Antebellum Realities

Guns Threaten an American City

During the Nullification Crisis of 1832-33, South Carolina was threatened with Federal invasion for refusing to abide by a new, protective tariff which surpassed a traditional tariff which raised funds to operate the federal government – not to protect Northern commercial interests. This was claimed to be “rebellion.”

In December 1860 and after the election of a purely sectional president and party openly hostile to South Carolina’s interests as a State within the federal union, the Governor notified Washington that his State was to resume its original powers of separate independent sovereignty. He rightly pointed out that this act was not “rebellion,” but an act of an independent State as South Carolina had been prior to consenting to the 1789 Constitution, and whose 10th Amendment stipulated that all powers not expressly delegated, were retained by each State.

Nonetheless, Article III, Section 3 of the US Constitution clearly identifies “treason” as waging war against or aiding the enemies of a constituent State.

Governor Francis W. Pickens Letter to President James Buchanan

Columbia, December 17, 1860. [strictly Confidential.] *

My Dear Sir: With a sincere desire to prevent a collision of force, I have thought proper to address you directly and truthfully on points of deep and immediate interest.

I am authentically informed that the forts in Charleston harbor are now being thoroughly prepared to turn, with effect, their guns upon the interior and the city. Jurisdiction was ceded by this State expressly for the purpose of external defense from foreign invasion, and not with any view they should be turned upon the State.

In an ordinary case of mob rebellion, perhaps it might be proper to prepare them for sudden outbreak. But when the people of the State, in sovereign convention assembled, determine to resume their original powers of separate and independent sovereignty, the whole question is changed, and it is no longer an act of rebellion.

I, therefore, most respectfully urge that all work on the forts be put a stop to for the present, and that no more force may be ordered there.

The regular Convention of the people of the State of South Carolina, legally and properly called, under our constitution, is now in session, deliberating upon the gravest and most momentous questions, and the excitement of the great masses of the people is great, under a sense of deep wrongs and a profound necessity of doing something to preserve the peace and safety of the State.

To spare the effusion of blood, which no human power may be able to prevent, I earnestly beg your immediate consideration of all the points I call your attention to. It is not improbable that, under orders from the commandant, or, perhaps, from the commander-in-chief of the army, the alteration and defenses of those posts are progressing without the knowledge of yourself or the Secretary of War.

The arsenal in the city of Charleston, with the public arms, I am informed, was turned over, very properly, to the keeping and defense of the State force at the urgent request of the Governor of South Carolina. I would most respectfully, and from a sincere devotion to the public peace, request that you would allow me to send a small force, not exceeding twenty-five men and an officer, to take possession of Fort Sumter immediately, in order to give a feeling of safety to the community. There are no United States troops in that fort whatever, or perhaps only four or five at present, besides some additional workmen or laborers, lately employed to put the guns in order.

If Fort Sumter could be given to me as Governor, under a permission similar to that by which the Governor was permitted to keep the arsenal, with the United States arms, in the city of Charleston, then I think the public mind would be quieted under a feeling of safety, and as the Convention is now in full authority, it strikes me that it could be done with perfect propriety. I need not go into particulars, for urgent reasons will force themselves readily upon your consideration. If something of the kind be not done, I cannot answer for the consequences.

I send this by a private and confidential gentleman, who is authorized to confer with Mr. Trescott fully, and receive through him any answer you may think proper to give to this.

I have the honor to be, most respectfully,

Yours truly,

(Signed.)

W. Pickens.

To the President of the United States.

* Correspondence No. 1. Governor Pickens to President Buchanan. The Record of Fort Sumter. Columbia, S. C, 1862.

SOURCE: Samuel Wylie Crawford, The Genesis of the Civil War: The Story of Sumter, 1860-1861, p. 81-3

Andrew Jackson Provokes Civil War

Opponents of Andrew Jackson’s warlike threats after South Carolina’s fierce opposition to the protective tariff labeled it the “Force Bill” or the “Bloody Bill,” which authorized using military force to collect the government revenue. He warned that he would march to South Carolina with 200,000 men to quell any and all insurrection and should the Governor of Virginia attempt to prevent the passage of regiments bound for South Carolina, “I would arrest him at the head of his troops.”

Jackson awaited congressional sanction for his war upon a State; Lincoln’s actions were his own and taken while Congress was in recess.

Andrew Jackson Provokes Civil War

Senator John Tyler of Virginia called Charleston a “beleaguered city.” Suppose, he said, this bill were to pass and “the proud spirit of South Carolina” should refuse to submit. Would we then “make war upon her, hang her Governor . . . and reduce her to the condition of a conquered province?” Mr. Tyler saw South Carolina’s towns leveled, her daughters in mourning, her men driven “into the morasses where Francis Marion found refuge.” But he did not see them conquered. Rome had her Curtis, Sparta her Leonidas – and South Carolina had John C. Calhoun. Mr. Calhoun did not repudiate the heroic part. “I proclaim it,” said he, “that should this bill pass . . . it will be resisted at every hazard – even that of death.”

Oblivious to threat and to political entreaty, Andrew Jackson refused to give an inch. He insisted on the passage of the Force Bill. Henry Clay of Kentucky, a practiced dispenser of parliamentary miracles, could not uphold nullification and he would not uphold Jackson. Clay introduced a bill which in ten years would lower tariffs by twenty percent and South Carolina accepted peace from the hands of Mr. Clay rather than those of General Jackson.

But the late crisis had ended more tamely than Jackson had reckoned on. “I thought I would have to hang some of them & I would have done it.”

(The Life of Andrew Jackson. Chapter XXX, Marquis James. Bobbs Merrill Company, 1938, pg. 619-621)

A Posse and Grenades to Overawe South Carolina

On November 24, 1832, “the tariff acts were proclaimed void and not binding upon this State or its citizens,” after February 1, 1833. South Carolina Gov. Robert Y. Hayne declared the use of federal force in an attempt to collect duties after that date would be met by the State’s secession from the 1789 constitution. This would of course make South Carolina an independent country.

In reply to South Carolina’s decision not to comply with the increased and what it believed to be an unconstitutional tariff, Andrew Jackson threatened to fill that State with 100,000 troops raised from the other States, which he referred to as “a posse.” His vice-president later said that Jackson “yearned to lead this force in person.”

A Posse and Grenades to Overawe South Carolina

New York politician and Vice President Martin Van Buren politely disagreed with Jackson’s contention that the mere raising of troops by South Carolina, i.e., State militia, constituted actual treason. Even Jackson’s close political advisor regretted this wording in the President’s proclamation, which he saw as inviting trouble. This advisor saw that the root of the issue was a high protective tariff which went above and beyond a constitutional tariff to support the expenses of the federation’s government. The latter simply advised Jackson that “a gesture toward tariff reduction might pave the way to a happy solution of everything.”

“Mr. Van Buren’s anxieties arose chiefly from the fact that, like many others, he regarded the crisis through the spectacles of partizan politics . . . who feared a break with Southern leaders, notably those of Virginia. He feared the political aftermath of a break with them now, as Jackson had thrown such considerations to the winds, placing himself militantly at the head of union sentiment of the nation, irrespective of person or party.

This man of caution had raised two points which the man of action could not ignore:

The first concerned the definition of treason of actual treason and the constitutional right of the Executive to intervene in a State’s affairs. Legally he could do so only (1.) at the request of the Governor to suppress insurrection, or (2.) on his own initiative, to enforce the laws of Congress [if the State remained as a member of the federation].

Jackson dispatched seven revenue cutters and a ship of war to Charleston harbor, anchoring off the battery with their guns commanding the fashionable waterfront lined with the homes and brick walled gardens of the city’s elite.

“No State or States,” the President wrote Joel Poinsett, leader of the State’s unionists, “has a right to secede . . . Nullification therefore means insurrection and war; and other States have a right to put it down. I will . . . have the leaders arrested and arraigned for treason . . . in forty days I can have within the limits of South Carolina fifty-thousand men, and in forty more days more another fifty thousand.”

Poinsett, a veteran of the Mexican War and eager to suppress his fellow citizens desire for political independence, wrote Jackson on November 16, 1832: “Grenades and small rockets are excellent weapons in a street fight. I would like to have some of them.”

(The Life of Andrew Jackson. Chapter XXX, Marquis James. Bobbs Merrill Company, 1938, pg. 609; 615)

A Toast to Our Federal Union

Some twenty-nine years before Abraham Lincoln threatened a State with invasion, the militaristic President Andrew Jackson flatly denied that a State within the federation could challenge laws it considered unconstitutional. Jackson believed all States to be permanently under the 1789 constitution with no right to withdraw, which surprised Rhode Island, New York and Virginia as all three had explicitly reserved this in their ratifications. All other States considered the 10^th Amendment as a clear warning to the federal agent.

Though Jackson was not the first military man elected president, his experience as a field commander with little if any civilian supervision gave him wide latitude in his decisions. His April 1818 capture and hanging of two British envoys in Florida brought him severe condemnation from Congress, which chose not to censure the popular general.

A Toast to Our Federal Union

“Toastmaster Roane introduced the President of the United States. Old Hickory stood, waiting for the cheers to subside. The President fixed his glance upon Vice President John C. Calhoun, toasting to, “Our Union: it must be Preserved.” He raised his glass, a signal that the toast was to be drunk standing.

Hayne rushed up to Jackson. Would the President consent to the insertion of one word in his toast before the text was given to the newspapers? What was the word? Asked Jackson. It was “Federal,” making the toast read, “our Federal Union.” Jackson agreed and, like many another historic epigram, the toast went forth amended to the world.

The Vice President arose slowly. “May we all remember that [the Union] can only be preserved by respecting the rights of the States and by distributing equally the benefits and burdens of the Union.”

(The Life of Andrew Jackson. Chapter XXX, Marquis James. Bobbs Merrill Company, 1938, pg. 539-540)

Father of the Revolution – Samuel Adams

As described below, New England political agitation brought about the avoidable secession from England and war; the same occurred some 80 years later “as Massachusetts agitators and men of letters had done their best to see that there should be thousands, and tens of thousands” joining them in denouncing their union with the South. The uncompromising Puritan moral crusade against the very African slavery which ironically enriched their own section, would now be put to work to destroy the 1789 union. The agitation pushed the hand of Lincoln in April 1861 to confront now-independent South Carolina over the question of tariff revenue – which predictably resulted in gunfire and war. Those defending their State were denounced in the north as “rebels” intent upon destroying the union.

Father of the Revolution – Samuel Adams

“It is a great mistake to think of public opinion as united in the colonies and as gradually rising against British tyranny. Public opinion was never wholly united and seldom rises to a pitch of passion without being influenced – in other words, without the use of propaganda. The Great War [of 1914-1918] taught that to those who did not know it already.

From the first, [John] Adams and those working with him had realized the necessity of democratic slogans in the creation of a state of mind. [He] at once struck out boldly to inflame the passions of the crowd by threatening that it was to be reduced to the “miserable state of tributary slaves,” contrasting its freedom and moral virtue with the tyranny and moral degradation of England. He proclaimed that the mother country was bent on bringing her colonies to a condition of “slavery, poverty and misery,” and on causing their utter ruin, and dinned into the ears of the people the words “slavery and tyranny” until they assumed a reality from mere reiteration.

His political philosophy was eagerly lapped up by a populace smarting under hard times and resentful of colonial even more than imperial conditions of the moment. The establishment of government by free consent of all had become imbedded in the mind of the average man, as an essential part of the American dream. Adams himself had seen the vision but had glimpsed it with the narrowness and bitterness with which the more bigoted Puritans had seen the vision of an unloving and revengeful Hebrew Jehovah.

Such talk as this could only make England fearful of how far the people might try to put such precepts into practice. The upper classes of the colonies also began to be uneasy. Up to 1770, when their own grievances were redressed, they might allow such ideas to be disseminated, considering themselves in control of the situation, but after that it became clear that they were losing control . . . [as] Sam Adams and the lesser radicals worked harder than ever to keep public opinion inflamed.

With the upper classes [becoming] lukewarm or hostile to his continued propaganda [despite] the obnoxious legislation repealed or modified, [Sam Adams] had to trust to generalizations and emotional appeal.

A good example of his use of the latter was the affair called the “Boston Massacre.” As part of the general imperial policy following the [French and Indian] war, the British government had stationed some regiments in Boston. They were under good officers and good discipline, and there was no more reason why they should have made trouble there, than in any provincial garrison town of England. Sam Adams, however, was continually stirring up the public mind against them; John Adams reported finding Sam one Sunday night ‘preparing for the next day’s newspaper – a curious employment, cooking up paragraphs, articles and [incidents], working the political engine.’

Finally, one March evening, as a result of more than usual provocation given by taunting boys to soldiers on duty, an unfortunate clash occurred. There was confusion, a rioter’s shout to fire” was mistaken for an officer’s command, and several citizens were killed. The officer surrendered to civilian authorities, was tried, defended by John Adams and Josiah Quincy, Jr., and acquitted.

But Samuel Adams at once saw the value of the incident. Every emotion of the mob was played upon. The affair was termed a “massacre,” and in the annual speeches given for a number of years to commemorate its anniversary the boys and men who had taken part in the mobbing were described as martyrs to liberty and the soldiers as “bloody butchers.”

(The Epic of America. James Truslow Adams. Little, Brown and Company. 1932, pp. 83-84).

War Was Not the Only Path

War between North and South was not a foregone conclusion in early 1861 as President James Buchanan encouraged and awaited peaceful legislative settlements of the existing sectional issues. Buchanan, a seasoned diplomat and negotiator with previous service as US Minister to England under President Pierce, Secretary of State under President Polk, and Minister to Russia for President Jackson. In contrast, Lincoln served in the Illinois House 1835-1842 and served a mere 2 years as US Representative from Illinois.

War Was Not the Only Path

In the eighty-three years since the election of Lincoln, there has been a compression of events which places the firing upon Fort Sumter, April 12, 1861, hard upon the heels of the Republican victory on November 6, 1860. The magnitude of the Civil War itself has tended to telescope the important 150 days of possible compromise which intervened. Yet there is good reason to believe that President James Buchanan, as well as many other leaders, expected to avoid open conflict. The mood of the country had sobered at the realization that a sectional party had elected a president. Public opinion, in general, was entirely remote from the thought of war.

In the Ohio Valley, for example, the hour of decision was still half a year away. South of the Ohio the tier of border states which had voted for John Bell was ready to work desperately for compromise and Union. It is, of course, now well known that no complete consolidation of opinion ever occurred either in the North or the South.

The mass of opinion in the country found expression, therefore, on December 3, 1860, when Buchanan clearly enunciated his position as chief executive and, in constitutional terms, called upon the legislative branch of government to assume its responsibility for effecting a peaceful solution of the crisis. Forty years of public service, in both houses of Congress, in the cabinet and the courts of Europe, suggested arbitration to Buchanan. Schooled in constitutional debate, the technique of conciliation, and the adjustment of minority rights, as had occurred notably in 1820, 1832, and 1850, this Scotch-Irish Presbyterian president had carefully examined his own soul and the Constitution of the United States, and found that Congress, and Congress alone, had the power to arbitrate or to act. War, he believed, “ought to be the last desperate remedy of a despairing people, after every other constitutional means of conciliation had been exhausted.”

A month later, when South Carolina had, on December 20, voted to secede, and Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas were on the point of secession, Buchanan remained firm in his conviction that “justice as well as sound policy requires us still to seek a peaceful solution.” The prevailing sentiment of the country for adjustment, which found expression in such bodies as the Virginia-led Washington Peace Convention of February 1861, and the Crittenden Compromise, was strong and unchanged, though less articulate than the extremists on both sides. If the tall shadow of the president-elect lay across every discussion, then it will be remembered that Lincoln remained, during this period, a shadow indeed, without voice of assurance or warning.

Buchanan’s conciliatory stand has, until recently, been buried under the avalanche of post-war attitudes which show him only as the inept and weak man who stepped down for Lincoln’s administration. Not until the early decades of this century has a critical use of prejudiced sources and a body of new evidence indicated a revision. Was the Civil War necessary to save the Union, historians have now begun to ask. An able scholar of the new school, James G. Randall, comments succinctly:

“If . . . preservation of the Union by peaceable adjustment was possible, then unionists were not faced with a choice of war or disunion, but rather a choice between a Union policy of war and a Union policy in the Virginia sense of adjustment and concession.”

Especially suggestive to students of the period is Randall’s recent statement that “the wars that have not happened” should be studied. Judged in the light of “historical relativity” rather than in the concept of the “irrepressible conflict,” Buchanan’s policy, particularly as outlined in his December 3rd address to the nation, is subject to fresh interpretation. For its revelation of the gradually evolving picture of James Buchanan, as it has been influenced by changing methods of historical scholarship, and as a chronological picture of a state of public opinion which only gradually has permitted objectivity, a roll call of representative historians is of value.

The Southerner who foresaw that “to the South’s overflowing cup would be added the bitter taste of having the history of the war written by Northerners,” for at least fifty years, was not far wrong. A literary historical method which “saw history as primarily the achievements of great men, engaged in the grand manner, in sublime episodes, of political and military strife,” and made to order for the New England, or nationalist, school of historical writers who, until well past the turn of the century, dominated the field. American historical scholarship was, for that matter, still in its infancy. By 1880 there were still only eleven professors of history in the United States. The German seminar and the scientific methods of objective appraisal, which began to be felt in this country during the 1870’s, only gradually influenced these “prosecuting historians.”

Centering their attack on Buchanan’s December 3rd address, and the four eventful months of a “lame-duck” period, they have often contented themselves with easy, if theoretical, post-judgments. The shades of Jackson and Clay have been called to witness that forceful action would have saved the day. At the same time, accepting Seward’s thesis of the “irrepressible conflict,” Buchanan’s critics have clouded the hopes for peaceful settlement and the continuous efforts and proposals toward this end. The fact that these hopes were shared by such contemporary leaders as John Tyler, John Bell, John Floyd, John C. Breckinridge, Stephen A. Douglas, William H. Seward, Thurlow Weed, and many others, as well as by the average citizen, has not always been indicated.

On the basis of a careful study of manuscript and periodical sources which reflect the mood of the times, historian David M. Potter concludes that Lincoln and his party were unaware of the real threat of secession. His discussion of “Lincoln’s Perilous Silence” (pp. 134-55) is based on the fact that from the Cooper Institute speech in February 1860, to the date of his First Inaugural in March 1861, Lincoln made no definitive speeches.”

(James Buchanan and the Crisis of the Union. Frank W. Klingberg. Journal of Southern History, Vol. 9, No. 4, Nov. 1943, pp. 455-474).

An Important Sectional Irritant

One of American history’s greatest ironies is that the Southern colonies, and later States were populated with Africans who were transported in the holds of English and New England ships, both growing prosperous and wealthy through this iniquitous maritime trade. The result was a million American dead by mid-1865.

An Important Sectional Irritant

Antebellum anti-slavery Republicans, in criticizing Southern anti-abolitionist literature policies, linked the laws making the education of Negroes a crime with other violations of freedom of speech. Charles Sumner of Massachusetts, the egalitarian radical, early in his career attacked the Southern States for rifling the mails to destroy anti-slavery publications emanating from the North. A Republican colleague of Sumner criticized the restrictions “as being uncivilized.” In 1860, Sen. Jefferson Davis of Mississippi responded in the United States Congress:

“When men employ their time in writing tracts, in publishing newspapers, to indoctrinate crime into the Negroes – to teach them to commit arson, theft and murder – then there is reason growing out of the crimes of our neighbors which it imposes it upon us, as a duty of self-protection, to prevent the Negroes from reading, as the means of shutting out your unholy work . . . that, I imagine, is the foundation of all the objection which has existed to their being taught to read.” (Congressional Globe, 1687, 1860).

“In Georgia the circulation of any newspaper, pamphlet, or circular inciting insurrection, revolt, conspiracy or resistance by slaves, free Negroes or colored persons, was made punishable by death. Louisiana punished any writings designed to produce discontent or insubordination among Negroes, slave or free, with death or life imprisonment.

Not only did Virginia punish the making of abolitionist speeches or writings, but the State required every postmaster to notify a local justice of any mail with abolitionist literature and then burn this mail. And, if the addressee of the abolitionist material had subscribed to it, knowing its character, he was guilty of a crime.

These laws were constantly the subject of discussion in Congress and constituted an important sectional irritant. Northern members of Congress attacked them as violating freedom of speech, while the South defended them as essential to forestall slave revolts and bloody massacre of white Southerners. The specter of the early 1790’s massacre of Haiti’s white population was an ever-present fear in the American South.”

(School Segregation and History Revisited. Alfred Avins, PhD, Cambridge University. The Catholic Lawyer, Vol. 15, No. 4, Autumn 1969, pp. 311-312)

The Fate of Hereditary Monarchs

When Thomas Jefferson wrote the following the right of kings to rule the world was regarded by nearly the entire human race as a divine right from the Creator of the universe. His populist views were looked upon in Europe with much dread and hostility, though it became clear to Jefferson in later life that political factions and the democratic urge would upend his experiment in government.

The Fate of Hereditary Monarchs

“While I was in Europe, I often amused myself with contemplating the character of the then-reigning sovereigns of Europe. Louis XVI was a fool of my own knowledge, and despite of the answers made for him at his trial. The king of Spain was also a fool, as was the king of Naples. They passed their lives in hunting and dispatched two couriers a week some one thousand miles to inform one another what game they killed in the preceding days. All were Bourbons.

The queen of Portugal, a Braganza, was an idiot by nature, and so was the king of Denmark. I hear their sons, as regents, really exercised the powers of government. The king of Prussia, successor to Frederick the Great, was a mere hog in body as well as in mind. Gustavus of Sweden and Joseph of Austria were really crazy, and George of England, as you know, was in a straight waistcoat. There remained, then, none but old Catherine of Russia, who we have learned of late to have lost her common sense.

In this state Bonaparte found Europe, and it was in this state its rulers lost all with barely a struggle. These rulers had become without minds and therefore powerless, and so will every hereditary monarch be after a few generations.”

(Forty Years of Oratory, Daniel W. Voorhees Lectures, Addresses and Speeches. Vol. 1. Harriet C. Voorhees. Bowen-Merrill Company, 1898, pg. 70)

From Connecticut to Dred Scott

Well before the Dred Scott case of 1857 was the question brought before Connecticut Judge David Daggett, chief justice of the court of errors, in October 1833 raising the validity of a State law which “forbid any school, academy, or literary institution for the instruction of colored persons who are not inhabitants of this State.” The law was in place as the State’s colored schools tended to “greatly increase the colored population of the State and thereby to the injury of the people.” The defendant, a free Negro, insisted that the law was unconstitutional as it was in violation of the United States Constitution regarding the equal rights of citizens of all States.”

Regarding “citizens,” only the 1789 Constitution’s Article 4, sec. 2 states: “The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States.” The Dred Scott case of 1857 rested upon this, and the question before the Court was simply whether Scott was a citizen of a State, as argued below.

To underscore the validity of the Constitution’s Article 4, sec. 2, the victorious Republican party was forced to follow the amendment route as it sought manipulation of the South’s black vote.

From Connecticut to Dred Scott

“Are slaves citizens? At the adoption of the Constitution of the United States [in 1789], 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.”

In the case of Hobbs vs Fogg the State of Pennsylvania furnished another strong precedent for the decision of the [Dred] Scott case. At the election of 1835 a negro offered to vote. Solely on account of his color, the judges of election refused the privilege. The Negro insisted that “as a freeman and citizen of the State” the provisions contained in the State constitution and laws entitled him to the right of suffrage. The judges justified themselves on the ground “that a free Negro or mulatto is not a citizen within the meaning of the Constitution and law of the United States, and of the State of Pennsylvania, and, therefore, is not entitled to the right of suffrage . . .” The chief justice delivered the opinion, to which there was unanimous assent [to declare] “that no colored race was party to our social compact. Our ancestors settled the province as a community of white men; that the blacks were introduced into it as a race of slaves; whence an unconquerable prejudice of caste, which has come down to our day . . .” This is followed by “Yet it is proper to say that [Article 2, section 4] of the Federal Constitution, presents an obstacle to the political freedom of the Negro, which seems to be insuperable.”

Now then, in addition to the presumption that [those] of pure African blood whose ancestors had been American slaves, was presumed to have been born and to have continued a slave, these laws show that all the States had given to the Federal Constitution, from the days of its ratification down to the Dred Scott decision, a practical interpretation agreeing unanimously that a Negro, though free and a native of a State, was not a person as the word ‘citizen’ defines as that word was used by the framers of the Constitution.”

(The Legal and Historical Status of the Dred Scott Decision. Elbert William R. Ewing. Cobden Publishing Company, 1909, pp. 67-69)

Puritan Slaveholders

The author below writes that “Most Puritans sought a homogenous society that made any kind of stranger generally unwelcome,” and “their efforts to expunge untrustworthy members with white skin were legendary.” Those with white complexions from different cultures posed a “complicated dilemma” for Puritans, but the vast gulf between their own and Indian and African cultures made the latter unwelcome except as slaves.

Puritan Slaveholders

“Slavery began in New England during the first years of settlement in Massachusetts, and thus, the Puritans learned how to be slaveowners immediately on arrival. As white New Englanders established their new settlements, they enslaved Indian populations both to control them and draw upon them for labor. Although John Winthrop did not immediately see Indians as slaves, it dawned upon him that they could be used as such.

Winthrop recorded requests for Indian slaves both locally and in Bermuda. Wars with the Narragansett and Pequot tribes garnered large numbers of slaves, and the trading of Indian slaves abroad brought African slaves to Massachusetts shores. In 1645, Emmanuel Downing, Winthrop’s brother-in-law and a barrister, welcomed a trade of Pequot slaves for African slaves.

However, the enslavement of Indians had a different tenor than the enslavement of Africans. The indigenous slaves represented an enemy, a conquered people, and a great threat to Puritan society. African slaves represented a trade transaction, laborers without strings attached. Moreover, Indians slaves were part of peace negotiations and control of the region. They served as collateral with which to negotiate with local Indian leaders. Further, Puritan colonists could expel troublesome Indians out of the colony or simply control them as slave property.”

(Tyrannicide. Forging an American Law of Slavery in Revolutionary Massachusetts and South Carolina. Emily Blanck. UGA Press, 2014. p. 12-13)