1860 District of Columbia Slave Code

Some things don't change

SlaveCodes.org has transcribed the District of Columbia Slave Codes of 1860. It is one of the last slave codes in the United States and across the Americas.

A defining characteristic of this slave legislation is how it transforms judicial rulings into codified law. Notably, it codifies the Dred Scott v. Sandford decision, which denied citizenship to all Black people, enslaved or free. It codifies other court rulings, many of which come from William Cranch's books of court case rulings.

• This corpus of slave legislation can be seen as a "practice book" from which law firms in D.C. could reference matters of slavery.

Codifying Case Law

In the United States, converting case law into legislative law is one of the most powerful acts that can be done when it comes to securing civil rights and human rights. In this slave code is a notable anti-civil right:

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. Dred Scott v. Sandford, 19 How. 393.

With just one sentence, D.C. legislators codified the stripping of Black people's citizenship and, consequently, their civil and human rights. Here is an excerpt from the Dred Scott v. Sandford opinion:

the African race is not and never was recognised either by the language or purposes of the former; and it has been expressly excluded by every act of Congress providing for the creation of citizens by naturalization, these laws, as has already been remarked, being restricted to free white aliens exclusively.

Anti-civil rights laws could be codified with a mere pen stroke 165 years ago, while today, enshrining even just one civil right or human right into law requires moving mountains—a direct result of inherent white supremacy and patriarchal power structures.

Freedom of Choice Act and the Equal Rights Amendment

The Freedom of Choice Act is a bill that, if passed, would codify Roe v. Wade into legislative law, i.e., giving women "the fundamental right to choose to bear a child; terminate a pregnancy prior to fetal viability; or terminate a pregnancy after viability when necessary to protect her life or her health"¹.

Despite being introduced four separate times in Congress, this bill has repeatedly failed to secure passage, even with majority public support for the past two decades as shown by Pew Research².

For over a century, grassroots efforts have come and gone to codify the Equal Rights Amendment that would state something to the effect of:

Men and women shall have equal rights throughout the United States and every place subject to its jurisdiction. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Time and time again, white supremacy and patriarchal power structures in the United States have confined and eroded the key principle found in the Declaration of Independence: "all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights." And time and time again, it has required extraordinary moral courage and collective action to challenge these power structures to establish, broaden, or secure the human and civil rights supposedly bestowed in the Declaration of Independence. The promise that all people are created equal and endowed with unalienable rights remains perpetually unfulfilled without continuous fight.

Manumission Template

This legislation also provides a template for manumission:

Deed of Manumission

To all whom it may concern, be it known, that I ____ of the District of Columbia, county of Washington, for divers good causes and considerations, me thereunto moving, have released from slavery, liberated, manumitted, and set free, and by these presents do hereby release from slavery, liberate, manumit, and set free, my negro ____, named ____ being of the age of ____ years, and able to work and gain a sufficient livelihood and maintenance, and ____ the said negro ____ named ____ I do declare to be henceforth free, manumitted, discharged, from all manner of service or servitude to me, my executors or administrators, forever.

Transcription Notes

1. Spelling by and large is left as is. That is, the spelling of names in court cases cited is not guaranteed to be accurate but instead reflects what is written. My guess is that as this document was handwritten, the names were orated to the writer without clarification of spelling.
   • There are a small handful of names that I've corrected (which of these I don't remember) because I looked up what the court ruling stated to understand what was inferred from the legislative clause.
2. I've also left the transcription as I found it from each page. However, Clause 23 under Slaves to be slaves for life seems cut short from the previous page. Based on context, I believe the complete clause should read:

XXIII. And, forasmuch as many people have neglected to baptize their negroes, or suffer them to be baptized, on a vain apprehension that negroes, by receiving the sacrament of baptism, are thereby manumitted & set free; But hereby further declared and enacted, by and with the authority advice and consent aforesaid, That no negro or negroes, by receiving the holy sacrament of baptism is thereby manumitted or set free, nor hath any right or title to freedom or manumission, more than he or they had before; any law, usage or custom to the contrary notwithstanding.

This statement is consistent with British legal concepts on baptism of slaves versus indentured servants³, and we see that they persist after the colonies became American states (and Washington, D.C., a federal district made from them).

Dred Scott Decision and Birthright Citizenship in the 2nd Trump Administration

On the day of Donald Trump's second inauguration, he signed Executive Order 14160, "Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship." The executive order references Dred Scott v. Sandford, presents an ahistorical view, and attempts to strip birthright citizenship from people born on American soil to immigrant parents.

At the time of writing, Judge Lee Sorokin has issued a preliminary injunction on the Executive Order, stating in a memo that his decision to do so was "based on straightforward application of settled Supreme Court precedent reiterated and reaffirmed in various ways for more than a century by all three branches of the federal government."

A good historical summary on birthright citizenship in the U.S. is "The Civil War and Reconstruction Amendments' Effects on Citizenship and Migration"⁴.

What's Next for SlaveCodes.org

• I intend to translate this slave code to Portuguese, Spanish, and French.
• I will begin work transcribing the 1684 Code Noir, 1784 Codigo Negro Carolino, and the D.C. Slave Code of 1848.
• I'll see about getting a logo made!

If you would like to contribute to this project, check out how you can contribute here.

Recently I have come across another slave legislation transcribing project, Laws of Enslavement and Freedom in the Anglo-Atlantic World. It is a great resource and has focus on British Trans-Atlantic Slave Legislation.

References