The Letter of the Law difference between “Rights of Moors” and “Rights of Blacks” in American Law
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“WHEREAS, The Supreme Court of the United States has solemnly declared its opinion that the congressional enactment known as the civil rights law, of February 27, 1875, is not in accordance with the United States Constitution, and consequently inoperative as a measure for the protection of the negro in his manhood rights; and whereas, the customs and traditions of many of the States in the Union are inimical to the negro as a man and as a citizen, he finds neither in the common law nor in the sentiments of his white fellow citizens, [See Introduction To Moorish Treaties 1662-1856] that full protection which he has earned by his loyalty and devotion to the nation in its hour of extreme peril; Page 44 THE RESOLUTIONS.”
“A free negro of the African race, whose ancestors were brought to this country and sold as slaves, is not a “citizen” within the meaning of the Constitution of the United States. 5. When the Constitution was adopted, they were not regarded in any of the States as members of the community which constituted the State, and were not numbered among its “people or citizens.” Consequently, the special rights and immunities guarantied to citizens do not apply to them. And not being “citizens” within the meaning of the Constitution, they are not entitled to sue in that character in a court of the United States. They had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race either in social or political relations, and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect, [See Introduction To Moorish Treaties 1662-1856] and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit.”
“He was bought and sold, and treated as an ordinary article of merchandise and traffic whenever a profit could be made by it. This opinion was at that time fixed and universal in the civilized portion of the white race. [See Introduction to Moorish Race and Nationality.]”And in no nation was this opinion more firmly fixed or more [p408] uniformly acted upon than by the English Government and English people. They not only seized them on the [West] coast of Africa and sold them or held them in slavery for their own use, but they took them as ordinary articles of merchandise to every country where they could make a profit on them, and were far more extensively engaged in this commerce than any other nation in the world. The opinion thus entertained and acted upon in England was naturally impressed upon the colonies they founded on this side of the Atlantic.”
“And, accordingly, a negro of the African race was regarded by them as an article of property, and held, and bought and sold as such,in every one of the thirteen colonies which united in the Declaration of Independence and afterwards formed the Constitution of the United States. The slaves were more or less numerous in the different colonies as slave labor (Study the History of the U.S. Department of Labor) was found more or less profitable. But no one seems to have doubted the correctness of the prevailing opinion of the time. The legislation of the different colonies furnishes positive and indisputable proof of this fact. Taney left out the legal understanding as to Moors demonstrating a legal distinction because he was well aware of the treaties between Great Britain and Morocco, that Moors were in the United States and that the Constitution to which he himself as a White man was bound to respect has a Supremacy Clause making treaties the Supreme Law of the United States i.e. Federal law. [See Introduction To Moorish Treaties 1662-1856] Source: Scott v. Sandford
“Abraham Lincoln Represented a Moorish plaintiff from Portugal in William Dungey (plaintiff) v. Joseph Spencer (defendant). The newspapers referred to William as “Black Bill”. Lincoln Successfully argued: “My client is not a Negro, though it is a crime to be a Negro–no crime to be born with a black skin. But my client is not a Negro. His skin may not be as white as ours, but I say he is not a Negro, though he may be a Moore. Mr. Lincoln,” interrupted Judge Davis, scarcely able to restrain a smile, “you mean a Moor, not Moore.” “Well, your Honor, Moor, not C.H. Moore,” replied Mr. Lincoln, with a sweep of his long arm toward the table where Moore and I sat. “I say my client may be a Moor, but he is not a Negro.” On October 18, 1855, the jury returned a verdict of guilty and granted Dungey $600 in damages plus court costs of $137.50. Lincoln charged a $25 fee, which Lawrence Weldon considered minimal. See Introduction to Moorish Nationality and Status.
“In November 1682, legislation was passed that forged all “Negroes, Moors, Mollattoes or Indians” into a new ‘racial classification’ of Negro, “all servants except Turkes and Moores”. Again, the scholarship is quite broad on the reasoning for this distinction, but some point to unspoken agreements with North African rulers during the Ottoman Empire that in later years would be codified in a series of treaties known as the “Barbary Treaties”. The treaties, dated from the late 18th century through the near mid-19th century, set forth a number of agreements that provided certain civil and religious protections to those who arrived in early America from northern Africa. Lincoln was no doubt familiar with this distinction and sought to rely on this legislative precedent to make the case for his client, “I say my client may be a Moor, but he is not a Negro.” Lincoln won the case, with prejudice.”
“In the years to come, due to the effects of mass homogenization of ethnicities with melanin and the decline and eventual fall of the Ottoman Empire, the distinction between the legislated class of people recognized as negro and those who received legislative protection from being identified as negro was lost to history. In America, if you have melanin you are black unless like Lincoln, you can find some compelling argument for why you are not. Lincoln’s friend, editor of the Chicago Magazine and author of “The Illinois Black Codes,” Zebina Eastman said, “What an awful inference used to come from this idea of color! The devil is made black; in Africa, the devil is white.”
“The Negro in the New World By Sir Harry Hamilton Johnston states: “When the Portuguese discovers, urged on by Prince Henry of Portugal, had rounded Cape Bojador, and after reaching Rio d’Ouro in 1435……” In his Footnotes it says “This is the reason why blackamoor in English, Morioan in Dutch, Morian in German, Moro in Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian and Moriaud in French were early names for Negroes. “Negro”, a Spanish word, did not come into common use in England till the nineteenth century.” Here the author clearly acknowledges that Moors were given the name Negroes during the era beginning the Atlantic Slave Trade.
“The right to a nationality is of paramount importance to the realization of other fundamental human rights. Possession of a nationality carries with it the diplomatic protection of the country of nationality and is also often a legal or practical requirement for the exercise of fundamental rights. Consequently, the right to a nationality has been described as the “right to have rights.” Individuals who lack a nationality or an effective citizenship are therefore among the world’s most vulnerable to human rights violations.”
Source: Trop v. Dulles, 356 U.S. 86, 101–02 (1958)
In the Supreme Court of Georgia case Bryan v. Walton, Lumpkin states the status of the African in Georgia whether bond or free has no civil, political rights or capacity and that this can only be corrected by legislation. He also goes on to state that Georgia was founded for white men and Christian values and that the African is tainted with the blood of the descendants of Ham.
“Whereas, we maintain, that the of the African in Georgia, whether bond or free, is such that he has no civil, social or political status rights or capacity, whatever, except such as are bestowed on him by Statute; that he can neither contract, nor be contracted with; that the free negro can act only by and through his guardian; that he is in a state of perpetual pupilage or wardship; and that this condition he can never change by his own volition. It can only be done by Legislation”
Source: Bryan v. Walton, 14 Georgia 185 (1853)
“That the act of manumission confers no other right but that of freedom from the dominion of the master, and the limited liberty of locomotive; that it does not and cannot confer citizenship, nor any of the powers, civil or political, incident to citizenship; that the social and civil degradation, resulting from the taint of blood, adheres to the descendants of Ham in this country, like the poisoned tunic of Nessus; that nothing but an Act of the Assembly can purify, by the salt of its grace, the bitter fountain–the darling sea. He is associated still with the slave in this State, in some of the most humiliating incidents of his degradation–Like the slave, the free person of color is incompetent to testify against a free white citizen. He lives under, and is tried by the same Criminal Code. He has neither vote nor voice in forming the laws by which he is governed. He is not allowed to keep or carry ire-arms. He cannot preach or exhort without a special license, on pain of imprisonment, fine and corporeal punishment. He cannot be employed in mixing or vending drugs or medicines of any description. A white man is liable to a fine of five hundred dollars and imprisonment in the common jail, at the discretion of the Court, for teaching a negro to read and write; and if one negro teach another, he is punishable by fine and whipping, or fine free free or whipping, at the discretion of the Court. To employ a free person of color to set up type in a printing office, or any other labor requiring a knowledge of reading or writing, subjects the offender to a fine not exceeding one hundred dollars.”
“How different the circumstances of the villein, from the slave of the Southern States. His status resembles much more strikingly the slavery of the Ancient Republics. Their slaves, like ours, had no name, but what their masters gave them.–They could take nothing by purchase or descent; they could have no heirs; they could make no will or contract of any kind. The fruits of their labor and industry belonged to their masters. They could neither plead nor be impleaded; and were utterly excluded from all civil concerns. They were incapable of marriage. The laws of adultery did not apply to them. They might be sold or mortgaged. Partus sequitur ventrem, was the rule indiscriminately applied to slaves and cattle. (Dr. Taylor’s Elem. Civ. Law, 429, and the authorities there cited.) And this was not only the civil law, but the law of the Jews, Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Egyptians and Greeks, and all other nations, tongues and people. Also, nostri servi sunt qui ex nostris anceillis nascuntur, was the settled doctrine of the nations at that day. Such was the condition of white slaves in democratic Greece and republican Rome; and notwithstanding the disproportion in the former free state, as it is justly called, was in the ratio of 30,000 to 400,000 Aristotle, the prince of logicians and philosophers, declared that the relation of master and slave, was just as indispensable in any well-ordered State, as that of husband and wife.”
“What has been stated, will suffice to show, that villenage differed extremely from the slavery of the civil law; and that our law of African slavery corresponds much more closely to the latter than the former; and that the effect of manumission, by the civil law, would have great influence in the determination of a similar question here, were it not for the difference in color between their slaves and ours–a difference deep and ineradicable, extending more or less, not only to every portion of this country, but even to the continental nations. As yet, I believe, free negroes are not in any State in the Union, entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens. And marriage of whites with blacks, are not only generally prohibited in the United States, under ignominious penalties, but such connections in France and Germany, constitute but a degraded state of concubinage.
“I do not refer to these severe restrictions, for the purpose of condemning them. They have my hearty and cordial approval. The great principle of self-preservation, demands, on the part of the white population, unceasing vigilance and firmness, as well as uniform kindness, justice and humanity. Everything must be interdicted which is calculated to render the slave discontented with his condition, or which would tend to increase his capacity for mischief. My object is to counteract the antagonistic position assumed by counsel, who assert the claim of a free negro to give and sell; in broader terms, to contract and be contracted with. The argument is, that a negro is a man; and that when not held to involuntary service, that he is free; consequently that he is a free man; and if a freeman in the common acceptation of the term, then a freeman in every acceptation of it. This pithy syllogism comprises the whole chain of reasoning, however elaborated on the other side. The fallacy of it is, its assumption that the manumission of the negro, which signifies nothing but exemption from involuntary service, implies necessarily, and imparts ipso facto, all the rights, privileges and immunities which are incident to freedom, among the free white inhabitants of this country. . .” .
“To my mind, the idea is absurd, that the mere act of manumission can invest with all the attributes of manhood in a free state, a being who had no head or name or title, in the State before; who was held, pro nullis, pro mortuis, and for some, yea many purposes, pro quadrupedibus.”
“But let us look for a moment to our own legislation, founded on our own peculiar policy, in order to fix the condition of a free negro in this State. And for the purposes of this discussion, I deem it unnecessary to go behind the Act of 1818. By that Act, free persons of color were prohibited from acquiring the title or use of any slaves; and all such slaves were deemed and held forfeited to the State. (Cobb, 993.) Doubts were entertained whether this act did not operate retrospectively, so as to divest free persons of color of the property held by them at the time of its passage. Consequently, the Legislature, the year ensuing, declared that “All property held by any free persons of color, at the time of the passing of the foregoing Statute, shall not be deemed or considered as forfeited; but that the same shall remain in the owner, or in his or her descendants, after his or her death. (Cobb, 995.)”
“It is by this grant, that the slaves in controversy are held.–The General Assembly, in effect, provide, that under the Act of 1818, James Nunez, the father of Joseph Nunez, should not be divested of the title to the slaves which he thus held: but that the property should remain with him during his lifetime, and at his death, go to his descendants. It is by virtue of this section of the Act of 1819, and not under the will of his ancestor, that Joseph Nunez held these slaves. But this act will be analysed in vain, for authority in either father or son, to give these negroes by will or deed.”
“By the Act of 1833, contracts made with free persons of color, even for necessaries, are rendered void, unless made upon the written order of their guardian. (Cobb, 1005.) Can it be supposed that the Legislature would accord to this class the higher and more important privilege of giving or selling slaves, without the intervention of their guardian?”
“But it is attempted to analogise this case to the contracts of infants, which it is insisted that the infant may confirm and give binding force to, after he comes of age. The parallel falls in this. At twenty-one, the legal disability attaching to infancy, terminates. The minor is then a man.–But the pupilage in the other case is perpetual. The acts of an infant are voidable, only, because at maturity, he may affirm or disaffirm them. The acts of a free person of color are void, because he never ceases to be a ward, though he attain to the age of Methuselah. His legal existence is forever merged in that of his guardian.”
“In no part of this country, whether North or South, East or West, does the free negro stand erect and on a platform of equality with the white man. He does, and must necessarily feel this degradation. To him there is but little in prospect, but a life of poverty, of depression, of ignorance, and of decay. He lives amongst us without motive and without hope. His fancied freedom is all a delusion. All practical men must admit, that the slave who receives the care and protection of a tolerable master, is superior in comfort to the free negro. Generally, society suffers, and the negro suffers by manumission. I am fully persuaded that the State ought sternly to withhold its assent to domestic emancipation; and that the true policy, is not to seek to elevate the black man in our midst to a condition of equality which it is impossible for him to exercise wisely for himself or the community. Civil freedom among the whites, he can never enjoy. To this isolated class, it will ever be but a name.”
“We doubt the propriety of ejecting our free negroes upon the free States. They will not only become troublesome allies in the unconstitutional and unholy work of inveigling off our slaves, and assisting them to escape; but their constant effort and aim will be to create discontent among our slaves; and in case of intestine war, which may Heaven in its mercy avert, such a population would be in a situation to do us much mischief.”
“Whether the scheme of African colonization be feasible or not, the ablest and most discriminating minds have doubted.–There yet stands on our Statute Book, a resolution of the representatives of the people in favor of this colonial enterprise, as presenting to the philanthropist, the citizen and the statesman, the only means, not only of benefitting the nominally free who are scattered over the land, but everywhere treated as an inferior race; but as affording an outlet to the humane feelings of the benevolent, as well as a drain for that relative increase of the slave over the white population of this country, and which in some sixty years, has swelled to between 350 and 400 thousand. Of one thing I am quite certain, and that is, that whether freedom will, in Africa, be a reality to the colored man and his children or not, in the United States, whether shaveholding or non-slaveholding, it is worse than slavery itself. And that the Courts of this country should never lean to that construction, which puts the thriftless African upon a footing of civil or political equality with a white population which are characterized by a degree of energy and skill, unknown to any other people or period. Such alone, can be citizens in this great and growing Republic, which extends already from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from the St. Lawrence to the Rio Grande.”
Source: Bryan v. Walton, 14 Georgia 185 (1853).
“The status of the Negro as property was officially erased by his emancipation at the end of the Civil War. But the long-awaited emancipation, while freeing the Negro from slavery, did not bring him citizenship or equality in any meaningful way. Slavery was replaced by a system of “laws which imposed upon the colored race onerous disabilities and burdens, and curtailed their rights in the pursuit of life, liberty, and property to such an extent that their freedom was of little value.” Slaughter-House Cases, 16 Wall. 36, 70 (1873). Despite the passage of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments, the Negro was systematically denied the rights those Amendments were supposed to secure. The combined actions and inactions of the State and Federal Governments maintained Negroes in a position of legal inferiority for another century after the Civil War.”
Source: Regents of Univ. of California v. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265 (1978)
(“Eight Southern legislatures were in session at some time in December 1865. Each addressed itself to the status of the Negro. . . . The Southern States had spoken, and the impact was felt in Congress from the moment it assembled. In a major aspect, the problem was economic”); K. Stampp, The Era of Reconstruction 1865-1877, p. 123 (1965) (“This condition of economic helplessness . . . enabled the white landholders, with the aid of the Black Codes, to re-establish bondage in another form. The congressional Committee on Reconstruction heard a great deal of convincing testimony about the use of southern vagrancy laws and various extra-legal coercive devices to force Negroes back into agricultural labor under strict discipline. This testimony suggested that there was a close relationship between the securing of civil and political rights on the one hand and the establishment of economic independence on the other“).
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