Civil War History - Secession and PoliticsWas it Slavery, or was it States Rights? Perhaps it was the election of Lincoln? What were the real reasons for Southern Secession and what were the political issues in this time of war? Find your answers here in the Secession and Politics Disussion.
of course it is, its contract law, the constition protects contracts, chattel slavery is a labour contract, its those constitional laws that were being denied to the owners of slave labour.
So how is chattel slavery a labour contract? Does the slave enter into an agreement with the master to work for a lifetime at no pay, meager nourishment, inferior shelter, corporal punishment, separation from family members, resold at will, and long/hard labor? Can you produce such a contract? Did the slaves sign on the bottom line? I have signed contracts and I am able to read and write, while most slaves could not.
__________________ "Those who forget to remember the past are condemned to repeat it", George Santayana.
A contract is a promise enforceable by law. The promise may be to do something or to refraain from doing something. The making of a contract requires the mutual assent of two or more persons, one of them ordinarily making an offer and another accepting. If one of the parties fails to keep the promise, the other is entitled to legal recourse.
The Contract Labourer's obligation is his surrender for a specified period of the Freedom to quit work and his employer. The labour of workers whose freedom is restricted by the terms of a contractual relation and by laws that make such arrangements permissible and enforceable.
Thus it is highly unlikely that Chattle Slavery is/was Not a labour contract.
Freddy, it should be interesting to see how Hanny gets this pig to fly.
So how is chattel slavery a labour contract? Does the slave enter into an agreement with the master to work for a lifetime at no pay, meager nourishment, inferior shelter, corporal punishment, separation from family members, resold at will, and long/hard labor? Can you produce such a contract? Did the slaves sign on the bottom line? I have signed contracts and I am able to read and write, while most slaves could not.
becase that how the constition defines it,The right to own slaves is contianed in the Constion in Artclice 1,sec 10."no sate shall pass any bill of attainer or ex post facto law, or law impairing the obligations of contracts". the relation of a slave or bondsman to his or her master wasa loubour contract for life or a set time period, if a life time period of contract was in foce, then that person labour was held indefintaly by their owner. Secondly Artc 4 sec 2 "No person held to sevice or labour in one state, under the laws therfof, excaping into another , shallin consequence of law or regulation therin, be discharged from service of such labour, but shall be delivered up on claims of party whom ethe service may be due".
There is no ambiquity here, the constiton protect, defines slavery as contracts labour law, slavery must be enforced by the governemnt in returing slaves to their owners.
your a citizen and able to enter into a legal contract, slaves were property and no allowed any rights at all, and cerianly no protection in law since they were not citizens.
every slave who entered the US was recodred, and ownership passed from owner to new owner, ( the salves themseloves have no say in the matter, nor did the 30% or so of all persons sent as indentured for life servants sent from the UK to the US colonies, instead of being hung0and from that then sold at will as property, when made free, unless also made a citizen was unable to enter into any contract and enforce it in the courts, since he was was not a citizen and had no legal rights.
Hobbs v. Fogg
a free Black man sued for the right to vote in Pennsylvania. The State supreme court replied:
...[A] free negro or mulatto is not a citizen within the meaning of the Constitution and laws of the United States, and of the State of Pennsylvania, and, therefore, is not entitled to the right of suffrage.... But in addition to interpretation from usage, this antecedent legislation declared that no colored race was party to our social compact. Our ancestors settled the province as a community of white men; and the blacks were introduced into it as a race of slaves; whence an unconquerable prejudice of caste, which has come down to our day.... Consistently with this prejudice, is it to be credited that parity of rank would be allowed to such a race?... I have thought fair to treat the question as it stands affected by our own municipal regulations without illustration from those of other States, where the condition of the race has been still less favored. Yet it is proper to say that the second section of the fourth article of the Federal Constitution, presents an obstacle to the political freedom of the negro, which seems to be insuperable.
The Ohio supreme court Calvin v. Carter
It has always been admitted, that our political institutions embrace the white population only. Persons of color were not recognized as having any political existence. They had no agency in our political organizations, and possessed no political rights under it. Two or three of the States form exceptions. The constitutions of fourteen expressly exclude persons of color by a provision similar to our own; and, in the balance of the States, they are excluded on the ground that they were never recognized as a part of the body politic.... Indeed, it is a matter of history, that the very object of introducing the word white into our constitution, by the convention framing that instrument, was to put this question beyond all cavil or doubt, by, in express terms, excluding all persons from the enjoyment of the elective franchise, except persons of pure white blood.
Thacher v. Hawk Indiana supreme court
This exclusion of persons of color, or, of any degree of colored blood, from all political rights, is not founded upon a mere naked prejudice, but upon natural differences. The two races are placed as wide apart by the hand of nature as white from black, and, to break down the barriers, fixed, as it were, by the Creator himself, in a political and social amalgamation, shocks us, as something unnatural and wrong. It strikes us as a violation of the laws of nature. It would be productive of no good. It would degrade the white, if it could be accomplished, without elevating the black. Indeed, if we gather lessons of wisdom from the history of mankind — walk by the light of our experience, or consult the principles of human nature, we shall be convinced that the two races never can live together upon terms of equality and harmony.
Crandall v. The State Connecticut supreme court
The persons contemplated in this act are not citizens within the obvious meaning of that section of the Constitution of the United States which I have just read. Let me begin by putting this plain question: Are slaves citizens? At the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, every State was a slave State.... We all know that slavery is recognized in that Constitution; it is the duty of this court to take that Constitution as it is, for we have sworn to support it.... Then slaves were not considered citizens by the framers of the Constitution....
Are free blacks citizens?... To my mind it would be a perversion of terms, and the well known rules of construction, to say that slaves, free blacks, or Indians were citizens, within the meaning of that term as used in the Constitution. God forbid that I should add to the degradation of this race of men; but I am bound, by my duty, to say that they are not citizens.
__________________ "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.
Liberty is a well armed lamb contesting the vote."
Benjamin Franklin, 1759
A contract is a promise enforceable by law. The promise may be to do something or to refraain from doing something. The making of a contract requires the mutual assent of two or more persons, one of them ordinarily making an offer and another accepting. If one of the parties fails to keep the promise, the other is entitled to legal recourse.
The Contract Labourer's obligation is his surrender for a specified period of the Freedom to quit work and his employer. The labour of workers whose freedom is restricted by the terms of a contractual relation and by laws that make such arrangements permissible and enforceable.
Thus it is highly unlikely that Chattle Slavery is/was Not a labour contract.
Freddy, it should be interesting to see how Hanny gets this pig to fly.
I get it to fly by knowing what the constion says about how the FF protected the instition of slavery, by makeing laws to cover labour contracts, and to get the FSA to infoce the Constitional protected rights to own chattels labour.
How you can post on a civil war history board and not know what Lincoln was on about when he said the thing is hidden away in the constition is hard to understand, still less what the whole slavery isa right protected in law, or the many SC rullings that negros are not cotizens, cannot have the protection of the courts since they are not, cannot ener into a legal contract even when free and so on, how you can have missed any of these clues is a wonder.
__________________ "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.
Liberty is a well armed lamb contesting the vote."
Benjamin Franklin, 1759
Your interpretation of the Contracts Clause is misguided. If you note, the clause itself specifically prohibits state action in certain areas.
None of this touches on the fact that slavery (chattel or movable property) was subject to state based regulation (this is why you still get your car registered/titled by a state).
Further, by your own argument slavery cannot be a labor contract. Legally, a contract can only be entered into by a legal person (either a natural person or a "person in law" such as a corporation). Since by the citations you have given negros could not be "persons" only "property" there could be no labor contract. You cannot contract with your car, or your dog. You own your car or your dog. You can enter into a contract for the purchase of same, but you cannot contract with the thing itself.
There were contracts for servitude - indentured servants - who were essentially contracted slaves for a particular period but who were not considered slaves. Apprentices, likewise, were contracted to a particular master for a period of time and were restricted in freedom. The language of the constitution covered these situations.
The slaveowners of the South would never have considered negro slavery a contract. That implies that there could be a breach of contract and with the breach the negation of the contract. Can you see a slave who had been mistreated suing to say that I am no longer a slave because Master has breached by service contract? The slaveholders were very careful to make sure that slaves were not considered in law as persons. If they were persons, they would have rights. If they were, then they would be subject to penalties for murder if they killed a slave, as opposed to less severe penalties such as we have for cruelty to animals.
Yes, I realize the Constitution calls them "other persons" in the three-fifths clause, but a contract is a matter of state law and the Slave Codes made clear these were not persons.
__________________ "There must be more historians of the Civil War than there were generals figthing in it... Of the two groups, the historians are the more belligerent." David Donald, Lincoln Reconsidered (1961)
Yes, and to this date contracts, like property, is still largely regulated by states. Hence contracts will often have a clause, this contract is to be construed in accordance with the laws of the State of ____{insert state}
The whole purpose of the Contracts Clause was to prevent states from unfairly discharging debts by legislative decree. This pretty much stands until the New Deal.....
While referencing some sources on the Contract Law in the Constitution, I happened upon a Speech by Frederick Douglass given in Glasgow, Scotland, March 26, 1860 (before the elections) wherein Mr. Douglass discusses the Contract Law in the Constitution and I was going to quote only it from the speech. But as I read the speech, its power and prophecy was unmistakeable. I am not talented enough to post it on this thread, but I found it easily enough, so it should not be hard to access, but, in any case, I highly recommend it.
It's entited "The Constitution of the United States: Is It Pro-Slavery or Anti-Slavery? by Frederick Douglass , delievered in Glasgow, Scotland on March 26, 1860.
I will only note that we now live under the Original Constitution as described by Frederick Douglass, rather than that of Beowulf, Hanny, Battalion, Jefferson Davis, etc.
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