Featuring: Larry Kenneth Alexander
Transcript:
Today, we revisit a story of laws, principles, and revisionism that continues to shape our understanding of liberty and justice. The American Colonies Act of 1766, also known as the Declaratory Act, and the Court of the King’s Bench’s Somerset Decision of 1772, are seminal events that forever altered the trajectory of colonial America.
These moments are more than just historical footnotes. They expose profound truths about the abolition of colonial slave codes and Negro laws—truths that demand our attention and understanding. The Declaratory Act of 1766 and the Somerset Decision in 1772 unequivocally demonstrate that the British Imperial government acted to dismantle the abhorrent constructs of human bondage embedded in colonial America’s slave codes and Negro laws. These colonial laws denied and questioned Parliament’s supreme legislative authority and were abolished by the British Imperial government an entire decade before the birth of the United States in 1776.
The Somerset Decision, in particular, affirmed that the law of the Kingdom of Great Britain did not sanction slavery. It declared that slavery could only exist under positive law, a legislative authority reserved solely for Parliament. This historical truth is irrefutable: the British Imperial government repealed colonial slave laws 10 years before the ink of the Declaration of Independence was dry.
Yet the Declaration, the very document that boldly proclaims “all men are created equal,” also indicts King George III for “abolishing our most valuable laws.” This phrase must be understood for what it is—an acknowledgment that colonial slave codes and Negro laws had been abolished under British governance. This abolition, memorialized in the Declaration, reshapes the narrative of American slavery, revealing that its continuance was not a legacy of British rule but a defiance of the rule of law.
Crucially, nothing during the American Revolution reinstated the abolished colonial slave codes and Negro laws dismantled under British rule. Therefore, the narrative that Black colonials became the lawful property of white colonials after the Revolution ended is not only ahistorical but wholly unsupported by legislative facts. The continuation of slavery after independence was a deliberate defiance of English law and a betrayal of the principles upon which the new nation claimed to stand.
It is compelling to note that even a careful review of historical treatises and source material fails to reveal a meaningful reconciliation between the Declaration of Independence’s assertion of equality and its grievance that King George III had “abolished our most valuable laws.” This disconnect is particularly striking given the connection between the abolition of “valuable laws” and the historic narrative that Black colonials were excluded from the Declaration of Independence.
Through thorough legal research, we uncover a painful but necessary truth. The legal foundations for slavery in America were not inherited from British rule but represented a deliberate betrayal of English law and the ideals of liberty so boldly proclaimed in 1776. This truth shatters enduring myths that Black colonials were excluded from the promise of the Declaration of Independence or that slavery was a lawful inheritance from British rule. Instead, it compels us to confront the historical and legal shenanigans that have haunted our nation since its founding.
This is not merely an academic exercise. Only by acknowledging our past can we truly aspire to the ideals of liberty and justice enshrined in our founding documents. In doing so, we honor the struggles of those who came before us and the hope for a more just and equitable future.
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