The Unconstitutionality of Slavery
The Unconstitutionality of Slavery (1845) was a book by American abolitionist Lysander Spooner advocating the view that the United States Constitution prohibited slavery. This view was advocated in contrast to that of William Lloyd Garrison who advocated opposing the constitution on the grounds that it supported slavery. In the pamphlet, Spooner shows that none of the state governments of the slave states specifically authorized slavery, that the U.S. Constitution contains several clauses that are contradictory with slavery, that slavery was a violation of natural law, and that the intentions of the Constitutional Convention have no legal bearing on the document they created. Thus, Spooner's position is one that employs original meaning-styled textualism and rejects original intent-styled originalism.
History
This work is considered to be a work of sophistry or political strategy which aimed to win support from inconsistently-anti-slavery or "fence-sitting" Northerners whose sympathies were squarely on the side of the Constitution, but who opposed slavery on a mixed and inconsistent basis (Spooner believed that the Constitution was "of no Authority," as his later essay "No Treason Volume VI: The Constitution of No Authority" revealed). As a strategic approach, it was adopted by Frederick Douglass, who delivered its core message to thousands of Northerners in his speeches and writings. This greatly legitimized the abolitionist message, making it far more effective than it had been under Garrison's more "anarchic" message. Spooner took this course because the abolition of slavery was vastly more morally important to him than the consistent defense of "anti-Constitutionalism." In summary, Spooner saw that, without gaining adherents, slavery could not be abolished, and he saw that adherents could not be gained without (regardless of accuracy) implying that the Constitution was legitimate and that people should care about what it says. Though this may appear dishonest, it is a consequentialist position that simply acknowledged an important reality: the existing human social and political networks of the time were not morally intelligent enough to choose abolition on their own. They needed to be successfully tricked into doing so from a position of knowledge greater than their own, so Spooner tricked them.
Accurately and appropriately citing the U.S. Constitution is not a trick. On the contrary, abolishing slavery and defending the unalienable rights of every person, while upholding the U.S. Constitution is employing the truth in the service of justice and human rights. The first sentence of Article I Section 9 enables Congress to prohibit (after 1808) "The Migration or Importation" of certain "Persons". The third sentence of Article IV Section 2 declares, "No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due." In each of these two sentences the word "Person" was chosen to refer to enslaved persons. So, from day one, in 1787, and without contradiction anywhere else in the entire text including amendments, the U.S. Constitution referred to enslaved individuals as "Persons". That has extremely important legal implications, because "Persons" have Constitutional rights! In addition, the first two sentences of the third paragraph of Article I Section 2 explicitly delegates to the U.S. Congress its very first Constitutional responsibility and authority, which is, every ten years, to identify "all Persons" and to enumerate them "in such Manner as they shall by Law direct", according to a Constitutional formula, for the purpose of apportioning "Representatives", who are to be "chosen... by the People of the several States." Thus, what is, and what is not a "person" in the meaning of the U.S. Constitution depends on two things: (a) How does the Constitution itself use the word "person"? and (b) How has the U.S. Congress defined a "person" in exercising its exclusive authority outlined in paragraph 3 of Article I Section 2? And every ten years, beginning in 1790 and until the enactment of the 14th Amendment in 1868, enslaved people were invariably and precisely enumerated in the Constitutionally defined category of "all other Persons". There can be no question in this matter. The text of the Constitution itself, and also the Congress itself, in complying with its very first Constitutionally defined duty and authority, carefully and invariably identified and counted all enslaved people as "Persons". Enslaved people have always been "Persons" in the meaning of the U.S. Constitution, and (unless the Declaration of Independence, the American Revolution, and the democratic republic formed by the Constitution has been nothing but a meaningless mockery and a hoax) "Persons" have Constitutional rights. "Persons" do not necessarily have all of the rights that a "citizen" has - but "persons" undoubtedly have very many Constitutional rights. The awful but undeniable fact that the Constitutional rights of many people (including many of whom had been enslaved all their lives) were massively, notoriously, outrageously, and completely violated and denied for many, many generations, does not change the simple truth that the Constitution clearly asserted that such persons, and all of their descendants - in fact, all "persons" - did and do have Constitutional rights. We the people have been "tricked" by the official denial and abrogation and failure to uphold the Constitutional rights of a "person". For just one example, consider the supreme Court ruling in 1857 against the previously enslaved and freedom and human-rights seeking Dred Scott. Chief Justice Roger Taney outrageously ruled that anyone of African descent, could never become a citizen of the United States, and could never be considered to have any rights whatsoever which any white person was bound to respect. In writing that official Opinion of the supreme Court, Roger Taney clearly violated his oath of office to uphold and defend the U.S. Constitution. The 14th amendment was ratified in 1868. It was and is perhaps the most beautiful and important Amendment to our Constitution. It strengthens and Constitutionally protects the inherent rights of you, me, and every single one of us. Essentially, the two sentences comprising Section 1 of the 14th Amendment can be characterized as establishing that basic human rights trump states rights. Then the first sentence of Section 2 of the 14th Amendment changes the Constitutional formula for enumerating "persons" for the purposes of the Congressional authority defined in paragraph 3 of Article I Section 2. The category named "all other Persons" is removed from the formula. And in all subsequent enumerations, "persons" who had previously been enslaved, as well as all their descendants, continued to be identified and enumerated as "persons", but now according to the 14th Amendment enumeration formula.
While slavery may not have been unconstitutional until the 13th Amendment was ratified, it is certain that the particularly abhorrent manifestation of slavery in the colonies and then in the United States, known as chattel slavery including the presumption that any descendants of enslaved persons were themselves automatically enslaved persons for life and a mere item of property, and the policies and practices including supreme Court rulings, that denied any standing under the law or any Constitutional rights whatsoever to enslaved persons, was a clear and direct violation and denial of the U.S. Constitution. Also, while it is highly appropriate and very important for any governmental founding document to explicitly abolish slavery, the U.S. Constitution itself enabled, and certainly did not prevent the elected legislative representatives of the people from abolishing slavery without need for a Constitutional Amendment in order to do so. It is neither sophistry, trickery, or mere political strategy to carefully and accurately read, understand, and apply the actual text of the U.S. Constitution to the long-standing and continuing problem and consequences of slavery in the USA. A slave in the USA has always been a "person" in the meaning of the U.S. Constitution, and a "person" in the USA has always had unalienable, inherent, Constitutionally protected rights. The systematic, systemic violation of those rights does not mean that those rights did not or do not exist.