Paul Finkelman
Ilya Somin wrote:
A few points below:On Sat, 2 Aug 2003, Paul Finkelman wrote:No.1 woudl have banned slavery in 1800 just as Prof. Somin says, Is this a way to prevent the institution from spreading? Would anyone on the list propose social legislation that would not take effect for 16years, with no promise of an enforcement mechanism even then? Let's get real.-I agree that banning it in 16 years is not as good as doing so immediately. However, a rational slaveowner would not be very likely to want to bring slaves into an area where slavery would be abolished within a few years.There is no evidecne for no. 2 at all; this is a myth that Prof. Somin and other want to believe. On the contrary, he *prevented* such a bill from being introudced in the legislature as chair of the committee to revise the laws and then falsely claimed in Notes on teh Stte of Va. (in 1784) that such a bill was in the workds.-On this one, I will have to yield to Prof. Finkelman's far more expert knowledge of the subject.On. 3 one would think that a man who risked his life, fortune and sacred honor to fight the strongest nation on earth would have done more about slavery than merely moan about "God" (which is hardly much of a moan coming from a deist who never attended church), if he really thought it wrong.-This is just one of many Jefferson quotes criticizing slavery on moral grounds. Others can be found summarized in the UVA link I presented below. I don't think mentioning God somehow reduces the seriousness of Jefferson's point. The fact is that Jefferson stated that slavery was unjust and contrary to natural right on many occasions.Again, I invite Prof. Somin to read the evidence in Onuf's Jeffersonian Legacies and my Slavery and the Founders. If TJ had really opposed slavery, I suspect our history would have been different. But, alas, he did and never acted like he did in his public life or his private life.-I think that this overestimates the influence of any 1 person on an issue as large as slavery. To the extent that Jefferson did not do as much as he could have to oppose slavery, of course he deserves criticism for it. However, considerations of political feasibility surely played an important role in his actions. None of the southern slave states abolished slavery prior to the Civil War, and I don't think that this can be explained by chance factors or by insufficient commitment on the part of individual antislavery politicians, Jefferson included. Lastly, the point about Jefferson proposing to end the slave trade in 1776 is found here: http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/jefferson/biog/lj11.htm While it is surely true that Jefferson did not want to see an increase in the black population and Possibly that he sought to increase the value of his own slaves, he also condemned the slave trade as a "violation . . . of human rights.": http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/jefferson/quotations/jeff1290.htm Ilya SominPaul Finkelman Ilya Somin wrote:I did not deny that Jefferson owned slaves (indeed, I included him among those founders who were "hypocritical" in their antislavery views because they continued to do so). I also don't deny that there were others at the time who were far more consistent in their attitudes. Nonetheles, I don't think that Prof. Finkelman's claim that Jefferson was not an opponent of slavery at all. Consider: 1. He proposed the first draft of the NWO of 1784, which would have banned slavery in the Western territories after 1800. 2. He proposed an emancipation plan for Virginia to the state legislature as early as 1779. 3. He made numerous antislavery statements that go far beyond claiming that it was merely "corrosive to the body politic." For a sampling collected by the University of Virginia, see this website: http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/jefferson/quotations/jeff1290.htm Here is just one example of a quote where Jefferson shows that he recognizes that slavery is wrong and not just "corrosive": "I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep forever: that considering numbers, nature and natural means only, a revolution of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation, is among possible events: that it may become probable by supernatural interference! The Almighty has no attribute which can take side with us in such a contest." --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia Q.XVIII, 1782. ME 2:227 Jefferson and other founders who continued to own slaves while denouncing slavery were no paragons of virtue. But it is not correct to say that Jefferson was proslavery or that he said or did nothing to suggest otherwise. Ilya Somin On Sat, 2 Aug 2003, Paul Finkelman wrote:I would love to know what evidence Prof. Somin has that Jefferson was a "lifelong opponent of slavery." He did nothing in his political career to end it in Va; he opposed attempts to have gradual emancipation law passed in Va while he was in the legislture (and lied about the status of this law in his Notes on the State of Va.); he counseled people like Edward Coles NOT to free their slaves. "Keep your patrimony" he told him, fortunately, Coles ignores the advice. In his lifetime he freed 3 slaves (all members of the Hemings family and thus his relatives by marriage, since Sally and her brothers and sisters were the children of John Wales who was the father of Jefferson's wife, Martha Wayles) and in death he freed five moreHemings slaves. Some were his own children. In the 1780s adn 1790s he sold over 80 slaves to cover his debts while importing wine, paintings, furniture, books, etc from France. TJ was in France at the time the NWO was passed and to my knowledge did not say anything about it at all at the time; earlier in his career he had proposed a law which would have banned slavery in the west, but would not have taken effect for 20 years; hardly an effective measure against slavery; he opposed the Missouri Compromise and was against stopping the spread of slavery. TJ understood slavery was corrosive to the body politic, but that is about it. Prof. Somin's assertion that TJ was an abolitionist makes us "feel better" about the founding of the nation, but does not reflect the reality of a man who owned 400 or so slaves during his lifetime, bought and sold people like, punished them by selling them away from the people they grew up with, and opposed every emancipation program that came before him. Where in this sordid record of his public and private life is there evidence that he opposed slavery. He must be compared to people like Judge St. George Tucker, who proposed and printed and circulated a gradual emancipation program for Va (which TJ would not endorse) or Edward Coles, who took his slaves to Ill, and freed them, or John Randolph and George Washington who free all their slaves in their wills; or John "Councillor" Carter who free ove 500 slaves one Sunday in the 1790s after coming back from Church. -- Paul Finkelman Chapman Distinguished Professor of Law University of Tulsa College of Law 3120 East 4th Place Tulsa, OK 74104-3189 918-631-3706 (office) 918-631-2194 (fax) [EMAIL PROTECTED] Ilya Somin wrote:IF I recall correctly, free blacks were citizens in at least one southern state (North Carolina) in 1787. It is possible that ordinary southern whites weren't aware of this fact, but such an assumption is less plausible in the case of southern political elites and southern delegates to the state ratifying conventions. It is also, I think, implausible to assume that southern white elites were unaware that free blacks were citizens in several northern states. As to why southern whites might have been willing to accept the presence of free black citizens, it is important to realize that such citizens were few in 1787, and the Constitution left the definition of citizenship largely in the hands of the states. Thus, southern whites, if they considered this issue at all, may not have seen much of a threat here. Regarding the DoI, I don't have much to add to the vast literature on the subject. However, Thomas Jefferson and many other framers were lifelong opponents of slavery so it is perfectly plausible that they meant to include blacks in it. Jefferson was one of the main supporters of the Northwest Ordinance and attempted to pass emancipation legislation in Virginia. Obviously, neither Jefferson nor the others expected immediate emancipation as a result of the Declaration, and many were personally hypocritical in so far as they continued to own slaves themselves. However, it is not true that they didn't realize that the wording of the DoI applied to blacks too, at least to the extent of condemning their enslavement. Ilya Somin On Fri, 1 Aug 2003, Paul Finkelman wrote:I agree with Franck that it was reasonable to argue that free blacks were citizens of hte US if you lived in some parts of the north; one assumes the Mass. framers believed this, from their experience. but the va, sc and ga framers would never have understood this is what they were doing. Can you imagine SC ratifiying if it pinckney had come back and said you will have to deal with black us citizens? there wre multiple intentions, as mark graber pointed out. The problem with "originalism" and "intentions" is that we cannot know what it means; we can look at text (is Franck now a strict constructionist/textualist?); but the text says slavery is protected in many ways; intentions go beyond text to the debates (where they can help us, but of course mostly they can't). But on slavery it is quite clear the southern framers *intended* to support slavery and ratified with that intention. See Pinckney's speeches in SC or even Madison's and Randolph's in VA. Thus, on this point, it seems to be, as Mark Graber said earlier, that Taney's orginalism is as plausible as anyone else's; I would argue more so, given the proslavery nature of the constitution. I did not get into teh Dec of I, but the only reference to slavery there is at the end, when the Dec complains about the king freeing slaves to fight against the patriots (He has incited domestic insurrections.) If something in the Dec. of I. was supposed to apply to slaves -- if that ws the *intent* of the DofI, I am sure the 40% of Virginia that was held in slavery would have been happy to know about it. But, neither the primary author (the Master of Monticello) nor very many other southern leaders, seemed to think that it applied. Now, that leaves Prof. Franck two alternatives. Either he can concede that the Dec. of I's authors did not intend it to apply to slavery or he can concend the founders, starting with TJ, of being dishonest, hypocritcal, etc. we agree on the territories clause; but I think Taney's 5th Amendment argument is powerful and goes to the heart of what slaveholders intended when the wrote and ratified that amendment. surely they did not intend it to be an abolitionist amendment; they intended it to protect their property. Lincoln's Cooper Union speech -- as well as his House Divided Speech and his debates with Douglas speeches are fine political rhetoric; I would have voted for him; but it is not great history. It is important for those of us who admire Lincoln, but who are modern scholars, to understand the difference between a great speech that fits and era, and serious historical analaysis. Lincoln was able to persuade the north that his view of history was how it ought to be, but that does not mean he was right about how it was. fortunately, Lincoln was neither an orginalist nor a text bound literalist. (ps, please excuse typoes, i am working with one hand, the other is taped up.) -- Paul Finkelman Chapman Distinguished Professor of Law University of Tulsa College of Law 3120 East 4th Place Tulsa, OK 74104-3189 918-631-3706 (office) 918-631-2194 (fax) [EMAIL PROTECTED]---- Paul Finkelman Chapman Distinguished Professor of Law University of Tulsa College of Law 3120 East 4th Place Tulsa, OK 74104-3189 918-631-3706 (office) 918-631-2194 (fax) [EMAIL PROTECTED]--
-- Paul Finkelman Chapman Distinguished Professor of Law University of Tulsa College of Law 3120 East 4th Place Tulsa, OK 74104-3189 918-631-3706 (office) 918-631-2194 (fax) [EMAIL PROTECTED]
