  The man whose crime is on trial is the unhappiest by three tests:  freedom, wealth and security from fear.  In making a decision as to the worthiness of a State, is it free, under a despot or enslaved?  The most important of all questions is the choice between a good and an evil life?  A man with many slaves will be driven out of a desire to lead a good life to offer liberal promises and freedom.

 

2. The Politics of Aristotle states, “what is found among men who share in a common life respect for the rule of law, with a view to the attainment of self-sufficiently, as freemen and as equals either proportionately or arithmetically?  It follows that where men are not in this position, such as between masters and slaves, there is no political justice to govern their relations, there is only justice of a sort.  Justice exists only as between men whose relations to one another are governed by a system of law that all parties agree to. 

 

C. The bible pays a great deal of attention to freedom.  Psalm 119:45 states, I will walk about in freedom, for I have sought out your precepts.  Isaiah 61:1 the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners.  1 Corinthians 7:21: Were you a slave when you were called? Don't let it trouble you—although if you can gain your freedom, do so.  Jeremiah 34:15: recently you repented and did what is right in my sight: Each of you proclaimed freedom to his countrymen. You even made a covenant before me in the house that bears my Name.  Jeremiah 34:8: the word came to Jeremiah from the LORD after King Zedekiah had made a covenant with all the people in Jerusalem to proclaim freedom for the slaves.

 

1. The Spirit of the Lord is, freedom, Corinthians 3:17.  1. Corinthians 10:29: why should my freedom be judged by another's conscience? Galatians 2:4: This matter arose because some false brothers had infiltrated our ranks to spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus and to make us slaves.  Galatians 5:1: It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.  Galatians 5:13: You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love.  James 1:25: The man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it—he will be blessed in what he does. James 2:12: Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom. Peter 2:16: Live as free men, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as servants of God. 

 

2.  In answer to our prayers for a Moses for the American people who would free the slaves without bio-terrorism, war or enforced relocation.  The Lord continued to Moses, the cry of the Israelites, nearly so numerous as the American prisoners, has reached Me, I have seen how they are oppressed.  Come, therefore, I will set you shall to free my people Exodus 3:9-10.  The Lord said, bring forth the Israelites from the land of Egypt, troop by troop Exodus 6:26.  To the Moses the magistrate his father-in-law said, I will bring counsel and God will be with you!  You represent the people before God; bring the disputes before God and enjoin upon them the laws and the teachings and make known to them the way they are to go and the practices they are to follow. Exodus 32: 17-18 

 

D. Philosophy is the quintessence of the spirit of a people. The unique and particular features, the aspirations of a people, that both reflect and determine its historical destiny, are conceptualized in philosophy. Therefore, the fundamental philosophic task of the tradition that a people develops is to express conceptually the universal and continuing aspiration of the people's spirit. To be fulfilled, this general philosophic task must be rendered concrete; in other words, some general pattern of solving it must be formed. 

 

1. In the medieval approach Man's free will constitutes the last inalienable element of this approach.  A central problem for all medieval philosophers was matching the idea of the free will of man with the idea of divine omnipotence, omniscience, and goodness. The free will of God and the free will of man must be integrated in a way that does not contradict the notion of divine justice.  The free will of man is the will for felicity and joy, which do not depend on anything. 

 

2. A new approach to solving the fundamental problem of philosophy took shape during the enlightenment and its potential by no means has been exhausted.  The problem of harmonizing two autonomous wills, divine and human, has been eliminated, while the problem of ethics focuses exclusively on man, makes for a type of solution that differs in principle from the medieval approach.  The free will of man is not confronted by the free will of God the creator; man with his ethical norms finds himself face to face with the world.  The future is of special value; it is in the future that ethical postulates and inferences are to be translated into reality.

 

E. The French edict of March 1685, known as the Code noir, devised to govern the rights and duties of masters and slaves in the remote colonies of the Americas, stated under Article 44 : “We declare slaves as movable property “.  This text subsequently served as a model for the Code drafted for Louisiana in 1725, and later for the Código negro Carolino devised by Spain in 1784 and promulgated in its American colonies in 1789.

 

1. The American colonies were frequently disrupted by slave revolts, or the threat of revolt as the result of the estimated 10 million Africans who were brought to the Americas as slaves. After several centuries however the administrators of the British and French colonies in the 1730’s observed that a "wind of freedom" was blowing in the Caribbean. 

 

2. The Community of Friends which the Quakers founded in Pennsylvania in the late seventeenth century came out publicly in 1688, for the first time in the Western world, against the fact of, “buying and keeping Negroes, and condemned the trade in human bodies”.

 

3. A century later, Anthony Benezet convened the first meeting, in April 1775, of the Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage.

 

4. Adam Smith stated in 1776 that, “a free worker is superior to a slave as constraint never makes a man inventive, zealous and intelligent”.

 

5. The majority of its 24 members of the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage were Quakers who, in February 1784, founded the Pennsylvania Abolition Society.

 

6. Drawing inspiration from the Declaration of Independence of 1776, the slaves of New England published petitions in favor of their freedom.

 

7. The states of Vermont in 1777, and then Massachusetts and New Hampshire inserted the prohibition of slavery in their constitutions. Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Connecticut expressed a preference for gradual emancipation.

 

8. The North of the United States was becoming industrialized, requiring salaried labor in ever-increasing numbers. The prosperity of the South based on cotton seemed forever linked to slavery.  A decisive abolitionist campaign began.  

 

9. The Society for the Extinction of the Slave Trade led in 1788 to an investigation by the Crown’s Privy Council. The subsequent debate in Parliament enabled Wilberforce to secure a vote on the abolition of the slave trade in 1807. . In the beginning of the 19th Century many Parliaments abolished the slave trade civilly.  Great Britain drafted an Abolition of the Slave Trade in 1807. The Abolition Bill passed

British Parliament in August 1833.  The French decree was signed by the Provisional Government in April 1848.

 

F. In the mid-eighteenth century, the Encyclopédie stated that, “slavery is the establishment of a right based on force, a right which makes of a man the property to such a degree of another man that the former becomes the absolute master of his life, goods and freedom, recalling that all men are born equal and that nature had made them all equal. Reducing a man to slavery, buying him, selling him, keeping him in servitude – these are veritable crimes and crimes that are worse than theft”. 

 

1. The destruction of the slavery system began in the French colony of Santo Domingo in the slave rebellion of August 1791 that sparked a general insurrection that lead to the abolition of slavery and the independence of the island with the foundation of Haiti on 1 January 1804. The Haitians also played an important part in the gradual process of destruction of the proslavery system in Guadeloupe and Martinique between 1804 and 1848. Haitian support was also true of the 1808 rebellion in British Guyana and that of the slaves of Demerara in 1823 and other insurrections which broke out in Jamaica (1831-1832) and in Puerto Rico during the second half of the nineteenth century.

 

2. The arrival of the Haitians in the United States encouraged the authorities to strengthen the proslavery system which led to many revolts, particularly in Louisiana and the heroic resistance of Gabriel Prosser (1800), Denmark Vesey (1822) and Nat Turner (1831, Virginia). In Venezuela, Francisco de Miranda, in February 1806, and Simon Bolivar in December 1815-January 1816 and October-December 1816 who all received assistance from Haiti which had a determining effect.

 

3. President Pétion asked Bolivar for, “freedom to be granted to all the slaves in the province of Venezuela”.  The Haitian Government also accepted to provide weapons and ammunition to the Mexicans led by General Mina in September 1816 and to Colombia in September 1820. Finally, after the abolition of slavery in the French colonies in 1848.  New freemen took as their model the Haitian Revolution for advocating the independence of Guadeloupe. Slavery however lasted until 1886 in Cuba and 1888 in Brazil. Two outstanding colonial decrees for abolition were produced during the nineteenth century:

 

G. Thomas Clarkson wrote, “Every man by Nature is born free, and has a Right to his own Body, and whoever attempts to enslave him by force and against his own consent, is the worst of Robbers, and violates a Commandment of God” in the Letter to François Guizot, of 18 January 1841, in the Archives nationals du Paris.

 

1. Victor Schoelcher wrote, “In a society of slaves, there will always be horrendous accidents that can be attributed to its way of life, will always be peculiar to it and can never be found in the state of freedom. As slavery is a state of violence, it is impossible that it should not involve awful acts of violence. Slavery corrupts the master as it does the slave. Slavery can corrupt even those who are good through the ease with which abuses can be perpetrated and the aberrations of limitless power, to the extent that we have seen” in About the workers’ petition for the abolition of slavery, Pagnerre, Paris, 1844.

 

2. Measures had to be taken to ensure that this great act of reparation of a crime of human abuse was conducted in a manner that was most beneficial to those who had been the victims” in, Preliminary report to the Minister of the Navy and Colonies by the Emancipation Commission, 3 May 1848.

 

H. The Abolition Bill passed by the British Parliament in August 1833 and the French decree was signed by the Provisional Government in April 1848.

 

1. In the Amistad 40 US 518 (1841) to liberate a ship of African slaves from the District Court, who had revolted and killed the masters of a Portugese slave ship, the US Supreme Court recognized that the government of the United States is based on the principles promulgated in the Declaration of Independence, by the congress of 1776; 'that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; and that to secure these rights, governments are instituted. Recollecting that there is among nations, as among men, a golden rule; let us do to them, as we wish them to do to us…therefore be declared free and dismissed from the custody of the court’. 

 

I. Frederick Douglass, a slave who escaped from the South in 1838, publishing his autobiography in 1845 under the title, My Bondage and My Freedom. He settled in Washington and became a journalist, Union soldier, US marshall and subsequently a diplomat.

 

1. When the Convention of Colored People met in Cleveland, Ohio in November 1848, it paid tribute to the liberation of slaves in the French colonies. Frederick Douglass, who was the main speaker at these conventions, reminded his audience: “We are now the most oppressed people in the world. In the southern states of this union, we are slaves.” 

 

2. In his Narrative, he wrote,

 

What! preach freedom, and kidnap men?

Give thanks, and rob thy own afflicted poor?

Talk of thy glorious liberty, and then

Bolt hard the captive's door?

 

What! servants of thy own

Merciful Son, who came to seek and save
The homeless and the outcast, fettering down

Free the tasked and plundered slave!

 

3. In 1854, the Republican Party included the abolition of slavery in its manifesto and the southern states seceded from the union in rebellion 
against freedom when Abraham Lincoln, the Republican candidate was elected to the presidency in 1860.  Lincoln initially hoped to keep the 
peace with Confederacy by permitting the practice of slavery. 
 
J. The United States is unique because the Civil War was fought not because the slaves revolted but because the slavers did.  All told the 
Civil War took the lives of 364,511 Union and 133,821 Confederate troops (1861-1865) to free approximately 5 million African-American 
slaves.  On 22 September 1862, exactly one hundred days before it went into effect, Lincoln unveiled his preliminary Emancipation 
Proclamation to his entire Cabinet that on the first day of January, in the year of 1863, “all persons held as slaves within any of the rebel 
states shall be thenceforth and forever free.”  The abolition of slavery became the 13th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States 
of 6 December 1865 that states,

 

Section 1.   Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude except as punishment for a crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States of America, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Section 2. Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

 

1. Severer punishments for crimes were imposed on the slave than on free persons guilty of the same offenses. Congress, by the civil rights bill of 1866, passed in view of the thirteenth amendment, before the fourteenth was adopted, undertook to wipe out these burdens and disabilities, the necessary incidents of slavery, constituting its substance and visible from; and to secure to all citizens of every race and color, and without regard to previous servitude, those fundamental rights which are the essence of civil freedom, namely, the same right to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, give evidence, and to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, and convey property, as is enjoyed by white citizens.

 

K. In 1868 the 14th Amendment was passed to counter the "black codes" and ensure that no state "shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of the citizens of the United States . . . [or] deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, [or] deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." (http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.amendmentxiv.html)

 

1. The Civil Rights Act of 1875 passed March 1, 1875, entitled 'An act to protect all citizens in their civil and legal rights was overruled and voided in the Civil Rights Cases 109 U.S. 3 (1883) that found that the equal protection of the law does not extend to the individual or private society although Justice Harlan wrote an eloquent dissent that confers responsibility upon all public services whether or not they are provided by private or public corporations. The Act Provided: That all persons within the jurisdiction of the United States shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the accommodations, advantages, facilities, and privileges of inns, public conveyances on land or water, theaters, and other places of public amusement; subject only to the conditions and limitations established by law, and applicable alike to citizens of every race and color, regardless of any previous condition of servitude.

 

2. The Civil Rights Act of 1957 was the first civil rights legislation since Reconstruction.  The new act established a Civil Rights Section of the Justice Department and empowered federal prosecutors to obtain court injunctions against interference with the right to vote. It also established a federal Civil Rights Commission with authority to investigate discriminatory conditions and recommend corrective measures. 

 

3. The Civil Rights Act of 2 July 1964 PL 88-352, is codified, as amended, at 42 USC Chapter 21  1981 - 2000h.  The Civil Rights Acts were drafted to enforce the constitutional right to vote, to confer jurisdiction upon the district courts of the United States to provide injunctive relief against discrimination in public accommodations, to authorize the Attorney General to institute suits to protect constitutional rights in public facilities and public education, to extend the Commission on Civil Rights, to prevent discrimination in federally assisted programs, to establish a Commission on Equal Employment Opportunity, and for other purposes. 

 

4. The Voting Rights Act, adopted initially in 1965 and extended in 1970, 1975, and 1982, is generally considered the most successful piece of civil rights legislation ever adopted by the United States Congress. The Act codifies and effectuates the 15th Amendment of 3 February 1870 permanent guarantee that, throughout the nation, no person shall be denied the right to vote on account of race or color and assigns federal observers to oversee the conduct of elections, that took nearly a century to implement.  The women’s suffrage movement was successful in securing their voting rights in the 19th Amendment of 18 August 1920.  Literacy tests and other poll taxes were abolished in the 24th Amendment of 23 January 1964.   

 

5. Civil Rights Act of 21 November 1991 (Pub. L. 102-166) amended the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to strengthen and improve Federal civil rights laws, to provide for damages in cases of intentional employment discrimination, to clarify provisions regarding disparate impact actions, and for other purposes.

 

L. In the words of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere”. 

 

1. In the Letter from Birmingham Jail King wrote, “Freedom is never voluntarily given by an oppressor, it must be demanded by the oppressed.  An unjust law is a code that a numerical or power majority group compels a minority group to obey but does not make binding upon itself.  A law is unjust if it is inflicted upon a minority as the result of being denied a right to vote, had no part in enacting or devising the law.  Sometimes a law is just on its face and unjust in its application.  An individual who breaks a law that conscious tell is unjust and who willingly accepts the punishment of imprisonment in order to arouse the consciousness of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law. 

 

2. In any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: 1. collection of the facts to determine whether injustices exist, 2. negotiations, 3. self purification, and 4. direct action. 

 

3. The way most people deal with a conflict is by first asking them the question, "How can I get my way?" This is the normal way of dealing with a problem. When we think this way, as we all do so often, we let our egos manage the conflict. But there is a better way.

 

4. When we make nonviolence a way of life, the first question we ask at a time of conflict is, "What is the most loving thing to do?" When we think this way, we tap the power of the soul. We overcome the narrow, selfish concerns of the ego.

 

5. We don't want to destroy our opponent. We want to win their friendship and understanding. We try to find a "win-win" solution, which benefits everyone. This is how we create lasting peace.

 

6. We resolve the conflict, not with the attitude of a conqueror, but with the motivation of a peace-maker. A commitment to study and practice nonviolence in our personal lives gives us an edge in resolving conflicts and in achieving your goals without making enemies.

 

7. These teachings can help improve our family relationships and our dealings with friends and our peers. Nonviolence can help us more effectively communicate with our adversaries and resolve disputes in a way that benefits everyone.