Update: here's a report (video included!) about our spring "field trip" to what arguably is the birthplace of a "more perfect union" (which just happens to be right down the road from William and Mary Law School).
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This semester, we're teaching a short course at William and Mary Law School (and yes, thanks to a willing administration and student body, we will be back in the fall for the "big" Eminent Domain and Property Rights course).
The title of the spring class is "No Property in Man: Slavery and Antislavery at the Nation's Founding," and the focus of the course is the book by Princeton historian Sean Wilentz from which we filched our title. Professor Wilentz's book is a recounting of the debates surrounding the ratification of the U.S. Constitution and the political atmosphere from the founding until the Civil War.
When we read it last year, it shed some light on the question that we've always had about the place of “property rights” arguments in current discourse. It is often suggested that property rights lack current legitimacy because—at least until the 13th Amendment—such arguments were advanced to support slavery. The book helped us look at that criticism afresh. Professor Wilentz examines the original Constitutional debates over property rights and slavery, and, ultimately, asks whether the Constitution as drafted was a pro- or anti- slavery document. The answer, it turns out, is much more complex than most modern views account for.
Our class is reading the book—and some supplemental materials, including relevant court opinions—and we're delving into the contemporary meaning of private property, and the meaning of property rights.
We highly recommend it. It is relatively short, and a quick read. If, however, you don't have time to read the book, you can listen to Professor Wilentz speaking about it at the National Archives on the video below, or listen to an interview with him about the book on a recent podcast.
Listen to "056 Slavery and Antislavery at the Nation's Founding with Sean Wilentz" on Spreaker.
