"Shining the Light" on a Private Matter for the Public Good:The Movement to Repeal the Massachusetts Intermarriage Ban, 1832-1843

by Courtney Williams

May 2006

Abstract:
In the early 19th century, the citizens of Massachusetts were uncertain about the direction of national politics, and abolitionists were acutely aware of existing tensions between states and the federal government over which governing body would have the power to determine and define "citizenship" in the young republic. When Massachusetts abolished slavery in its own state in 1783, black men remained in social, but no longer legal limbo. No longer "slaves," under Massachusetts law, black men were then "citizens" entitled to all the rights therein. When the public movement to repeal the state's intermarriage law was formally launched in 1832, the foundational arguments had already been shaped by the political expressions of both men and women, black and white. Though the movement for the intermarriage repeal was controversial, intertwined with the dynamics of changing racial, gender and political norms, its eventual success in no way indicated public support for interracial sex or marriage. On the contrary, when the movement was just beginning in 1831, interracial mingling, whether it was social or sexual, was relatively unpopular in both the black and white communities of Boston. While the motivation for repealing the law may have been the improvement of the legal and moral standing of Boston's black community, sustained engagement in the cause was determined by the degree to which "citizens" desired and could exercise their right to shape emerging notions of American freedom, citizenship, and equality before the law. The Massachusetts ban on interracial marriage, first drafted in 1705 and then modified in 1786, was a "private" example in a longstanding tradition of the state exercising its power to maintain and enforce racial boundaries for the "public good." When some members of the racially integrated abolitionist movement of Massachusetts decided to "shine the light" on the intimate matter of marriage, they invoked the social, political, cultural, and moral anxieties of a nation. Despite the many challenges the repeal movement faced, its eventual success was due in part to its universal appeal for both the enfranchised and disenfranchised "citizens" of Massachusetts. Between the years of 1831 and 1843, William Lloyd Garrison's abolitionist newspaper the Liberator, contained at least 102 instances of commentary on the Massachusetts Marriage Law. From scores of petitions to legislative debates, the "ordinary citizens" of Massachusetts who participated in the movement to repeal the state's ban on interracial marriage demonstrated their commitment to participate in the constitution of American ideas of freedom, citizenship, and "equality before the law."