What do you mean we need to end slavery in Wisconsin?
|
The Wisconsin Constitution today retains in its declaration of rights section the original language from 1848 prohibiting slavery and involuntary servitude except as punishment for crime. The language tracks language in the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, which governed the territory before Wisconsin became a state. The exception and a provision in the Ordinance requiring the return of escaped slaves were concessions to southern slave states.
This repugnant exception from more than 235 years ago needs to go. The continued presence in the Wisconsin Constitution of permission for any form of legal slavery, almost 170 years after the end of the Civil War, is unacceptable. The Constitution must be amended to correct this significant flaw to uphold the basic human dignity of all people and to protect those incarcerated today who face mandatory work assignments or discipline for refusing work orders. State leaders should have amended the Constitution long ago to delete the exception. Today's legislators need to do so. In December 2023 and January 2024, a group of Wisconsin legislators introduced Senate Joint Resolution 95 and Assembly Joint Resolution 102 to right this wrong. Neither proposed resolution even received a committee hearing. You can help correct this defect in the document that forms the basis for our state's government and laws by contacting your legislators and asking them to sponsor, introduce, and support new resolutions in the 2025 legislative session. The Wisconsin Constitution should ban slavery in all its forms and in all circumstances. |
The Wisconsin Constitution displayed in the Capitol rotunda
A portion of SJR 95, introduced in Dec. 2023
|