Alice Clifton's Trial

On April 18th 1788, Alice Clifton, a seventeen year old enslaved girl, was tried in court for the supposed murder of her newborn child. Witnesses claimed that Alice had slit the child's throat and hid its body in a box. When questioned by witnesses as to why she would kill her infant child Alice stated that she didn’t want the baby to cry. Upon further questioning Alice revealed that the child’s father, a married white man named John Shaffer, instructed her to do so, and in exchange he would marry Clifton and free her from her servitude. According to the record, the child was conceived the first time that Alice was "debauched" by Shaffer. Ultimately, Clifton was found guilty and sentenced to death that same year.

One month after Alice Clifton was sentenced, the constitutional convention of 1787 was held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, from which the U.S. constitution was formed. The constitution included several articles pertaining to slavery, such as Article 1 section 2 clause 3, the three fifths compromise, in which enslaved people were considered to be three fifths of a person for the purpose of determining the number of seats held by a state in the House of Representatives. Similarly, although Alice Clifton is tried as a human would be, her humanity is also denied at the same time, as she was not allowed to represent herself during her trial.  

Alice Clifton, although her sentencing was eventually overturned, was notably dehumanized throughout the course of her trial. Not only was she was not allowed to represent herself during her trial, but the chief justice externalized his own bigotry by announcing to the jury, "so far as her efforts could effect [the infant's] destruction, [Clifton] exerted them unpitying, and void of maternal affection" (The Trial of Alice Clifton). 

John Shaffer was never accused or held to trial for the death of the infant, even though he was a married who impregnated her, and testimonies held Shaffer equally as likely to be accountable for the possible murder of their newborn, or an accomplice to it.

This systematic application of discriminatory prosecuting finds itself nestled next to the Muhlenberg family, of whom one of was Henry's son, Peter Muhlenberg. Peter, after a successful military career, became a Congressman and eventual Senator, adding to the Muhlenberg's name and local impact. Even from a place of influence himself, Henry Muhlenberg was unable to materially do something about the white supremacist systems that he begins to deride in his personal journal entries, despite being an admired Reverend and father to an important political figure.