William Costin

William "Billy" Costin
Born Abt 1780
Died May 31, 1842
Ethnicity African-American
Citizenship Free slave
Known for Early civil rights
Home town Mount Vernon, Virginia U.S.
Spouse(s) Philadelphia "Delphy" Judge

William "Billy" Costin (c. 1780 - May 31, 1842) was a possibly free African-American activist and scholar who successfully challenged District of Columbia slave codes in the Circuit Court of the District of Columbia.[1][2]

Early life

Costin was raised at the Mount Vernon plantation owned by George Washington on the Potomac River in Fairfax County, Virginia.[2]

Costin’s legal status as "free" or "enslaved" is debated by historians, as is the identity of his true father. He may have been the son of Martha Washington's brother, and thus her nephew, or John Parke ("Jacky") Custis, Martha's son, and thus her grandson (even if unrecognized).[3]

Career

Around 1800, Costin moved from Mount Vernon to Washington City, what later became known as Washington, D.C. In 1812, Costin built a house on A Street South and raised a large family.[4][5][6]

From 1818, Costin worked as a porter of the Bank of Washington.[2]

Also in 1818, Costin helped start a school for African-American children, which his daughter, Louisa Parke Costin (c. 1804-October 31, 1831), eventually led.[7]

In the August 1835 Snow Riot, a white mob burning abolitionist institutions and those associated with free blacks, spared the school.[8]

Legal challenge

Opposition to Surety Bond Law

In 1821, Costin’s legal challenge to anti-African surety bond measures adopted in Washington, D.C., resulted in a District of Columbia Circuit Court opinion exempting those living in the District prior to the law's enactment.[1] The law required free African-Americans to post a twenty dollar cash bond and references of white neighbors to guarantee peaceful behavior. Costin refused to comply, and appealed his five dollar fine.

In the case, Chief Justice William Cranch, nephew of second U.S. President John Adams, accepted that the City charter authorized it "to prescribe the terms and conditions upon which free Negroes and mulattoes may reside in the city."[1]

In asking to strike the law entirely, Costin unsuccessfully argued that Congress could not delegate powers to the city that were unconstitutional, and that "the Constitution knows no distinction of color."[2][9]

Chief Justice Cranch defended the peace-bond law by pointing to certain barriers in the state voting and jury laws of the time, writing: "It is said that the constitution gives equal rights to all the citizens of the United States, in the several states. But that clause of the constitution does not prohibit any state from denying to some of its citizens some of the political rights enjoyed by others. In all the states certain qualifications are necessary to the right of suffrage; the right to serve on juries, and the right to hold certain offices; and in most of the states the absence of the African color is among those qualifications."[10]

Personal life

Marriage

In 1800, Costin married Philadelphia "Delphy" Judge (c. 1779-December 13, 1831), the younger sister of Oney "Ona" Maria, known as Oney Judge(c.1773—February 25, 1848), both of whom were daughters of Betty Davis (c. 1760-c. 1820, dates uncertain), and were so-called "dower" slaves of Martha Washington at Mount Vernon.[11][12][13][14]

According to Virginia estate law, the dower slaves passed to the Custis children upon Martha’s death.

By 1807, Costin had purchased from Thomas Law (October 23, 1756 – July 31, 1834) the freedom of his wife, mother, and other family members who had been enslaved at Mt. Vernon.[15] Law was the husband of Elizabeth ("Eliza") Parke Custis Law (August 21, 1776 –December 31, 1831), who inherited them at the death of her grandmother, Martha Washington.[16]

Costin remained in cordial contact with the Custis family throughout his life. In 1835, George Washington Parke Custis, Eliza’s brother, supported Costin's side business driving a horse-and-buggy taxi.[17]

Funeral

Costin's funeral on June 4, 1842 was attended by U.S. Attorney and national anthem composer Francis Scott Key.[18]

The funeral was notable for the long line of hansom cabs driven by Costin's friends.[19] Also notable was the fact that an estimated 70 carriages were part of the funeral procession, and included both white as well as black mourners, as well as a horseback processional.[20]

References

  1. 1 2 3 United States (1894). "Costin v. Washington (Case No. 3,266) - Oct. Term, 1821". The Federal Cases: Comprising Cases Argued and Determined in the Circuit and District Courts of the United States (PDF). St. Paul: West Pub. Co. pp. 612–614. OCLC 228786185. Retrieved 1 February 2016.
  2. 1 2 3 4 "Historical Information About the Courts of the D.C. Circuit: 1800: An Early Civil Rights Victory in a D.C. Court". Historical Society of the District of Columbia Circuit. Retrieved 1 February 2016.
  3. ↑ Feagin, Joe R. (2006). Systemic Racism: A Theory of Oppression. New York: Routledge. pp. ix, 110. ISBN 978-0-415-95277-4. OCLC 61285498. Retrieved 1 February 2016.
  4. ↑ "William Caustin - United States Census, 1820". FamilySearch. Retrieved 1 February 2016. The 1820 U.S. Census for Washington, D.C., records "William Caustin" as having eight African-Americans in his family, including one female slave over age forty-five
  5. ↑ "Wm Costin - United States Census, 1830". FamilySearch. Retrieved 2 February 2016. The 1830 U.S. Census for Washington, D.C., records "Wm. Costin" living in the Fourth Ward, in a family of eleven: his wife, plus two sons and seven females (consisting of four daughters and three adopted daughters)
  6. ↑ "Wm Costin - United States Census, 1840". FamilySearch. Retrieved 2 February 2016. By the 1840 U.S. Census, the Costin family has grown to eleven members.
  7. ↑ "The First Colored Public School". National Republican (Washington, D.C.). May 8, 1876. p. 1. Retrieved 2 February 2016. Original notice appearing in Daily National Intelligencer, August 29, 1818: opening of the "Resolute Beneficial Society School," William Costin, president; George Hicks, vice president; James Harris, secretary; George Bell, treasurer; Archibald Johnson, marshal
  8. ↑ Barnard, Henry (1870). "Schools of the Colored Population: Louisa Parke Costin's School". The American Journal of Education (Hartford, CT: F.C. Brownell) 19. OCLC 70680208.
  9. ↑ Cranch, William (1852). Reports of Cases Civil and Criminal In the United States Circuit Court of the District of Columbia, from 1801 to 1841 (Volume 6: General Index ed.). Boston: Little, Brown and Co. pp. ii, xii, 254, 95, 287. OCLC 499510728. Retrieved 2 February 2016.
  10. ↑ Noel, F. Regis (1922). "Some Notable Suits in Early District Courts". Records of the Columbia Historical Society, Washington, D.C. (Historical Society of Washington, D.C.) 24: 67–88. Retrieved 2 February 2016.
  11. ↑ Provine, Dorothy S. (1996). District of Columbia Free Negro Registers, 1821-1861. Bowie, MD: Heritage Books. p. 52. ISBN 978-0-788-40506-8. OCLC 35793874. Costin married one of Martha Washington’s slaves and his cousin, who was bequeathed by Martha to her granddaughter, Eliza Parke Custis, the wife of Thomas Law.
  12. ↑ Green, Constance McLaughlin (1967). The Secret City: A History of Race Relations in the Nation's Capital. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-00568-3. OCLC 53290346.
  13. ↑ Robinson, Henry S. (Spring 1969). "Some Aspects of the Free Negro Population in Washington, D.C., 1800-1862". Maryland Historical Magazine 64.
  14. ↑ Williams, George Washington (1968). History of the Negro Race in America. New York: Bergman Publishers. p. 193. OCLC 558191677. Retrieved 2 February 2016. In 1800, he married Philadelphia Judge (his cousin)
  15. ↑ Adams v. Law, 58 U.S. 417 (1854)(estate case details family history); and Thomas Law Family Papers, 1791-1834, Maryland Historical Society.
  16. ↑ "Martha Washington’s Black Sister," Stories from American History blog, June 16, 2012, citing Henry Wiencek, An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation of America (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003), pp. 84-86, 282-290 ("Once George and Martha were both dead and Ann was in her forties, she came into the possession of Martha’s granddaughter, Eliza Custis Law. Eliza and her husband, Thomas Law, were uniquely sensitive to the plight of mixed-race people, for Thomas, before marrying Eliza, had been an official of the East India Company, and had three half-Indian sons. Upon inheriting ownership of Ann Dandridge in 1802, the Laws freed her almost immediately. Five years later, they emancipated all Ann’s children, her grandchildren, and William Costin’s wife [Philadelphia Judge].")
  17. ↑ Check on Bank of the Metropolis for $27, from George W.P. Custis to William Costin, June 5, 1834, The Washington Library, Mt. Vernon; and see, Papers of George Washington Parke Custis, Note to Bank to pay $10 to William Costin, April 5, 1836.
  18. ↑ Marc Leepson, What So Proudly We Hailed: Francis Scott Key, a Life (Macmillan, 2014), pp. 196-97 (At Costin’s funeral, attended by Key, "a reporter counted more than seventy carriages.") (Google e-Book)
  19. ↑ The Sun (Baltimore, MD), June 1, 1842, vol XI, iss 10, pg 4 (Death of William Costin at age 65 at the Bank of Washington: "Perhaps no individual of his color and circumstances was ever more highly esteemed than William Costin."); Commercial Advertiser (New York, NY), June 2, 1842, vol XL, pg 2 (William Costin dies in his sleep, May 30–31, 1842, at age 62, having served 24 years as porter at the Bank of Washington)
  20. ↑ Emancipator and Free American (Boston, MA), June 9, 1842, pg 22

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