Law Commons^™

Was Slavery Unconstitutional Before The Thirteenth Amendment? Lysander Spooner’S Theory Of Interpretation, Randy E. Barnett

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In 1843, radical abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison called the Constitution of the United States, "a covenant with death and an agreement with hell." Why? Because it sanctioned slavery, one of the greatest crimes that one person can commit against another. Slavery was thought by abolitionists to be a violation of the natural rights of man so fundamental that, as Lincoln once remarked: "If slavery were not wrong, nothing is wrong." Yet the original U.S. Constitution was widely thought to have sanctioned this crime. Even today, many still believe that, until the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment prohibiting involuntary servitude, slavery …