Emancipation Proclamation: Difference between revisions

The [[Slavery and the United States Constitution|United States Constitution]] of 1787 did not use the word [[Slavery and the United States Constitution|"slavery"]] but included several provisions about unfree persons. The [[Three-Fifths Compromise]] (in Article I, Section 2) allocated congressional representation based "on the whole Number of free Persons" and "three-fifths of all other Persons".<ref>{{cite book|author=Jean Allain|title=The Legal Understanding of Slavery: From the Historical to the Contemporary|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=n_KAvAjkEbsC&pg=PA117|year=2012|publisher=Oxford University Press|page=117|isbn=9780199660469}}</ref> Under the [[Fugitive Slave Clause]] (Article IV, Section 2), "No person held to Service or Labour in one State" would become legally free by escaping to another. [[Port Preference Clause|Article I, Section 9]] allowed Congress to pass legislation to outlaw the "Importation of Persons", but not until 1808.<ref name="Foner—2010——16">{{harvnb|Foner|2010|p=16}}</ref> However, for purposes of the [[Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Fifth Amendment]]—which states that, "No person shall ... be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law"—slaves were understood to be property.<ref>{{cite book|author=Jean Allain|title=The Legal Understanding of Slavery: From the Historical to the Contemporary|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=n_KAvAjkEbsC&pg=PA119|year=2012|publisher=Oxford University Press|pages=119–120|isbn=9780199660469}}</ref> Although abolitionists used the Fifth Amendment to argue against slavery, it was made part of the legal basis for treating slaves as property by ''[[Dred Scott v. Sandford]]'' (1857).<ref>Tsesis, ''The Thirteenth Amendment and American Freedom: A Legal History'' (2004), p. 14. "Nineteenth century apologists for the expansion of slavery developed a political philosophy that placed property at the pinnacle of personal interests and regarded its protection to be the government's chief purpose. The Fifth Amendment's Just Compensation Clause provided the proslavery camp with a bastion for fortifying the peculiar institution against congressional restrictions to its spread westward. Based on this property-rights-centered argument, Chief Justice [[Roger B. Taney]], in his infamous ''[[Dred Scott v. Sandford]]'' (1857) decision, found the Missouri Compromise unconstitutionally violated substantive due process".</ref> Slavery was also supported in law and in practice by a pervasive culture of [[white supremacy]].<ref>Tsesis, ''The Thirteenth Amendment and American Freedom'' (2004), pp. 18–23. "Constitutional protections of slavery coexisted with an entire culture of oppression. The peculiar institution reached many private aspects of human life, for both whites and blacks.... Even free Southern blacks lived in a world so legally constricted by racial domination that it offered only a deceptive shadow of freedom."</ref> Nonetheless, between 1777 and 1804, every Northern state provided for the immediate or gradual abolition of slavery. No Southern state did so, and the slave population of the South continued to grow, peaking at almost four million people at the beginning of the Civil War, when most slave states sought to break away from the United States.<ref name="Foner—2010-14-16">{{harvnb|Foner|2010|pp=14–16}}</ref>

 

 

==Coverage==