Frederick Douglass on the Devilish Decision of SCOTUS

Frederick Douglass, 1856, Wikimedia Commons

In March 1857, the US Supreme Court announced their decision in Dred Scrott v. Sandford, written by Chief Justice Taney, a decision that I suppose has long been in the lead on most people’s “worst decisions” lists. It “settled” the issue of slavery in favor of the pro-slavery argument, finding slavery enshrined in the US Constitution.

Dred Scott, ca. 1857, Wikimedia Commons

I put “settled” in scare quotes because, of course, this decision did not at all settle the issue, though Taney hoped it would. The same year as the decision, Frederick Douglass gave a speech, “The Dred Scott Decision,” in which he mocked the very idea that the issue had been settled, because in fact the slavery issue had been “settled” many times before (by the Missouri Compromise, by the Kansas-Nebraska Act, etc.). Douglass remarked: “The fact is, the more the question has been settled, the more it has needed settling” (p. 252).

Roger B. Taney, Wikimedia Commons

You can find Douglass’ speech in its original published form here. I am using the edition in The Portable Frederick Douglass (Penguin, 2016), where it appears on pp. 248–68.

Like most of what Douglass wrote, it’s a wonderful speech, eloquent, hopeful, scathing, Christian.

You will readily ask me how I am affected by this devilish decision—this judicial incarnation of wolfishness! My answer is, and no thanks to the slaveholding wing of the Supreme Court, my hopes were never brighter than now.  

I have no fear that the National Conscience will be put to sleep by such an open, glaring, and scandalous tissue of lies as that decision is, and has been, over and over, shown to be. (p. 253)

Douglass calls Taney’s decision full of lies. He means that Taney has misinterpreted the Constitution, and he will explain in what ways the Chief Justice has done so. But first he has some things to say about how Taney might be the highest law in the land, but not in the world.

Your fathers [Douglass says to his white audience] have said that man’s right to liberty is self-evident. There is no need of argument to make it clear. The voices of nature, of conscience, of reason, and of revelation, proclaim it as the right of all rights, the foundation of all trust, and of all responsibility. Man was born with it. It was his before he comprehended it. The deed conveying it to him is written in the centre of his soul, and is recorded in Heaven. Th sun in the sky is not more palpable to the sight than man’s right to liberty is to the moral vision. To decide against this right in the person of Dred Scott, or the humblest and most whip-scarred bondman in the land, is to decide against God. It is an open rebellion against God’s government. It is an attempt to undo what God [has] done, to blot out the broad distinction instituted by the Allwise between men and things, and to change the image and superscription of the everliving God into a speechless piece of merchandise. (p. 253)

Douglass does not find slavery instituted in Scripture nor in the US Constitution. This is an important point because plenty of people in his day, including his fellow abolitionists, said that it was instituted in both. A couple of times near the end of the speech (p. 267), Douglass puts Chief Justice Taney side-by-side with William Lloyd Garrison as twin advocates for the view that the Constitution enshrines slavery. (As Gordon Wood reminds us, Garrison described the Constitution as “a covenant with death” and “an agreement with hell.”)

William Lloyd Garrison, Wikimedia Commons

Garrison’s solution was disunion, emancipating the northern states from the pro-slavery Constitution. Douglass objected to the solution, and spends several pages urging against disunion, before turning to the main point of the speech, the lies in Taney’s decision (lies with which Garrison, apparently, agreed). In fact, the Constitution does not guarantee the right to enslave others.

When I admit that slavery is constitutional, I must see slavery recognized in the Constitution. I must see that it is there plainly stated that one man of a certain description has a right of property in the body and soul of another man of a certain description. There must be no room for a doubt. In a matter so important as the loss of liberty, everything must be proved beyond all reasonable doubt. (p. 260)

Of course, the Constitution never mentions slavery or white people or black people, as Douglass points out. (Douglass never in this speech brings up the 3/5 clause, which, in any case, would not have overturned his point.) In fact, several pronouncements in the Constitution are incompatible with slavery, such as the prohibition of a bill of attainder (p. 262). Taney knows that the Constitution on its surface cannot support slavery; he says as much in his decision. But, he says, you have to look at the intention of the Constitution. Douglass quotes and paraphrases Taney’s decision to establish this line of reasoning (pp. 263–64).

It is this line of reasoning that Douglass declares to be a lie. Taney said that slavery was everywhere accepted at the time of the ratification of the Constitution. Douglass demonstrates the falsehood of the claim. He first cites statements from churches from the 1780s. Then the Founding Fathers themselves.

Washington and Jefferson, and Adams, and Jay, and Franklin, and Rush, and Hamilton, and a host of others, held no such degrading views on the subject as are imputed by Judge Taney to the Fathers of the Republic. 

All, at that time, looked for the gradual but certain abolition of slavery, and shaped the constitution with a view to this grand result. (p. 266)

On this account, Douglass prevails over Taney. The Chief Justice did, in fact, misrepresent the early history of the United States in order to substantiate his specious interpretation of the Constitution. Douglass’ account of the views of the Founding Fathers (at least the ones he names) stands in harmony with modern historical accounts, such as in Joseph Ellis’ book Founding Brothers.

Douglass:

In conclusion, let me say, all I ask of the American people is, that they live up to the Constitution, adopt its principles, imbibe its spirit and enforce its provisions. 

When this is done, the wounds of my bleeding people will be healed, the chain will no longer rust on their ankles, their backs will no longer be torn by the bloody lash, and liberty, the glorious birthright of our common humanity, will become the inheritance of all the inhabitants of this highly favored country. (pp. 267–68)  

Douglass’ speech fits into a broader discussion on the interpretation of the Constitution, one set out, for example, in brief in this book review by Gordon Wood on a book by James Oakes.

Joseph and the Eunuch's Wife

A recent article in JBL discusses the sexual use of slaves: Joseph A. Marchal, "The Usefulness of an Onesimus: The Sexual Use of Slaves and Paul's Letter to Philemon," JBL 130.4 (2011): 749-70. I have not read the article, though I am skeptical of the main thesis.

It did remind me, though, of an idea I had sometime back about Joseph in Potiphar's house. Now, a couple of times, Potiphar is called in Hebrew a saris (Gen. 37:36; 39:1), a word used in the Pentateuch only here and a little later in Genesis, in reference to Pharaoh's 'chief cupbearer' and 'chief baker' (40:2, 7). The word is used 42x in the Hebrew Bible: 9x in the Former Prophets (i.e., historical books), 2x in Chronicles; 12x in Esther; 3x in Isaiah; 5x in Jeremiah; and 7x in the first chapter of Daniel.

The NRSV splits its translation of saris between 'officer' (or some such) and 'eunuch', which is the way it renders it in 2Kings 9:32; 20:18; 23:11; every time in Esther and Isaiah; Jer. 34:19; 38:7; 41:16. On the other hand, the LXX consistently translates saris with the Greek eunouchos, opting for a different translation only a handful of times. In fact, twice (Gen. 37:36; Isa. 39:7) the LXX uses a different Greek word, spadon, that also means 'eunuch'.

The point of this review of the philological data is to say that when Potiphar is called a saris, almost all English translation render this 'officer', but an equally viable translation would be 'eunuch', and this was certainly the view of the earliest interpretation on record, the LXX. I believe that the main reason that English versions stay away from 'eunuch' in this context is because Potiphar is married, and it is thought unlikely that a eunuch would have a wife.

Actually, I think that provides an interesting reading to the story. We all know that Mrs. Potiphar comes off as rather sex-crazed, and this could be explained by the fact that she is married to a eunuch. But why would a eunuch get married? Well, he's a high-ranking public official, who needs to give the appearance of a wonderful home life. At least it's not hard to think of modern analogies to this (perhaps anachronistically) hypothesized situation. I believe I have come across this interpretation somewhere, but I can't remember where.

But I have never seen the suggestion that Joseph may have been purchased by Potiphar specifically to fulfill this need of his wife's. And that's where Marchal's article could help with supplying data for the sexual use of slaves in antiquity (though I understand that Marchal is looking specifically at a Greco-Roman context, not an ANE one). It is worth thinking about, anyway, whether Potiphar may have wanted to purchase this good-looking slave (39:7) to satisfy his wife, or even to raise up offspring to himself. Well, does it at least sound like something JSOT might print?

But yesterday my friend Nathan Daily pointed out that if I'd actually read the text, I'd see that Joseph said to Mrs. Potiphar quite clearly that Potiphar has withheld her from him (Joseph) precisely because she is his (Potiphar's) wife (39:9).

Too bad. That seems like it kills my interpretation. I only see two options for retaining it. Perhaps Joseph was unaware of Potiphar's plans for him, and Potiphar counseled his own wife to seduce the handsome slave. Now, that really sounds like JSOT material. Or, maybe the final redactor of Genesis has attempted to cleanse the story of these impious elements through some crafty editorial work, but he failed to do his job well enough that we can't recover the original form of the story. And, of course, we do that by the oft-used scholarly technique of 'making-it-up'.

Now that sounds like I've got something for VT or ZAW. But I think I'll leave the matter alone. Dear readers, feel free to develop the idea yourselves, but perhaps you'll want to start with a conference paper.