“We live in a country where slavery is still legal. Every American is a slave catcher.” Michael Harriot takes a deep dive into the fugitive slave clause in the U.S. Constitution that instructed white Americans to become slave catchers whether they owned slaves or not.
Read full transcript below.
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Michael Harriot [00:00:05] I mean, how can America be a racist place if most people didn’t own slaves? You know that part in the Constitution about Black people being worth 60% of a white person. That was just a political deal between the North and the South. America is not a racist country. Well, that’s why I want to welcome you to theGrio Daily, the only podcast that will explain why every American was a slave catcher. So, you know, when people say, you know, America was built on white supremacy, and America is a racist country. The most common example they use is the 3/5 clause. The clause in the Constitution that says that people who are enslaved are 60% or 3/5 the value of a white person. Now, remember that 3/5 cause it was a political compromise to get the Southern states to cosign the Constitution. And one of the things that we hardly ever point out is that the 3/5 compromise, it was just one racist part. The Constitution that says, aye, we’re not even going to even discuss ending the slave trade until 20 years from now. Right. That was a clause in the Constitution.
Michael Harriot [00:01:30] When they signed the Constitution, they’d know that it would be another generation before they even looked at the issue of slavery. The first generations of Americans were all complicit in slavery because they lived in a country that says, Look, even if we think it’s wrong, they’re still going to be involved in slavery. They’re still going to be part of a slave nation. There was another provision in the Constitution that I think is the most valid argument for why this country was built on white supremacy. And it is the fugitive slave clause. But what the fugitive slave clause does is make every American a slave catcher. You might not all slaves, but if you were American, you had to be a slave catcher. If he believed in the Constitution or had to abide by the Constitution, if you believed in the Bill of Rights, if you believed in the things that this country was founded on, then you conceded that you were a slave catcher. Well, what is the Fugitive Slave Clause? Well, here’s the text. No person held two service or labor in one state under the laws thereof, escaping into another cell in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due. What that means is if you live in a free state, if you live where Black people aren’t enslaved as an American, that American shall not just tell on them, not just comply with the authorities, but that person shall be delivered up on the claim of the party to whom such service or Labor may be do. Every American is a slave catcher.
Michael Harriot [00:03:28] Now, what does that mean in practicality, right? Well, what it means is that it compels Americans to comply with slavery. Everybody. If you moved from Georgia to Massachusetts because you didn’t believe in slavery, you couldn’t get away from it. You were compelled by the Constitution upon which this country was founded to deliver upon claim of the party the person who they enslaved. It didn’t matter. Right. So every American had that duty. Right. That’s what you accepted when you became an American. How did it work? Okay, so here are some examples. There are some great examples. Take Boston for instance. So in Boston, there were abolitionist societies who helped people escape to freedom. But when those people went to court, the abolitionist societies would disappear because they knew that it was their duty as an American to comply. When someone who was a slave owner posited a legal case for that slave. As a matter of fact, here’s how the Fugitive Slave clause came to be. Right. If you notice, like slave, they always say slavery is not in the Constitution. That’s really important in the Fugitive slave clause, because what the Fugitive slave clause originally said was that if a person was legally held to service or labor in one state and the founders didn’t want to put legally held in it, they wanted it to say held in service under the laws of that state. And that’s what they changed it to. Right. So the federal Constitution didn’t approve of slavery. Not Really, though, because what they said is the laws of the state. Now, that’s an important clause. So it seems like a real parsing distinction, but it’s an important clause and here’s why.
Michael Harriot [00:05:31] So if you read the Constitution, all of the stuff in the Constitution that are not written down. All of the rights that you believe a person should have. What the Constitution says is those rights should be given back to the states. But the Constitution doesn’t see the states, right? If you read the Constitution, the people are equivalent with the state. Right. That’s why all rights not enumerated is called the enumeration clause in the Constitution shall be given back to not the states. The states equal the people in the Constitution. That’s the whole claim of states rights advocates. That was the whole claim of segregationists. If the Constitution did forbid it, then states could pass segregation laws, Jim Crow laws, any kind of laws, because those rights were retained by the people. Not the states, they said the people. So if the states have laws that allowed slavery, what they were saying is the people were slave owners. The people, even in free states, have the responsibility to deliver upon the slave owner the person was a fugitive from slavery. Every American was a slave owner. Let’s take that even further past slavery, because, you know, the 13th Amendment did not outlaw slavery. It outlawed involuntary servitude except as punishment for a crime.
Michael Harriot [00:07:13] So even after we outlawed involuntary slavery, involuntary servitude, or what we call slavery, for most people, you could still be enslaved as punishment for a crime. Well, whom writes those laws to punish people for crimes? Who determines that? The people. The states. If you commit a crime under state law, you could be enslaved according to the Constitution, except as punishment for a crime. All Americans are slave owners, right? Because we still punish people and sentenced them to involuntary servitude as a punishment for a crime. But it’s not just state laws. In 1988, right, there was a Supreme Court case called U.S. Versus Kozminski. So these two white dudes had enslaved two mentally challenged Black people on their farm. They paid them $15 a month, which is not pay. And this didn’t happen like right after slavery. This happened in 1988 and they were sentenced for doing it, but not under the constitutional laws. As a matter of fact, they took it to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court says nah, they not enslavesd what U.S. versus Kozminski said was that the jury had been improperly instructed as to the nature of involuntary servitude under the Constitution, because even though they held them against their will, the Constitution allowed them to do that because the men could not understand the law that gave them the rights to be free.
Michael Harriot [00:09:05] So if you don’t know the Constitution, you can be enslaved. That’s a big old loophole, right? That not all situations. So the Supreme Court said which labor is compelled by physical coercion or force of law violate the 13th Amendment. That’s what the Supreme Court of the United States says. We live in a country where slavery is still legal. Every American is a slave catcher. And how does this play out in real-time? Well, think about police. You ever seen a story where the police like to shoot somebody in the back and you wonder, like, why didn’t they just let dude get away? Like, if a dude gets out of a car and runs away from police. Police can shoot them in the back because every American is a slave catcher. If it’s a fugitive, you got it. The Constitution compels you to do that. As a matter of fact, the Constitution makes all of us slave catchers. If you right now or at home and you knew someone who, for instance, was guilty of a crime or escape from prison where they had involuntary servitude, and you would be compelled by law to tell the authorities because you are a slave catcher. You, as an American, are a slave catcher. And that’s why we have conspiracy charges. That’s why we have withholding evidence charges. That’s why the police who were founded as slave catchers, can shoot people in the back because their job has never changed. They are slave catchers. And we got to catch them slaves and send them to the slave camps that we call prisons. Why do I call prisons slave camps? Because except in the commission of a crime, they can be enslaved. There’s that big ol’ loophole again.
[00:11:00] And that’s why every American is a slave catcher. That’s why you have to pay taxes to support institutions which enslaved people. And that’s why you got to keep listening to theGrio daily. That’s why you got to tell your friends about this podcast, this why you got to download that Grio app. And that’s why we did every episode with a Black saying. And today’s Black saying is, “Slavery ain’t legal anymore unless, of course, it is.” We’ll see you next time on theGrio Daily. If you like what you heard, please give us a five star review. Download theGrio app, Subscribe to the show and to share it with everyone you know. Please email all questions, suggestions, and compliments to podcasts at theGrio dot com.
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