I believe it is not, because "penumbras" are in the eye of the beholder."
Well, first of all -- isn't it just amazing how DiogenesLamp has defended "eye of the beholder" from the roof-tops for his alleged unlimited "right of secession" at pleasure.
Now suddenly "eye of the beholder" is a bad thing when it relates to abolition in Massachusetts.
Second, the real point here -- because DiogenesLamp has never studied even a word of real history, his brain is a total fact-free zone and literally nothing he posts can be taken at face value.
In this case, the whole idea of "penumbras" and the Mass supreme court is just fantasy.
In fact it was ordinary courts with jury findings & awards, based on the Mass constitution's "All men are created free and equal" which rendered slavery in Massachusetts impossible to enforce and slaverholders liable to suits for damages.
In 1781 a Massachusetts county court judge instructed the jury in a slavery case:
- "As to the doctrine of slavery and the right of Christians to hold Africans in perpetual servitude, and sell and treat them as we do our horses and cattle, that (it is true) has been heretofore countenanced by the Province Laws formerly, but nowhere is it expressly enacted or established.
It has been a usage – a usage which took its origin from the practice of some of the European nations, and the regulations of British government respecting the then Colonies..."
The Mass Supreme Court did rule in a different case when the chief justice charged the jury:
- "Without resorting to implication in constructing the constitution [iow, no "penumbras"], slavery is ... as effectively abolished as it can be by the granting of rights and privileges wholly incompatible and repugnant to its existence."
In the 1790 census Massachusetts reported no slaves.