Quock Walker, the Massachusetts Constitution and the Abolition of Slavery in Maine
In 1780, when the Massachusetts Constitution went into effect, slavery was legal in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, of which Maine was a part until 1820. During the years 1781 to 1783, in three related cases known today as “the Quock Walker case,” the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court applied the principle of judicial review to abolish slavery. In doing so, the Court held that laws and customs that sanctioned slavery were incompatible with the new state constitution. In the words of then-Supreme Judicial Court Chief Justice William Cushing: “[S]lavery is in my judgment as effectively abolished as it can be by the granting of rights and privileges [in the constitution] wholly incompatible and repugnant to its existence.”
African slaves first arrived in Massachusetts in the 1630’s, and slavery was legally sanctioned in 1641. During the colonial era, numerous laws were passed regulating movement and marriage among slaves, and Massachusetts residents actively participated in the slave trade. Historians estimate that between 1755 and 1764, the Massachusetts slave population was approximately 2.2 percent of the total population; the slave population was generally concentrated in the industrial and coastal towns.
The Quock Walker case — actually a series of three cases — began as a freedom suit based on a promise of freedom or manumission, but resulted in a sweeping declaration by Supreme Judicial Court Chief Justice William Cushing that the institution of slavery was incompatible with the principles of liberty and legal equality articulated in the new Massachusetts Constitution.
The 1790 census recorded no slaves in Massachusetts, but historians disagree over the role of the Quock Walker case in abolishing slavery in Massachusetts (which, again, included Maine). The case was not widely reported, and changing economic conditions and public opinion increasingly hostile to slavery doubtless played an important role in slavery’s demise. However, after the Quock Walker case, it was clear that a local (i.e. in-state) slave owner would not prevail in the state courts. This, in turn, “undermined whites’ confidence in their property rights in slaves, and . . . emboldened enslaved persons of color to demand manumission or wage compensation from their owners – [or] simply to walk away from them.” As historian John Cushing concluded, there is “ample evidence” that the Quock Walker cases were a significant step toward the end of slavery in Massachusetts.
The above account was excerpted from a webpage of Mass.gov that was focusing on the role of the Massachusetts judiciary. The complete account is available at https://www.mass.gov/guides/massachusetts-constitution-and-the-abolition-of-slavery
Wikipedia notes (at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quock_Walker):
The Quock Walker case is credited with helping abolish slavery in Massachusetts, although the 1780 state constitution was never amended to prohibit the practice explicitly. State legislators were unable or unwilling to address either enslavers’ concerns about losing their “investment” or white citizens’ concerns that if slavery were abolished, formerly enslaved people could become a burden on the community. Some feared that escaped enslaved people from elsewhere would flood the state.
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decisions in Walker v. Jennison and Commonwealth v. Jennison established the basis for ending slavery in Massachusetts on constitutional grounds. Still, no law or amendment to the state constitution was passed. Instead, slavery gradually ended “voluntarily” in the state over the next decade. The decisions in the Elizabeth Freeman and Quock Walker trials had removed slavery’s legal support, and it was said to end by erosion. Some enslavers manumitted the people they enslaved formally and arranged to pay them wages for continued labor. Other enslaved people were “freed” but were restricted as indentured servants for extended periods. Massachusetts was the first U.S. state to effectively and fully abolish slavery.