Until Justice Be Done: America's First Civil Rights Movement, from the Revolution to Reconstruction

by Kate Masur

Beyond insisting that Black sailors from Massachusetts were citizens of the state and therefore entitled to the state’s protection, the petitioners argued that southern state policies violated the US Constitution in two specific ways: First, the policies contradicted the preamble, which held that the government of the United States was designed to “establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.” It was difficult, however, to demonstrate that the preamble was on their side. It did mention “liberty” and “justice,” but it also bolstered more security-based visions of government with its allusions to “defence” and “the general welfare.” Their other constitutional argument was stronger and more common among people of their political bent. Racially discriminatory laws, they insisted, subjected “a portion of our fellow citizens of this Commonwealth … to heavy losses, cruel treatments, and even to the deprivation of their liberty for life.” Such laws violated the privileges and immunities clause, “which explicitly provides, that ‘the citizens of each state shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States.’