Mexico Quotes
There shall not be permitted, after the promulgation of this law, either purchase or sale of slaves that may be introduced into the empire. The children of such slaves, who are born within the empire, shall be free at fourteen years of age.
This was a compromise. Most Mexicans wanted immediate emancipation of all slaves. However, Stephen Austin and others desirous of attracting colonists thought that this would inhibit too many American Southerners from immigrating to Texas. Slave enthusiasts wanted no prohibition on slavery. The Mexican Emperor issued this compromise but was soon thereafter overthrown. The law was then repealed by the revolutionary government and emancipation was immediate. However, Austin was able to persuade the junta to keep the law in place for Texas only, and so it was. A similar law was being debated by Congress but the Southerners were able to block it. There were still slaves and slavery in Texas. Four years later {613642} there were more restrictions on slavery.
Mexico, Law passed governing slavery in Mexico, January 4, 1823
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
This ordinance opened the door somewhat to slavery again as Austin said it would “permit families to bring the necessary and indispensable house servants and laborers.” Earlier Mexican laws had abolished slavery in most of Mexico but left the door open in Texas. See {613642} and {613644}.
See {613644} for the earlier decree which this modified.
In this case, the Pope was obeyed on the issue of slavery. However, Papal injunctions against slavery have not always had the desired effect. See {617632}
This clause was superseded by the 13th Amendment {621373}. More and more abolitionists were refusing on ethical and moral grounds to return fugitive slaves. Some states actually passed laws forbidding the return of fugitive slaves and freeing them the second they set foot in the state. Some objected arguing that the law must be enforced and the Constitution obeyed. They had a point, so the solution was to change the Constitution which is what was done in 1865.
Louisiana to this day has a different legal system from the rest of the United States as it was originally based on the French Napoleonic Code. Most people did not realize that Louisiana had strictures against breaking up families—even with slaves.
This quotation illustrates the strong abolitionist tendency in the Ohio Territory. Under this clause, escaped slaves from Southern states would not be returned by the state authorities. Even more insulting to the slave enthusiasts of the South, if a Southerner brought any slaves into Ohio with them as was common for Southerners traveling with their personal slaves or horse team drivers, those slaves would be free. An interesting aspect of this clause of the Ohio Constitution was that the beginning was, word for word, copied from the Northwest Ordinance of 1787. See {618100}.
Baldwin was a young lawyer at the time. He represented a shipload of ex-slaves who had taken over their Spanish slave ship and landed in America. The Spanish claimed, the ship owners and some of the crew all claimed the “property.”
Although some Arab nations such as Saudi Arabia maintained legal slavery into the 1960s, Tunisia’s Emancipation pre-dated that of the United States.
Van Buren was Ambassador to England at the time.
A few years later he had a clearer idea of what was to be done. However, the additional factor of the Civil War played a big part in driving his Emancipation Proclamation. See {609360}
It, would automatically emancipate all children born to slaves thereafter. It did not pass. The quote is given as evidence of Jefferson’s attempts to eliminate slavery but is in marked contrast to the fact that he never freed his own slaves nor emancipated slave children (including possibly his own child with his slave Sally Hemmings). In addition, compare this with {629765} and {630991}.
In the early days of the Civil War slaves who escaped and reached the Northern lines were routinely returned to their Southern owners as the Fugitive Slave Act required. The first actual emancipation of the Civil war was not the President’s proclamation but was Butler who as a Union General ordered that the slaves escaping from Virginia no longer be returned. He was accused of violating the then existing law, however he had a legal rationale which hoisted Virginia on its own petard.
This Biblical Quotation was one of the main reasons that Christian religious abolitionists were so active in the Underground Railroad and other efforts to assist and harbor fugitive slaves. It was also a motivating force for those states which passed laws making a slave free the second he set foot in the state. It was cited by many of those Northerners refusing to follow the Federal Fugitive Slave Act even after the Supreme Court upheld it in the Dred Scott decision. The act required them to return a fugitive slave to his master. This clearly violated this passage of the Bible. and the concept of States Rights. The Southern States which pushed the Fugitive Slave Act through Congress and complained bitterly when it was ignored by many Northern States were never able to provide any refute to the argument that because of this passage, following the act would be violating the law of God. The South which viewed itself as a bastion of Christianity, never were troubled by this passage when they passed state laws requiring the return of fugitive slaves. It illustrates the hypocrisy that slavery forced upon its advocates.
Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern half of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and to the east by the Gulf of Mexico. Covering almost two million square kilometers (over 760,000 sq mi), Mexico is the sixth largest country in the Americas by total area and the 13th largest independent nation in the world. With an estimated population of over 120 million, it is the eleventh most populous country and the most populous Spanish-speaking country in the world while being the second most populous country in Latin America. Mexico is a federation comprising thirty-one states and a Federal District, its capital and largest city.
