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Live-tweeting the @UMBCHistory Low Lecture which is also a part of the #UMBCSocSci forum with @marthasjones_
Dr. Michelle Scott is introducing @JohnsHopkins Professor Martha Jones who will be talking about her research, Birthright Citizens: A History of Race and Rights in Antebellum America amazon.com/Birthright-Cit…
The first chapter focuses on the question of who belongs to the country; a question that began well before the Civil War and continues today. The question also has some Baltimore connections. #UMBCSocSci
Last summer, a statute of Roger B. Taney was removed from a Baltimore park. Taney was the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court who rendered the choice in the Dred Scott case. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dred_Scot… 
Jones juxtaposes the Taney monument with the memorial of George Hackett who lived in Baltimore during the early 19th century
Hackett was born to free Black people in the city during the time in which free Black people were disenfranchised. The Constitution identifies who are citizens, the enslaved, and the indigenous. But what about the formerly enslaved?
The MD Constitution also did not provide any clarity. People like Hackett existed in a constitutional limbo.
Free Blacks felt that citizenship could served as a shield. They clung to the natural born citizen clause in the Constitution that applied to presidents. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural-b…
Two forces are working at the same time: colonization and Black laws.
Colonization supporters believed that America was a white country and while the enslaved could look forward freedom...they would also endure exile. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maryland_…
The Black laws consisted of legislation that came out of Annapolis that sought to make life so difficult for free Blacks that would choose to self-deport (sound familiar?)
Hackett obtained a job as a steward aboard the USS Constitution. Life traveling from port to port allowed George to obtain a legal education. Sailors (regardless of race) were able to testify in court.
Sailors also had to carry a legal document that identified them as a US sailor. However, in ports like Norfolk and Charleston, would not allow sailors of color to disembark. The Supreme Court ruled that despite the legal document, the free Black sailors were not citizens.
Hackett returns to Baltimore, where the challenges for free Black ppl have only gotten worse.
Hackett files a case against John Pitt, a white man, for assaulting him. He is allowed to testify and he wins ($1 in damages). Hackett tested the limits of Black laws, one of which did not allow Black ppl to testify against whites.
During the 1851 MD state convention, the question regarding the status of men like Hackett in the eye of the law. The Convention fails to enact any law that would answer the question, instead punting the question to the state legislature.
In 1859, Hackett appears in bankruptcy court (he was a successful entrepreneur for a period until the 1857 financial crisis). He claims a sort of economic citizenship as he has to identify who he owes debts to and who owes him. He presents himself as a man who has agency.
Jones cites a MD case of Hughes vs. Jackson in which the Dred Scott question of citizenship was brought up. Taney’ argument that free Black people do not have rights a white man should recognize is thought to be applied on the local level as well. scholarship.law.unc.edu/cgi/viewconten…
In 1860, Col. Curtis Jacobs puts forth legislation that free Blacks should voluntarily enslave themselves. Hackett gathers a petition and lobbies the state legislature. There were 90,000 free Blacks in MD. As workers, should they not have the right to protect themselves?
Just a month after Hackett’s death, a national celebration was held in Baltimore to celebrate the passage of the 15th Amendment. In the background, you can see the very courthouse where George enacted his birthright citizenship.
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