Radical Issues in the Colonies

During the colonial period of America, many colonists struggled with the laws imposed upon them by England. The struggle grew over the years until many Americans had developed a revolutionary attitude toward their mother country. This attitude not only led the colonists into the American Revolution which freed them from the rule of England, but also influenced the ways in which the various colonies chose to govern themselves. The experience of colonial rule caused the new Americans to denounce certain aspects of government which had been a part of their colonial society and, in fact, seemed somewhat radical at the time. However, the most revolutionary act they seem to have accomplished was the war for independence itself.

The Virginia Declaration of Rights, which served as a basis for many Bills of Rights in state constitutions, laid out basic rights of men as the foundation of their new government. The idea that “all men are by nature equally free and independent” is then qualified in the document itself by the phrase “when they enter into a state of society.” The phrase regarding society is intended to exclude slaves from the “free and independent” status given to all other men. John Ross expanded on this theme at a New York state convention where he stated that blacks are “seldom, if ever, required to share in the common burthens or defence of the state” and are “incapable…of exercising that privilege with any sort of discretion, prudence, or independence.” Colonel Samuel Young, speaking at the same convention where Ross stated his views, felt that blacks would “sell their votes to the highest bidder.” The views seem oddly the same, though blacks were no longer slaves in New York at that time.

The Pennsylvania Gradual Abolition Act of 1980 started the abolition slavery by laying out the conditions under which slaves and people born into slavery would eventually be free. Basically, it limited the time a person could be held as a slave and granted other rights to “Negroes and Mulattoes.” In particular, the Act stated that the crimes of Negroes and Mulattoes would be judged and punished the same as crimes of the “other inhabitants of this state,” but did denote that a slave could not testify against a freeman. This limitation perpetuated the idea that slaves and black people were not on equal footing with white men.

In today’s world, the remnants of a time when blacks were viewed as inferior to whites can still be seen, yet it is difficult to imagine that the statements made in documents which were designed to declare the rights of people in America are so boldly prejudiced. In fact, in Section 4 of the Virginia Declaration of Rights, it is stated that no man or group of men is “entitled to exclusive…privileges from the community.” In fact, all white men were given preferential treatment when compared with the civil treatment of black men. In retrospect, the founding fathers appeared more than a little hypocritical. They seemed to want new freedoms in their own lives away from mother England, but they clearly had no intention of extending those rights to “all” men.

In addition to the failure to extend inherent rights to slaves, the founding fathers also failed to extend rights of any kind to women. In fact, women were considered to have become part of the husband, for legal purposes, after their marriage. A woman had to have her husband’s consent in order to bring any type of legal action, even if she herself were injured. The action had to be in the husband’s name as well as the wife’s, whether or not the husband actually had any type of involvement in the incidents that caused the action to be brought. Along the same lines, a woman could not be sued unless the husband was also named as a defendant.

However, according to William Blackstone, there were some instances in which a woman was considered separately from her husband; “as inferior to him, and acting by his compulsion.” Because of this consideration, deeds done by her were void or at least voidable. Even in some “felonies, and other inferior crimes” committed by a woman, she was excused. Such exclusion did not extend to crimes of murder or treason. Nonetheless, the general idea was that women were inferior to men and would not be held accountable for their actions, but would also not be allowed to make their own decisions. Blackstone characterized the condition