Suggested Answers to the Second Short Quiz

[johnkarls]

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Question 1

How was Solomon Northrup freed?

Answer 1

Please see the Composite Comments Re Q&A-1 Thru Q&A-10 which appear following Answer-10.

Question 2

Did Lousiana courts have to follow the law of the State of New York where Solomon Northrup had been a free citizen until his kidnapping in Washington DC?

Answer 2

Please see the Composite Comments Re Q&A-1 Thru Q&A-10 which appear following Answer-10.

Question 3

Was Solomon Northrup free-born or born a slave who was freed later?

Answer 3

Solomon’s father was a slave whose master’s will provided that Solomon’s father would become a free man upon the master’s death.

Solomon was born after his father had been freed according to the will.

Question 4

Did most Southern States view slaves as just another kind of cattle?

Answer 4

Yes.

Question 5

Viewed as a kind of cattle, would it have been easier to obtain the release of Solomon Northrup from his Southern slave owner if Solomon had been a slave of a New York slave owner? Or a free man who had been owned by a New York slave owner?

Answer 5

Please see the Composite Comments Re Q&A-1 Thru Q&A-10 which appear following Answer-10.

Question 6

In other words, if Solomon Northrup had been a slave in New York at the time he was kidnapped and sold to a succession of slave owners in the South, would the English-American Common Law vis-à-vis Conversion (the civil-law name for theft) have required his current owner after the 12 years of slavery to surrender him to his original New York owner in return for absolutely nothing, even though the current owner had paid full fair market value for Solomon?

Answer 6

Yes. [Though please see Q&A-9 for whether Louisiana, as a former French colony, follows English-American Common Law.]

And please see the Composite Comments Re Q&A-1 Thru Q&A-10 which appear following Answer-10.

Question 7

Is the English-American Common Law vis-à-vis Conversion that applies to such things as cattle rustling, incidentally, what permits the heirs of Holocaust Victims whose fine art was stolen by the Nazis to recover that art for absolutely nothing in return, as soon as the identity of the current “owner” is discovered even though the current “owner” has paid full fair market value for the fine art?

Answer 7

Yes.

Question 8

Also incidentally, was the “Question Presented For Review” in the litigation of Yours Truly against 15 of the world’s largest financial institutions for the admitted theft (the criminal-law name for “conversion”) of one of his trade secrets, the economic benefit of which had, since before its creation, been pledged in legally-binding fashion to benefit the education of 10 million inner-city children -- in an unsuccessful attempt to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court --

“Can state court judges order their decisions which they know are diametrically-opposed to well-settled law, not to be published or cited (a strategy labeled ‘the segregated toilet’ in correspondence with 51 inner-city clergy who represent the 10 million inner-city children who have been disclosed from the outset as the ‘real parties at interest’ in this law suit) in order to flush away the rights of the 10 million inner-city children without disturbing the rights of first-class American citizens -- without violating the ‘Equal Protection of the Law’ requirement of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution?”

[Additional details are available in the third and fourth sections of http://www.ReadingLiberally-SaltLake.org.]

Answer 8

Yes.

Question 9

Does Louisiana follow English-American Common Law or, because it was originally a French colony, does it follow the Napoleonic Code like most continental European countries? Is Louisiana the only state in the U.S. to follow the Napoleonic Code rather than English-American Common Law?

Answer 9

Louisiana, as a former French colony, follows the Napoleonic Code.

Louisiana (with the possible exception of California in some respects) is the only state in the U.S. to follow the Napoleonic Code rather than English-American Common Law.

Question 10

What does the Napoleonic Code provide in the case of stolen property?

Answer 10

Please see the Composite Comments Re Q&A-1 Thru Q&A-10 which appear immediately below.

In the light of the provisions of the U.S. Constitution discussed there, it is not relevant what the Napoleonic Code provides in the case of stolen property.


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COMPOSITE COMMENTS RE Q&A-1 THRU Q&A-10
(PLEASE SKIP TO Q&A-11 THRU Q&A-21 IF YOU DON’T CARE ABOUT LEGALITIES)

For anyone with a legal background, the scene in the movie in which Solomon Northrup is freed is very intriguing.

Because it shows the local Louisiana Sheriff and Henry B. Northrup, a descendant of the New York slave owner who had freed Solomon’s father before Solomon’s birth, descending on the Louisiana plantation where Solomon was then enslaved, taking custody of Solomon and whisking him off despite the objections of the slave owner. In the movie version, Henry Northrup derisively responds to the slave owner’s objections by saying he (Henry Northrup) will litigate the slave owner into bankruptcy if necessary.

[For the curious, it was extremely common for freed slaves to take the same last name as their former masters, which accounts for why Solomon and Henry both had the same last name = Northrup.]

Q-1 through Q-10 were composed before Yours Truly did any research. [Or, for that matter, before he read the book which, because of Solomon’s lack of legal training, does not really explain the legalities anyway.]

As is obvious from Q-1 through Q-10, Yours Truly thought Solomon’s freedom would be governed by the State Law of Louisiana and, insofar as it was relevant under Louisiana Law, the State Law of New York.

Which left me scratching my head because if Louisiana had followed English-American Common Law (and, who knows, the Napoleonic Code may be identical in all relevant respects), the Louisiana Courts would have ruled: (1) individuals of African heritage are property just like cattle are property, (2) even if it could be proved that Solomon and/or his father had been freed by a previous owner, under the law of property the act of granting freedom to the property is nothing more than an act of abandonment, and (3) once property has been abandoned, the first person to assert dominion over that property acquires ownership of it.

That, incidentally, had been the reason for Q-5 and Q-6 about whether it would have been easier to obtain the release of Solomon from his current Louisiana slave owner if Solomon had had a New York slave owner at the time of his kidnapping.

The answer to that would have been a resounding “YES” because the New York slave owner would have been in the same position as an heir of a holocaust victim laying claim to the fine art of the holocaust victim stolen by the Nazis and now suddenly appearing on the walls of a museum.

And, indeed, if the U.S. Constitution did not already govern the status of slaves and the status of free men kidnapped into slavery, a well-advised (from a legal viewpoint) slave owner who wanted to really free his slaves would NOT have granted them their freedom, BUT INSTEAD would have retained legal ownership while restricting his own rights and the rights of his heirs to receiving only some annual token amount (for example, instead of the normal right to receive hard labor 24/7, to receive one penny per year).

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The U.S. Constitution

The following provisions of the U.S. Constitution were NOT covered in the Constitutional Law course taken by Yours Truly 47 years ago because, presumably, they were not considered relevant following the Civil War.

But with regard to Fugitive Slaves (which is not Solomon’s case but shows how thoroughly the Institution of Slavery was intertwined in the original version of our Constitution and is still there today for all to see), Article IV, Section 2, Paragraph 3 provides: “No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due.”

And for the curious before moving on to Solomon’s case, this quoted provision was enforced through the Federal Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 (NB: this was a mere 4 years after the Constitution replaced the Articles of Confederation), and the Federal Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 (NB: this was a mere 10 years before the beginning of the Civil War).

Those acts gave Southern slave owners and their agents (who acted similarly to modern-day bail bondsmen) the right to go into Northern states, capture the fugitive slaves and bring them back in chains to their slave owners.

[Indeed, the beginning of 12 Years A Slave shows Solomon’s captors as claiming that he is a Fugitive Slave and whipping him unmercifully until he stops claiming otherwise.]

Now Solomon’s case.

Article IV, Section 2, Paragraph 1 provides: “The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States.”

Although this provision might seem ambiguous (originally, possible interpretations included that Congress was required to treat all citizens equally or that each citizen of a particular state carried her/his rights under home-state law with her/him when s/he traveled to other states), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that it meant that no state may discriminate against citizens of other states in favor of its own citizens.

Presumably, the State of Louisiana only recognized whites as Louisiana citizens. However, if it could be proved that Solomon Northrup was a citizen of New York, then the U.S. Constitution prohibited Louisiana from treating Solomon differently than a Louisiana white.

The Appendix of 12 Years A Slave contains an 1840 New York Statute providing that New York State would assume responsibility, financial and otherwise, for ATTEMPTING to obtain the freedom of any of its citizens who were enslaved in other states.

And contains 6 affidavits of New York citizens swearing that Solomon Northrup had been a free CITIZEN of New York (thereby invoking both the New York Statute and, without saying so, the U.S. Constitution).

There were two problems, of course: (1) finding Solomon, and (2) proving that Solomon was in fact Solomon.

I will not steal the reader’s enjoyment from discovering how these problems were solved in Chapter XXI.

However, it is interesting from a legal viewpoint to note that when Henry B. Northrup (the person described in the second paragraph of this section who was a descendant of the slave owner of Solomon’s father, who was one of the 6 people to swear out affidavits, and who was appointed by the Governor of New York as the agent of New York to ATTEMPT to carry out the 1840 New York statute) arrived in Louisiana, Henry Northrup filed a lawsuit for REPLEVIN in Louisiana Court before going with the Sheriff to Solomon’s plantation!!!

REPLEVIN is an English-American Common Law legal action for determining the ownership of PROPERTY (viz., Solomon) in which CUSTODY OF THE PROPERTY IS GIVEN TO THE PLAINTIFF BEFORE TITLE TO THE PROPERTY IS LITIGATED.

So either Louisiana follows English-American Common Law vis-à-vis Replevin or else Replevin is also a feature of the Napoleonic Code.

For the curious, Conversion would be the English-American Common Law counterpart to Replevin where custody of the property is NOT transferred to the Plaintiff before title is litigated.

Enough already!!!

Except to note the obvious reasons why 12 Years A Slave created such a fire storm in the Northern states = (1) the incredibly-long odds that Solomon’s predicament could have been brought to the attention of anyone who could do anything, (2) the incredibly-long odds that Solomon could have been found (indeed, Solomon’s final Louisiana slave owner is quoted in the book as saying that if he had gotten wind of what was happening, he would simply have hidden Solomon were he couldn’t have been found), and (3) the obvious inference that there were zillions of other formerly-free blacks whose predicaments were unknown.

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Question 11

Did the United States abolish slavery before or after other countries such as Britain and France?

Answer 11

Slavery was abolished in the French Empire in 1794 by the First French Republic. However, it was restored by Napoleon in 1802. It was abolished again (and finally) in 1848 by the Second French Republic.

Slavery was abolished in the British Empire in 1833 (except for two limited exceptions involving Ceylon and Saint Helena which were eliminated in 1843).

Canada, of course, was part of the British Empire when slavery was abolished in 1833. Which, of course, is why the famous “Underground Railroad” was aimed at helping Fugitive Slaves from American plantations escape to Canada where they would be out of reach of the U.S. Constitution’s Fugitive Slave provisions.

Question 12

When Abraham Lincoln was first elected President in 1860, did he have to sneak into Washington under cover because of all the assassins who were lying in wait for him?

Answer 12

Yes.

Question 13

Were there constant assassination threats from 1860 until Lincoln was finally shot by John Wilkes Booth, a well-known actor and not-so-well-known Confederate spy from Maryland, on 4/15/1865, dying the following morning?

Answer 13

Yes.

Question 14

Was Abraham Lincoln’s Casus Belli the Abolition of Slavery or the Preservation of the Union?

Answer 14

The Preservation of the Union, would you believe!!!

Question 15

Was the fact that Lincoln’s Casus Belli was to Preserve the Union the reason why his Emancipation Proclamation was NOT issued until 1/1/1863, ALMOST TWO YEARS AFTER the 4/12/1861 beginning of the Civil War?

Answer 15

Yes.

Question 16

Is it conceivable today that America would sacrifice 750 thousand dead and a comparable number of wounded to keep states from leaving the union?

Answer 16

It is hard to imagine that America would fight another war over the issue of whether one or a group of states could leave the United States.

Though if slavery still existed legally, hopefully war would be “on the table” as a last resort to eliminate slavery.

Question 17

When was Eli Whitney’s Cotton Gin invented and what effect did it have on slavery in America?

Answer 17

Whitney’s cotton gin was invented in 1793.

The cotton gin, which separates cotton fibers from cotton seeds, made cotton even more economic compared to its competitor fabrics, greatly increasing the number of plantations and the number of slaves needed to work the plantations.

Question 18

According to James Michener, what happened to many of the slave owners following the Civil War?

Answer 18

In his historical novel entitled “Mexico,” Michener describes in Chapter 16 entitled “American Ancestors: In Mexico” how, following the American Civil War, many American plantation owners simply went to Mexico where they proceeded to establish new plantations.

Which is probably the reason why so many former American slaves who became “share croppers” lived in such poverty trying to compete with the new Mexican plantations.

Question 19

What are the words of the refrain of “16 Tons” which was made famous by Tennessee Ernie Ford in 1955 when it was Number 1 on the Hit Parade?

Answer 19

Although “16 Tons” had 4 verses, the first two are also worth remembering for the purposes of our discussion:

Verse 1 =
Some people say a man is made outta mud
A poor man's made outta muscle and blood
Muscle and blood and skin and bones
With a mind that's weak and a back that's strong

Refrain =
You load sixteen tons, what do you get
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don' cha call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store

Verse 2 =
I was born one mornin' when the sun didn't shine
I picked up my shovel and walked to the mine
I loaded sixteen tons of number nine coal
And the straw boss said "Well, a-bless my soul"

Refrain =
You load sixteen tons, what do you get
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don' cha call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store

Question 20

Was slavery really eliminated for share croppers, miners, etc., if they “owe their souls to the company store” and, with each passing day, “get deeper in debt”?

Answer 20

Yes and no.

Rape, flogging, killing and wanton acts of sadism were no longer the “order of the day” -- at least not from a legal viewpoint.

But any real hope was still forlorn.

Question 21

How does economic slavery (hopelessly in debt to the company store) compare to America’s modern-day permanent under-caste whose predicament we have studied many times in the past?

Answer 21

What do you think??? Let’s discuss this at our meeting!!!