Estranged Fruit: The Reconstruction Amendments, Moral Slavery, and the Rearticulation of Lesbian and Gay Identity

Authors

E. Nathaniel Gates, Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law

Abstract

David A.J. Richards has composed a thoughtful and suggestive narrative that centers on the excavation of the antislavery constitutionalism forged by a small, but arguably influential, group of antebellum abolitionist feminists. Central to his narrative, and to the constitutional theses of the abolitionist feminists, is the concept of "moral slavery" which, on Richards' account, constitutes a crucial element of the hermeneutic background essential to a proper interpretation of the Reconstruction Amendments. According to Professor Richards, an understanding of the figure of the abolitionist feminist as a "multiple exile and outcast" who in opposing "moral slavery" played a vital role in "deepening and expanding our collective understanding of human rights," will do much to deepen our appreciation of the importance of political engagement in clearing the necessary social space for the cultivation of doctrinal change. He also suggests that our appropriation and use of the contestational commitment of abolitionist feminists as a model for present day social engagement and agitation will serve to lend vigor and "moral integrity" to progressive "gender" and "sexual orientation" related litigation strategies, as well as their underlying constitutionalism.

Keywords

Sexuality and the Law, Slavery, Race and Ethnicity Issues, Gender and the Law, Civil Rights, Feminism, Human Rights Law

Disciplines

Civil Rights and Discrimination | Human Rights Law | Law | Law and Gender | Law and Race | Sexuality and the Law

Recommended Citation

E. N. Gates, Estranged Fruit: The Reconstruction Amendments, Moral Slavery, and the Rearticulation of Lesbian and Gay Identity, 18 Cardozo L. Rev. 845 (1996).
Available at: https://larc.cardozo.yu.edu/clr/vol18/iss2/22