We shouldnโ€™t need to ask

Facts: Pennsylvania’s 1780 Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery predated the Constitution by 7 years. It predated Lincoln’s emancipation proclamation by 83 years and it predated the 13th amendment by 85 years. Pennsylvania’s emancipation act also...

Jonathan Bean on Lysander Spooner

Recently, I wrote about Lysander Spooner’s dubious argument that the unamended Constitution as originally ratified prohibited slavery in a book review I did for The New American. Jonathan Bean, Research Fellow at the Independent Institute and professor of...