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The Constitution does not use the term slavery, but there are provisions in the Constitution that while not authorizing, did recognize slavery. Some argue that the Constitution was a pro-slavery document. Actually it was an anti-slavery document. The Constitution did not abolish slavery. This would have split the country and created an independent South six decades before the Civil War. There are three provisions of the Constitution that deal directly with slavery. And none of them are precisely what the Slave Power--despite the fact that six of the 13 colonies were southern slave states and slavery was legal in the northern states. The anti slavery provisions included: First, an arrangement written in to the Constitution by which for voting purposes slaves would be counted as three-fifths (3/5s) of a person. The Woke Generation see this as insulting and not recognizing the humanity of African Americans. In fact, it limited the voting power of what became the Slave Power in the House of Representatives. And it would in the House during the Antebellum period that slavery would be first challenged. Second, The Constitution also included a provision authorizing Congress to end the African slave trade. And this step was taken by Congress as soon as allowed with little opposition. Third, there was a fugitive slave provision--although the term slave was not used. This was a provision the Southern delegated demanded and would not compromise on.
The Constitution did not abolish slavery. This would have split the country and created an independent South six decades before the Civil War. The Constitution was a compromise document between the northern and southern states. The southern states insistent on maintaining slavery. The northern states attemoting to limit its spread. The delegates agreed on euphemisms which permitted the political compromise while avoiding any kind of direct moral endorsement of slavery. If Northern delegates has insisted on abolition there could have been no agreement on a Constitution thus would have been no United States. One has to ask how that would have impacted both Black people and world history. Given the central role America played, a weakened North and a fervent racist slave south would have meant a very different 20th century. Many Delegates including southern delegates at Philadelphia believed that slavery was a dying institution. The primary plantation crop at the time was tobacco which over times impacts and exhausts the productivity of he soil. Thus it seemed likely that slavery based on plantation agriculture would disappear and that the South would more likely like the North developed on the basis of the family farm. 【Brands】 It much be understood that at the time the Constitution was ratified, cotton was not an important crop in the South. Wile a valuable commodity, the laborious problem of removing the seeds from the bolls made it an uneconomic to produce. The framers had no way of knowing that only 4 years after ratification of the Constitution that Eli Whitney would invent the cotton gin and not only revitalize plantation slavery, but give it an economic power that it had never had before. 【Boyd】 And to fuel this, west of the original southern states lay vast swaths of virgin unexhausted land that could be converted into cotton plantations. Cotton was in great demand because of the industrialization of first Britain and then other European counties--all based at ifrst on cotton textiles. The American South became their primary supplier. Not predicting Whitney's cotton gin can hardly be a fault layed upon the founding fathers.
Many of the founding fathers and the framers in Philadelphia including Gen. Washington had and expressed reservations about slavery in the South and wished that it wished that it would over time die out as it was ding n the North. Thus there was a widespread desire to prevent what might be called a permanent moral stain on the document. Thus it was decided to use oblique lanaguage, eEuphemisms and ambiguity. Slavery could not be ignored entirely, especially i dealing with taxation and voting, the African slave trade, and the service and labor clause. The framers decided to use 'persons' many all inhabitants both free and slave. As a result, the term 'person' is used several times in the Constitution, but never defined. As 'slavery' / 'slave' or 'race' is not mentioned, Backs were assumed in the term person without qualification. When referring to slaves we see 'other persons' being used. Indians are referred to specifically. Indentured servants were once substantial but by the time of the Convention while not diappeared had declined subsantilly. Although often not mentioned by modern left-wing historians anxious to denigrate the Constitution as racist/pro-slavery , this was of huge importance as to the future of Blacks and other minorities in the United States. The Southern slave codes and state constitutions tended to use the term 'people of color' for Blacks and 'persons' for Whites. In contrast, Blacks in the Federal consitutions are included under the term 'persons'.
There are three provisions of the Constitution that deal most directly with slavery. And none of them are precisely what the Slave Power wanted--despite the fact that six of the 13 colonies were southern slave states and slavery was still legal in most of the northern states. Two or anti-slavery and the third did not give the slave states what they wantd. The most imprtant provisions dealing directly with slavery included:
An arrangement was written into the Constitution by which for voting purposes slaves would be counted as three-fifths (3/5s) of a person in both taxatioon ndreporesentation. .The Conitution povides, "Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons." (Article I, Section 2). The Woke Generation see this as insulting and not recognizing the humanity of African Americans which is true enough. But what was important is that it reduced the voting power of what became the Slave Power in the House of Representatives. And it would in the House during the Antebellum period that slavery would be first challenged in America. The ONLY branch of Government where it was challenged. Reducing the voting power of the Slave States tus had a huge impact. Until the elation of Abraham Lincoln (1860), the presidency, Senate, and Supreme Court were all decidedly pro-slavery.
The Constitution also included a provision authorizing Congress to end the African slave trade. While the term slave trade was not used, Congrss was denied the authoirity to impede the import of pesons until 1808. (Article I, Sction 9, Clause 1) Slavery was an issue that could not be resolved at the Constitution Convention (1787). There was agreement on a provision to end the slave trade. The new Constitution declared a provision to end the slave trade after a 20-year period. Congress after an extensive debate did 20 years later passed the Slave Importation Act (1807). The Act became effective in 1808 and prohibited the further importation of slaves. We are not entirely sure of the politics involved. Slavey was imprtant to the southern economy but there was concern in the Souh as to he Black population. And ening the mprtanon increased the value od slaves. As a result this was a slave issue on which he suthern delegates were willig to comprise. President Jefferson's support was critical as 1808 approxhd. There were several provisions to the bill, each hotly debated. There was, however, only minimal enforcement by the U.S. Navy which in 1808 was very small. At the time the U.S. Navy was minuscule and President Jefferson opposed naval shipbuilding. Thus the Federal government did not have a substantial naval force to slave trading. But it was not only the Navy's ability, but the continued support for slavery in the southern states that impaired any effective American action. The Act only affected the slave trade, not slavery itself. Slavery itself was a matter that was the responsibility of each individual state. And this step was taken by Congress as soon as allowed with little opposition. Those determined to label the Constitution as a pro-slavery document label this provision 'pro-slavery'. This is absurd. After millennia of slavery (basically 10,000 years) and centuries of the African slave trade, the concession of 20 years is marginal at best and show the lengths to which woke scholars will go to find something to criticize. The real victory was ending American participation in the slave trade. And it should be pointed out that no other country took this monumental step until America and Britain passed legislation did (1807).
There were fugitive slave provisions in the Constitution--although the term 'slavery' was not used. The U.S. Constitution does not mention slavery. This was a major problem at the Convention. The southern delegates demanded that it be included, but the norther delegates were insistent. There is a prevision for fugitives that is called a fugitive slave provision, but it does not refer to slaves (Article IV, Section 2). Rather than slaves, it refers to 'service or labour'. At the time there were still indentured servants, although slavery was far more important. Important to note here is that the Constitution does not create a Federal police force that would be needed to effectively enforce this. Thus there was no basis for pursing fugitive slaves who reached free states. This was not much of a problem when the Constitution was drafted and ratified there were no free states. As the northern states began abolishing slavery in the early-19th century, it became an increasing problem. As public opinion shifted in the North it became increasingly difficult for slave owners to get their slaves back that made it to a northern free states. There were two Federal Fugitive slave laws. (We do not know about state laws.) The two Federal laws were the 1793 and 1850 Acts. These Acts for the seizure and return of runaway enslaved people who escaped from a their owners into a another state. The southern delegates to the Convention did not get slavery mentioned in the Constitution. They did get a Fugitive Slave Law in 1773. This is a being difference. Laws an be repealed, it is a far more difficult proposition to amend the Constitution. The 1793 law was passed to enforce Article IV, Section 2. It authorizing Federal district judge or circuit court judge or state magistrates to rule without a jury trial the status of an alleged fugitive from indentured service or slavery. This law met with opposition in the Northern states which were beginning recognize the gross moral violation of slavery and this only incensed decade by decade. The northern states began enacting personal-liberty laws to interfere with the enforcement of Federal law. And this began even before abolition laws were passed in the North. The laws were designed to allow fugitives who appealed an original decision to a jury trial. This of course would enable local attitudes toward slavery to impact the decisions on returning slaves to heir owners.
The Bill of Rights (first 10 amendments) were not part of he original Constitution, but were quickly added because the Constitution was criticized in the debate over ratification for not guaranteeing many rights and pillages that had become part of English Common Law. Now in he southern slave codes and antebellum constitutions, many of these rights appear, but they are explicitly granted to freed persons. In the Federal Bill of Rights there is no such limitation.
At the time of the drafting of the Constitution (1787) and its eventual ratification (1789) slavery had been banned by New England states, and Pennsylvania. It had also been banned by the Congress in th e Northwest Territory--the Northwest Ordinance (1787). The Constitution granted Congress the power to make 'all needful rules and regulations' for the territories. The Constitution provides that "The Congress shall have Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to Prejudice any Claims of the United States, or of any particular State." (Article IV, Section 3, Clause 2) This confirms Congress's authority to ban authority. Which it did so with the Northwest Ordinance. This hardly can be classified as a pro-slavery provision. Now Congress chose not to do so in the southern territories, but that can hardly be used to criticize the 1789 Contribution. The framers gave Federal authorities the authority to do so. It is not their fault that antebellum authorities chose not to do so.
We tend to see a very negative assessment of the Constitution from left-wing academics. A good example is the Wikipedia assessment. "Although the original United States Constitution did not contain the words 'slave' or 'slavery' within its text, it dealt directly with American slavery in at least five of its provisions and indirectly protected the institution elsewhere in the document." 【Morgan】 It is true that the term 'slave' and 'slavery' does not appear in the Constitution. This was very important in the fight against slavery during the antebellum period. The only reasonably valid pro-slavery provision is the Service/Labour Clause (Article IV, Section 2). This was essentially a fugitive slave provision. What is almost always missed in the discussion is that the Federal Government did not have a police force and thus no way to enforce this. And we know this was important, because southern officials from the very earliest point in he creation of the Republic pressed for fugitive slave laws. Without an effective fugitive law, there would be the northern glimmer of freedom available to Southern slaves.
Boyd, Krys. "Sons of the founding fathers," Think!" (Podcast). KERA (December 6, 2018).
Brands, H.J.Heirs of the Founders: The Epic Rivalry of Henry Clay, John Calhoun and Daniel Webster: The Second Generation of American Giants (Doubleday: 2018).
Morgan, Kenneth. "Slavery and the debate over ratification of the United States Constitution" Slavery & Abolition (2001) Vol.2, no. 33, pp. 40–65.
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