John Stauffer > Quotes

“Even slaves, while resisting bondage, did not condemn slavery as an institution, a point borne out by the fact that in all the known slave revolts prior to the eighteenth century, rebels felt no compunction enslaving others in their quest to become free. From the Spartacus revolt of the late 70s bce in Rome, and the Zanj revolt of 869 ce in North Africa, to the maroon communities of the Caribbean, slave rebels sought to invert the master–slave hierarchy, much as the poor in America today hope to get rich rather than overturn the institution of capitalism.”
― John Stauffer

“Abolitionists declared their first major victory in 1772 with the Somerset case, which was popularly interpreted as outlawing slavery in England. In ruling on the case, Lord Mansfield consulted with the great legal theorist William Blackstone, whose four‐volume Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765) was required reading for students of law in England and America and “ranked second only to the Bible as a literary and intellectual influence on the history of American institutions.” Blackstone's understanding of slavery was richly ambiguous. On the one hand, he argued that only a positive law sanctioning slavery could override the natural law of freedom. On the other hand, he suggested that in certain circumstances natural law could trump positive law. Although Lord Mansfield based his decision in the Somerset case primarily on the precedent of villeinage, arguing that slaves could not be treated worse than villeins and thus could not forcibly be removed from England, Blackstone nevertheless contributed to its antislavery interpretation. British lawyers defending the slave James Somerset relied on Blackstone to argue that slavery was contrary to natural law; and Lord Mansfield acknowledged this while ruling in their favor. Somewhat inadvertently, Lord Mansfield established a precedent for Blackstone's theory that slavery could be sanctioned only by positive law. According to the legal scholar Robert Cover, the Somerset decision “gave institutional recognition to antislavery morality.” It influenced the gradual abolition of America's northern states, including Vermont's Constitution of 1777 (the first constitution in history to outlaw slavery), and the Quock Walker case of 1783, which effectively ended slavery in Massachusetts. Blackstone's Commentaries, coupled with the Somerset decision, would contribute to the antislavery platforms and ideologies of the Liberty, Free‐Soil, and Republican parties.”
― John Stauffer

“Literacy is vital to democracy. For if the governed can neither understand their leaders nor distinguish truth from lies, then a democracy descends into oligarchy, a government by and for the elite few.”
― John Stauffer