Justice is the end of government. It is the end of civil society. It ever has been, and ever will be, pursued, until it be obtained, or until liberty be lost in the pursuit.

James Madison, Federalist 51

Slavery has been a near universal part of human existence. It existed in the Biblical and classical worlds. In the ninth century, when Vikings expanded into portions of what is now eastern Europe, they sold so many of the indigenous people into slavery in the Middle East that the English word “slave” derives from the name of these people—“Slav.” During this time and before, the Chinese held other Asians as slaves, and apparently also some Europeans, so globalized was the slave trade, even in the middle ages. The Mongols enslaved as they conquered, using Italian merchants to facilitate their slave trade. Muslim slave raiders captured and enslaved Europeans and others. More than a million Europeans were held as slaves in Muslim countries between 1500 and 1800, where such slavery continued into the nineteenth century. According to historian Alan Gallay, “in 1650 more English were enslaved in Africa [including North Africa] than Africans enslaved in English colonies.” Some early opponents of slavery in America argued against it in part by appealing to the European fear of enslavement by Muslims. Europeans also held many Muslims as slaves. African slaves appeared in Europe in the 15^th century and after, even as by 1500 countries in northwestern Europe were declaring that no European should be a slave. Slavery existed in North America before either Europeans or Africans arrived. Native Americans held slaves, often those captured in war, sometimes absorbing them into their tribes, sometimes torturing and killing them ritually. Later, after contact with European settlers, some tribes became slave raiders and dealers, supplying the native American slaves that settlers used in the colonies or sold to plantations in the Caribbean. Into the nineteenth century, native Americans held African Americans as slaves, as did some free African Americans. Slavery was a dominant form of labor and wealth in Africa before the transatlantic slave trade began. Much of the mortality of the trade occurred in Africa, as slaves were marched by Africans to ports to be sold to Europeans, or east to be sold into the Arabian Peninsula and Asia.

Slavery was everywhere in human experience, but everywhere it was different. Slavery was always in some way a deprivation of freedom. Yet, the slave-soldiers of Islamic empires were entirely different from the chattel slaves in America. The former had privileges and standing; the latter were property. The trans-Atlantic trade was different as well from the trade in Africa, across the Mediterranean, or within the Islamic world and into Asia. “The trans-Atlantic slave trade was the largest long-distance coerced movement of people in history” (slavevoyages.org), driven by the market forces of a rapidly developing Euro-Atlantic economy. This market and, we must remember, the willing participation of European and African slavers, “created, in the Americas, the most dynamic, productive, and exploitative system of coerced labor in human history.” An estimated ten to twelve million Africans were transported across the Atlantic (compared to six million who went east to the Arabian Peninsula and Asia). The trans-Atlantic trade was distinguished not just by its size: Five to 20 per cent of those involved (slaves and crew) died (mortality declined as the speed of the journey and the experience of the slavers increased). For the slaves, beyond physical suffering, the experience must have been disorienting and soul harrowing. Beyond that, and fatefully for the United States, it was the traffic across the Atlantic that for the first time made slavery largely synonymous with the color of someone’s skin (see the “Virginia Slave Code” and Jefferson’s Notes).

About five percent of those transported across the Atlantic—roughly 500,000 to 600,000—arrived in British North America and the United States. These slaves became part of a slave society unique in the Americas: only in the United States did the slave population grow primarily by natural increase rather than importation. (Congress outlawed the trade in 1808, as soon as it could according to the Constitution; a small illegal trade continued.) By 1865, nearly 99 percent of American slaves had been born in the United States. In America, slavery had a different character depending on time and place. It was different in rural and urban areas; on plantations or small holdings; in settled areas or on the frontier; south and north (in the latter it was on the path of extinction by the late eighteenth century); upper south or lower south; among the skilled or unskilled; in household or field; early (the seventeenth century) or late (the nineteenth century). On a rural rice plantation in South Carolina, a slave might live desperately and die young. Not too far away in Charleston, where in 1840 about 50% of the population were African American slaves, a skilled slave carpenter might have time to work on his own and for himself, save money, and buy his and his family’s freedom. Cases like the latter may have been infrequent, but historians now grant slaves greater agency over their lives than they once did. They resisted as they could, and even negotiated with those who held them, when circumstances allowed. With these variations, slavery was still always a deprivation of freedom, maintained only by force. This was evident in the American domestic slave trade, which carried hundreds of thousands of unneeded slaves from the northern states and the upper south to the lower south and to the west (Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas), ripping apart families and imposing other miseries. The differences in American slavery endured as long as this slavery did, but after the early years of the nineteenth century, they were increasingly dominated by the growing size and influence of the south’s cotton plantation economy, which eventually touched all aspects of America’s economic and political life.

The effect of slavery on America’s political life is evident in the Three-Fifths Clause, the Slave Trade Clause and the Fugitive Slave Clause, which present the discussions in the Constitutional Convention that led to the compromises with slavery found in the Constitution. These compromises denied slavery national legal recognition, leaving its existence only to state law (see Dred Scott v. Sandford). Yet, the compromises, like those in 1820 and 1850, only managed and did not solve the problem of slavery. The original constitutional compromises were founded on the agreement that slavery was an evil to be tolerated because it already existed, but not to be encouraged, and that it would pass away in time. In time, however, slave grown cotton produced more and more wealth and the opinion spread in the south that slavery was a positive good. As it did, the slavery problem became acute because some in the north proved willing to accept this new opinion, while others continued to see slavery as an evil that threatened American liberty.

The Civil War put an end to slavery but opened the continuing attempt of Americans to deal with its consequences. Despite the failure of Reconstruction, African Americans narrowed the income and years of schooling gap with white Americans through the first years of the twentieth century. This process continued even during the years of legal segregation, or Jim Crow (1890–1965), as did the resistance of African Americans to the injustices they still suffered. After the demise of Jim Crow, African Americans made greater gains in income, further narrowing the gap with whites, a process that has more recently leveled off. With regard to some other social and economic indicators, African Americans have not fared as well. Why the inequalities persist is a subject of continuing debate. While racial prejudice is a factor, so are economic structure and employment opportunities affecting both whites and blacks. More fundamentally, the debate involves what equality and freedom mean, and their standing as guiding principles for Americans. From the beginning through the civil rights struggle of the 1950s and 1960s, the demand was for equality before the law and the freedom to pursue opportunities other Americans enjoyed. But as that equality of opportunity was attained, at least in law, some asked if it was enough, and answered that it was not. Reflecting on their situation, some African Americans rejected integration and harkened back to older views of racial difference, but with a new twist. The quest for freedom, now understood as liberation, took in differences of gender and class, as well as race. The key to liberation became claiming personal identity as the highest source of authority, while claiming personal authority over identity. Although one may wonder at the paradox of asserting individual autonomy only in group (gender, race, class) terms, these later reflections on slavery and its consequences largely shape our contemporary debate. What is now called “political correctness,” for example, originated in the argument that words have the power to oppress and hence need to be controlled by those claiming to be oppressed, whose self-defined identity and oppression is authoritative, indeed, sovereign.

The contemporary debate over identity, race and justice, so pregnant with consequences for Americans, is itself a consequence of slavery. It is worth recalling, therefore, that the remarkable thing about slavery is not that this evil existed, but that it came to an end. It had existed for thousands of years, woven into religious understanding and practice and the structure of countless societies, deemed necessary for the existence of all high culture and essential to the power and status of those who held slaves. And it was profitable in America. Yet, it came to an end. Central to slavery’s abolition was the American Revolution, and the Declaration of Independence that justified and gave meaning to it. The Revolution and Declaration led to manumissions and petitions to end slavery, started emancipation in the northern states, and boosted the abolition movement in Great Britain. This original impulse faded in America: paradoxically, there were more slaves in the country after the struggle for liberty than before it began; more slaves were imported to the United States in the twenty years allowed by the Constitution than during any other two decades. But in its founding, “the United States was the first country to take significant (although ultimately limited) action against” slavery; and the impulse, though weakened, did not disappear. It was amplified by black and white voices, gathered strength, and led finally, even at the terrible cost of a brutal civil war, to emancipation. Behind this great struggle for justice lay the powerful principles of the Declaration of Independence.

Slavery and its consequences have tested and continue to test the American people and their capacity for self-government. Will they survive the test? At an earlier point in this ongoing examination, in 1842, Abraham Lincoln saw its terms, and explained them in a speech he delivered on Washington’s birthday. The slave power threatened self-government because of its tyrannical denial of human equality. That was clear. Yet, some who opposed the great evil of slavery did so in such a way that their opposition also posed a threat to self-government. Some abolitionists opposed slavery with a self-righteousness that condemned the sinners as well as the sin. This posed a less obvious but still deadly a danger to self-government, Lincoln argued. So strong was this condemnation, so sure of their righteousness and wisdom were the condemners, so intent on justice were they, that they came to view the sinners as belonging to a lower order of beings, marked by an original sin the condemners thought they did not share. In effect, the condemners cancelled the humanity of the sinners, and thus their equality and rights. Such opposition to the tyranny of slavery was, therefore, tyrannical, as slaveholding was, and fatal to self-government, as slavery was.

Years later, as Lincoln took the oath of office for a second time, he provided an answer to the problem he had diagnosed two decades earlier. We must strive to do justice, as we understand justice, he said, but only with “malice toward none; with charity for all.” The principles of the Declaration defined what justice required, but if the pursuit of justice was not to consume itself and self-government as well, it had to be carried out with a moral spirit that respected a common humanity, the essence of the justice Americans sought. Lincoln offered his advice to all Americans, to southerners and northerners, to former slave holders and former abolitionists, and also, of course, to former slaves. On balance, one has to say that, with only rare exceptions, Americans have disregarded Lincoln’s advice. Yet it is hard to see how the advice could be improved.

As the foregoing suggests, the centrality of the Declaration of Independence in the discussion of slavery and racial justice—its rightful place—is one of the themes of this collection. Another theme, as noted, is the long struggle of African Americans first for freedom and then for full citizenship, and the various ways they have proposed to deal with the aftermath of slavery. Still another theme is the all-encompassing harm of slavery and racial prejudice. No one can deny that African Americans have borne—beyond full measure and more—all the harm of these evils. Yet, it has been clear from the beginning that harm was done to whites as well, particularly poor whites. They accepted economic harm and allowed their political power to be purchased in return for the false promise of white supremacy. Slavery and racism also diminished the credit and threatened the survival of self-government. As Alexander Crummell wrote, “if the black man cannot be free in this land, if he cannot tread with firmness every pathway to preferment and superiority, neither can the white man.” Because the United States remains the world’s last best hope of self-government, our struggle over slavery and its consequences implicates the well-being of all mankind.

A note on terms and texts:

Some of the texts included here used terms either out of fashion now or offensive. We have not altered them. Editorial comments use the terms “African Americans” and “blacks,” as seems appropriate. Square brackets [ ] in the documents indicate text inserted by the editors. We have modernized most spelling, capitalization, and punctuation.

Many of the texts in this collection have appeared in other collections, including Documents and Debates, vol. 2, 1865–2009, edited by David Tucker. In the case of those that have appeared before, the introductions have been revised and often entirely re-written to reflect the themes of this collection. Many of the texts have been excerpted differently and given additional or alternative annotation. Again, the purpose of these changes was to suit the texts to this collection’s purpose. The editor thanks those whose work he has built on:

• Rob McDonald, The American Revolution
• Gordon Lloyd, The American Founding; The Constitutional Convention
• Jason Stevens, Causes of the Civil War
• Sarah Morgan Smith, Documents and Debates, vol. 1; Religion in American History and Politics: Women’s Voices; Gender and Equality
• Scott Yenor, Reconstruction
• Jason Jividen, Populists and Progressives
• Jennifer Keene, World War II
• John Moser, Depression and New Deal
• David Krugler, The Cold War

Acknowledgements:

David Krugler suggested documents and commented on the volume and document introductions, as did Sarah Morgan Smith. Ellen Tucker provided guidance and suggested documents. She excerpted one of her suggestions, Along this Way. Ellen also advised on the cover image and images for the insert, as well as writing the captions for the latter. Ellen, Nathan, and Sarah Tucker also provided reminders of things that might otherwise have been forgotten. I am grateful for this assistance and took what advantage of it I could. I remain responsible for the contents of the volume.

For each of the documents in this collection, we suggest questions relevant for that document alone (questions A) and questions that require comparison between documents (questions B).

1. Protest of The Germantown Mennonites Against Slavery, February 18, 1688
A. What arguments does the Protest make against slavery? Which arguments are Biblical or religious? How would you describe the other arguments and the points they make?
B. How do the arguments of the Protest compare to other writings against slavery, for example those in the following documents:

• Lecture Delivered at Franklin Hall
• “On the Constitution and the Union”
• “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”
• Speech on the Repeal of the Missouri Compromise

2. An act concerning Servants and Slaves, October, 1705
A. How does the Act distinguish among slaves and servants? How do the different requirements for treating slaves and servants show the differences between them? What are the characteristics of slavery and servitude in the Act? How are they similar and how do they differ? How important is race in determining who can be a slave or a servant? How important is religion in this regard? In what other ways does the Act distinguish among human beings?
B. Compare the Virginia Slave Code with Black Codes of Mississippi. What provisions are similar? What are the differences?

3. Phyllis Wheatley, Poems, 1773
A. What is Wheatley’s attitude toward slavery? How does she express her personal experience of the it? How does she talk about liberty? How does her experience of slavery influence her discussion of liberty? Did she mean the same thing by “liberty” as other colonial Americans did?
B. How does Wheatley’s attitude compare to that of Maria Steward or Frederick Douglass or James Weldon Johnson?