In the American slaveholding states before the Civil War, the moral personality of those held in the customary slavery was recognized by jurispru dence and statute to an extent which makes it diffi cult to say whether, there, slaves were by law re garded as things and not legal persons (though sub ject to the laws which regulate the title and trans fer of property), or whether they were still things and property in the same sense and degree in which they were so formerly. Compare laws and authori ties in Cobb's Law of Negro Slavery, ch. iv., v.
The Emancipation Proclamation (January 1, 1863), and the amendments to the constitution of the Unit ed States, have rendered the views entertained on the subject purely speculative, as slavery has ceas ed to exist.
The Emancipation Proclamation was issued by President Lincoln as commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the United States during the ex istence of armed rebellion, and by its terms pur ported to be nothing more than "a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion." By virtue of this power, it was therein ordered and de clared that all persons held as slaves within certain designated states, and parts of states, were and henceforward should be free, and that the executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authoritiee thereof, should rec ognize and maintain the freedom of said persons. The proclamation was not meant to apply to those states or parts of states not in rebellion.
The constitutionality of this measure has been a subject of some doubt, the prevailing opinion being that it, could be supported as a war measure alone, and apply where the slavehoiding territory was ac tually subdued by the military power of the United States ; Slaughter-House Cases, 16 Wall. (U. S.) 68, 21 L. Ed. 394; In South Carolina, it has been held that slavery was not abolished by the Emancipation Proclamation, and the same view was sustained in Texas; Pickett v. Wilkins, 13 Rich. Eq. (S. C.) 366; Hall v. Keese, 31 Tex. 504. In Louisiana, Posey v. Driggs, 20 La. Ann. 199, and Alabama, Morgan v. Nelson, 43 Ala. 592, the opposite view is held. But see McElvain v. Mudd, 44 Ala. 70, 4 Am. Rep. 106. In Mississippi the question of the time when slav ery was abolished is-left open ; Herrod v. Davis, 43 Miss. 102.
The 13th Amendment to the constitution, pro claimed Dec. 18, 1865, was the definite settlement of the question of slavery in the United States. It declares, "1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servi tude, except as a punishment for crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to its jurisdiction. 2. Congress shall have power to en force this article by appropriate legislation." See SLATE ; MANUMISSION.