Slavery in Maryland

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 8, 1867

Slavery in Maryland.

We have briefly noticed the startling fact mentioned by our Baltimore correspondent that the slave trade was being carried on in Maryland by the judicial and executive officers of that State, under the pretended authority of the Maryland Code, and in alleged accordance with the National Constitution. Advertisements announcing the sale, for a term of years, in pursuance of the sentence of a Court and the authority of a sheriff, will excite a feeling of something more than surprise in the breasts of hundreds of thousands, who for more than a year have been accustomed to thank God that Slavery in America had been constitutionally abolished. They believed that they had lived to see the day so long prayed for, when in his westward course over our ocean-girt Republic, the sun no longer rose upon a master nor set upon a slave. But here is a new and hideous vision of auction blocks in front of Court-Houses, for the sale of “slaves and other cattle,” with a sheriff as auctioneer, flourishing his judicial record, and pointing to the “Constitutional Amendment abolishing Slavery” as confirming its validity. Even those who in the olden time had so “conquered their prejudices” as to contend that Slavery was not a crime, must feel that its unblushing revival at this moment, and in this form, is, to say the least, a blunder.

The responsibility for the existence of this anomaly, which tends to make us contemptible in the eyes of the world, and despicable in our own, rests primarily with the Congress, which, in proceeding to amend the Constitution for the abolition of Slavery, and intending that abolition to be total and final, neglected to use words that indicated their intention. Earnest suggestions to this effect were met by the reply that it would be more historically interesting, and would exhibit a more continuous and uniform legislation to adopt and incorporate into the Constitution the identical prohibition of Slavery framed by the Fathers of the Republic and embodied in the ordinance that secured freedom to our great North-West. To the indulgence of this sentiment, which we thought then, and which we still think, partook rather of idle pedantry than of sound statesmanship, is the country indebted for the fact that American Slavery and the slave trade are carried on to-day under the shelter of that amendment. An absolute prohibition of Slavery, without exception, would have passed Congress, and would have been ratified by the people of the States as readily and as certainly as the one which was adopted; and yet in its place we have the following article, authorizing and justifying Slavery in a class of cases, which, if left to the decision of the Rebel States, may be enlarged and extended until Slavery is made once more their peculiar institution:

“Art. XIII, Sec. 1.—Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”

Until some new amendment shall abolish this exception, servitude for crime will be permissible under the National Constitution; but what we have to do, and what we can do, is to see that it is inflicted as a punishment only for crime and not for color. This subject may properly engage the attention of Congress under the second section of the Amendment, empowering them to enforce the article by appropriate legislation. But the true remedy for this and other abuses to which the blacks are subjected by State legislation inspired by Slavery, is in exposition by the Supreme Court of the United States of the true meaning and effect of the Constitutional Amendment, in giving to the Republic a National policy of equal freedom and equal justice.—N. Y. Tribune.

Under the heading of “Slavery authorized by the President,” the Tribune of Jan. 1, says:

Another sale of negroes in Maryland, reported in our summary Friday, proves that unless the Civil Rights bill is enforced, emancipation is but a farce. It matters not whether a thousand men are sold, or but two or three; the Constitution is equally denied, and Slavery re-established. Since Maryland courts declare the Civil Rights bill unconstitutional, there have been several sentences of negroes to Slavery under the latter law, and the case we report to-day shows a concerted resolution to restore Slavery in this modified form.

But a graver question than conflict between the State laws of Maryland and the Civil Rights bill presents itself. The President has suspended, by an order dated Dec. 19, paragraphs V and VI of General orders No. 15, issued by Gen. Sickles in the Department of the South. We quote the paragraphs:

“V. Corporal punishment shall not be inflicted upon any person other than a minor, and then only by the parent, guardian, teacher, or one to whom said minor is lawfully bound by indenture of apprenticeship. Nor shall any person be sold to service as a punishment for crime, or for other cause, by any authority whatever.”

“VI. The laws of the States, respectively, in this Department, defining and punishing vagrancy, applicable to white persons, may be enforced against all persons; nevertheless, no one who shall have used reasonable diligence to obtain employment, or who shall be unable to work, by reason of infirmity, shall be deemed a vagrant.”

By this act, President Andrew Johnson permits South Carolina to whip her free negroes, and re-establish Slavery in all the States of the Department of the South. Without attempting to show any cause, he has authorized in those States the same outrages which in Maryland have aroused the indignation of the people. He has attempted to nullify the Civil Rights bill, defies the clause in the Constitution prohibiting Slavery; and has gone out of his way to seek a new issue with Congress. Of all his evil acts, none is worse than this.