Authors: Alfred W. Blumrosen
Slave Nation (33 page)
22
. Hugh Williamson, “The Plea of the Colonies on Charges Brought Against Them by Lord Mansfield and Others in a Letter to His Lordship” (London, 1775) 8. Williamson in a paper printed in London in early 1775, argued against the idea that “an abstract theorem, a general declaration, [the Declaratory Act] has given more offense to the Americans than all the injuries they have received.” He pointed out that “as members of the British empire, they have enjoyed, till the beginnings of the present controversy, (a few impolitic and unprofitable restrictions excepted) as much liberty as was consistent with civil government, or as much as they could possibly expect under a new form.…What would tempt such people to become independent?” (at 16-17)
He concluded that “life and property were at the disposal of men who knew them not, who were not touched by their calamities; of men who were to gain by their loss and prosper by their adversity,” (at 13-14) and that taxation without representation was the “sole cause” of the present war (at 27).
23
. Don Cook,
The Long Fuse: How England Lost the American Colonies, 1760–1785
(New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1995) 199
24
. We observed the same approach among white southerners in Louisiana in 1961 with respect to racial segregation, and white South Africans in 1987 concerning apartheid.
26
. Jensen,
Articles of Confederation,
118–19, says that this nascent “states’ rights” position was shared in 1776 by both “radicals” and “conservatives.”
27
. Butterfield,
Diary and Autobiography
, 309
28
. Merrill Jensen,
Commentary to Randolph Greenfield Adams: Political Ideas of the American Revolution; Britannic-American Contributions to the Problem of Imperial Organization
, 3d Ed., (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1958) 24
29
. Laurence Henry Gipson,
The Triumphant Empire
, Vol. XIII (New York: Knopf, 1974) 198
30
. Draper,
Struggle for Power
, 518
31
. A Parliament that, for example, might abolish slavery, as the British Parliament did in 1833.
32
. John Phillip Reid,
Constitutional History
33
. See Ferling,
Leap in the Dark
,116–120, reporting Galloway’s speech and analyzing his plan.
34
. The jurisdiction is described by Galloway. Smith,
Letters of Delegates to Congress
, 118
35
. Smith,
Letters of Delegates to Congress
, 118. There is an inconsistency in Galloway’s referring to the “present constitution and powers of regulating and governing its own internal police in all cases whatsoever.” In 1774, the term “present constitution and powers” of the colonies were subject to invalidation under two circumstances: (1) if the British Parliament exercised its jurisdiction under the Declaratory Act and (2) if they were not consistent with the common law, which included the
Somerset
decision. The phrase “in all cases whatsoever” is the language of the British Declaratory Act of 1766, which claimed total parliamentary authority over the colonies. It was precisely the matter at issue between the colonists pursuing the Virginia instructions and the empire. Galloway’s use of both phrases in the same sentence may have been intended to patch over this basic difference without resolving it, or to appear to give enhanced powers to the colonial legislatures, while leaving them subject to both the king and Parliament.
36
. The wedding of the British and American parliaments might also have made more certain that English common law would apply in America.
37
. See Wills,
Inventing America
, 36–39
39
. This is from John Adams’s notes of the debates, Smith,
Letters of Delegates to Congress
, 109,111; Patrick Henry comment on 111
40
. It is ironic that a strong central government, in which U.S. senators were to be selected by state legislators, was proposed by Virginians at the Constitutional Convention of 1787.
41
. This point is noted, though not explored in relation to slavery by John Ferling,
The Loyalist Mind: Joseph Galloway and the American Revolution
(University Park, PA: Penn. State University Press, 1977) 30
42
. Two other provisions of the declaration of 1774 also conflicted with the Galloway Plan. Article VII provides that the colonies are entitled to “all the immunities and privileges…secured by their several codes of provincial laws.” This is a demand for recognition of provincial laws, including the slave codes, as the kind of “positive law” referred to by Mansfield in
Somerset
. It is inconsistent with any supervisory legislative power in any parliament, privy council, or the courts.
Article X of the declaration states that “the exercise of legislative power in the several colonies, by a council appointed during pleasure, by the crown, is unconstitutional, dangerous, and destructive to the freedom of American legislation.” Burnett characterizes this clause as “in effect, a criticism of a principal feature of the Galloway plan of union.” Burnett,
The Continental Congress
, 54
43
. Draper,
Struggle for Power
, 429–30. Galloway had been a follower of Benjamin Franklin. Franklin’s Albany Plan of Union in 1755 failed because the colonies thought it gave them too little discretion, and the British thought it gave them too much.
44
. Butterfield,
Diary and Autobiography
, Vol. 2, 140. Note 1 on 141, “To this first intimate contact between John Adams and his fellow delegates on the one hand, and the silent member from Virginia [Washington] much has been attributed, probably justly. With little doubt it markedly influenced Washington’s view of the conduct of the leaders of the patriotic movement in Massachusetts.”
45
. W. W. Abbot and Dorothy Twohig, Eds.,
The Papers of George Washington
, Colonial Series, Vol. 10 (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1995)161, 171–72
46
. Butterfield,
Diary and Autobiography
, 151. It was a little surprising that Massachusetts was divided since John Adams drafted the article and his cousin Samuel Adams was also a delegate, unless Massachusetts was staying in the background as Rush had suggested.
47
. Butterfield,
Diary and Autobiography
, Vol. 1, 152n2
48
. Galloway’s complaints appear in Smith,
Letters of Delegates to Congress
, 113-117
49
. John Locke,
Two Treatises on Government
(Original, 1690., New York: Macmillan Publishing Co, 1947)
C
HAPTER
7
T
HE
I
MMORTAL
A
MBIGUITY
: “A
LL
M
EN
A
RE
C
REATED
E
QUAL
”
1
. Mayer,
Son of Thunder
, 249–257
2
.
http://collections.ic.gc.ca/blackloyalists/documents/official/virginia_response.htm
3
. Miller,
Origins of the American Revolution
, 478. It also confirmed that many slaves were aware of the
Somerset
decision, and believed that the British were telling the truth when they offered freedom.
4
. Samuel Johnson,
Taxation No Tyranny: An Answer to the Resolutions and Address of the American Congress
(1775)
5
. Rhys Isaac,
Landon Carter’s Uneasy Kingdom
, 3–15
6
.
http://collections.ic.gc.ca/blackloyalists/documents/official/virginia_response.htm
7
. Maier,
American Scripture
, 13
8
. Draper,
Struggle for Power
, 459–479
9
. Maier,
American Scripture
, 63
10
. Ibid. 98–105
11
. Jefferson, “Thomas Jefferson to Richard Henry Lee, May 8, 1825,” in Ford,
Works
, Vol. 16, 118
13
. See Rutland,
Papers of George Mason
, cxi-cxxvi
14
. Maier,
American Scripture
, 87
15
. Maier,
American Scripture
, 269n62. Rutland,
Papers of George Mason
, 274
16
. Tarter, “Appendix, Monday, May 27, 1776,”
Revolutionary Virginia
, Vol. VII, Part I. 271, 276. Maier,
American Scripture
, 133–35, suggests that this is the language that Jefferson modified in drafting the Declaration of Independence.
17
. Tarter,
Revolutionary Virginia
, Vol. VII, Part 2, 454
18
. Mays,
Edmund Pendleton
, 121
19
. Mays, Edmund Pendleton Vol. II, 121
20
. Maier,
American Scripture
, 269n62, “The Committee draft, it seems, was far more widely circulated and more influential than that finally adopted by the Virginia Convention.”
21
. Ibid.
22
. Published in Philadelphia on June 12. Maier
American Scripture
,126
23
. Memo of H. Carrington, 9 Sept. 1851. Tarter,
Revolutionary Virginia
, 454
24
. The Convention sat as a committee of the whole. This description of the process of adoption of the Virginia Declaration of Rights relies heavily on Tarter,
Revolutionary Virginia
, Vol. VII, part 1, 276 and Vol. VII, part 2, 454–455. See Maier,
American Scripture
, 193
25
. Tarter, “Appendix, Monday, May 27, 1776,”
Revolutionary Virginia
, Vol. VII Part I, 271, 276
26
. Ellis,
American Sphinx
, 55–56. Maier,
American Scripture
, 125–26
27
. Maier,
American Scripture
, 99
28
. Ibid. 100
29
. Mayer,
Son of Thunder
, 205–206.
30
. Maier,
American Scripture
, 135–136, suggests otherwise. “The opening assertion of ‘self-evident’ truths concern men in a ‘state of nature’ before government was established.” But the establishment of a government is an exercise in political judgment, not a philosophic treatise. The same is true of Mason’s draft of the Virginia Declaration of Rights. Both documents speak to present political principles. Pendleton’s addition of the qualifying phrase “when they enter a state of society” was understood as carving out an exception from these principles, so that they would not apply to black slaves.
31
.
JCC
Vol. 5, 1079; Jefferson, “Autobiography,” in Ford,
Works
, 44-45
32
.
JCC
Vol. 5, 1080
33
. Joseph Ellis,
American Sphinx
, 56, “Jefferson was probably aware of the contradiction between his own version of the natural rights philosophy and the institution of slavery. By dropping any reference to ‘property’ he blurred the contradiction.”
34
. Fredrika Teute Schmidt and Barbara Ripel Wilhelm, “Early Pro-Slavery Petitions in Virginia,” 30
William and Mary Quarterly
, 133 (1973) 140; Lunenberg County, 161 signatures.
35
. Washburne,
Sketch of Edward Coles
, 25
36
. Wills,
Inventing America
37
. The suggestion made by Howard Mumford Jones that Jefferson had imperfectly recalled the language of the Virginia declaration is implausible, in light of the importance which he attached to his drafting assignment. This assignment recognized his stature among the leadership, and was a springboard to his later influence. We know he took the assignment very seriously and kept a careful record of changes made in his draft, thereby expressing his displeasure at the tinkering done by the Congress. See Wills,
Inventing America
, 230. Wills also describes the efforts Jefferson made to preserve “his” Declaration and noted that Jefferson had urged Lafayette to delete the term “property” from his draft declaration of Human Rights for France.
Wllls’s explanation is that Jefferson was not so much influenced by Locke as by the Scottish philosopher Francis Hutcheson, whose philosophy emphasized the “right of exchange…not the right of retention.” (Ibid. 231). Wills demonstrates not only that Jefferson followed Hutcheson’s approach to the organization of social values, but also that Jefferson himself had a persistent concern that real property rights, as then understood, could stultify social development and prevent the emergence of wide-scale land ownership. Thus he opposed primogenitor and entail, and supported free alienation of land.
38
. Maier,
American Scripture
, 134
39
. For example, Wills,
Inventing America
; Davis,
Problem of Slavery
; Maier,
American Scriptures
; Becker,
The Declaration of Independence: A Study in the History of Political Ideas
(New York: Knopf, 1942)
40
. Jefferson had included the words “inherent and” before “unalienable rights.” Congress removed them.
http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/document/congress.htm
41
. “Original Rough Draft of the Declaration of Independence,”
Papers of Thomas Jefferson
, Vol. 1 (1760–1776) Julian P. Boyd, Ed. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1950) 243–47.
http://www.constitution.org/tj/doi_rough.htm
42
. Ellis,
American Sphinx
, 51–52, treats this section as an attempted absolution of colonial responsibility for slavery. MacLeod,
Slavery, Race
, 32–33, also notes that the British support for the slave trade was an important part of the “southern defense of its institutions.” He concludes, “If for no other reason than that the trade depended upon a market, the reaction was illogical.”