미국의 노예제폐지운동과 헌법: 라이샌더 스푸너의 헌법해석

This article focused on Lysander Spooner’s interpretation of the Constitution about American slavery. In 1845 Spooner published The Unconstitutionality of Slavery that had challenged Garrisonians who had insisted the U.S. Constitution was a proslavery document. William Lloyd Garrison had deemed the Constitution “a covenant with death and an agreement with hell.” He also believed that “the U.S. government is an evil” because it was also founded on the Constitution. Thus, Garrisonians were opposed to political participation and the Liberty Party, which was founded by so-called political abolitionists in 1840. By that time, Spooner’s The Unconstitutionality of Slavery explained that the Constitution did not sanction that slavery had justified political participation of the political abolitionists like James G. Birney, Gerrit Smith, the Tappan brothers, etc. In spite of Spooner’s influence on the abolitionist movement, there were only a few studies on The Unconstitutionality of Slavery. Thus, this article tried to reexamine the importance of this book and Spooner himself as an abolitionist and constitutionalist. For this purpose, firstly, this article describes his life and activities. Also, it examines his interpretation of the Constitution, which suggested in detail that it was not proslavery document. Finally, this article compares the interpretations of Spooner and Wendell Phillips who was a main defender of Garrisonians’ proslavery interpretation of the Constitution.