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Why Was Slavery Not Constitutional

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This paper will look at two very important issues framing the antebellum period, “Was the abolition of slavery constitutional” and “Was secession constitutional.” I believe that the abolition of slavery was not constitutional. When the Constitution was written in 1787, specific issues pertaining to slavery were mentioned in the document. This is an important point because although the word slavery is not stated, it is clear by the language and the specificity used, the architectures of the Constitution were referring to slaves. Therefore, if the Constitution refers to slaves, then the only way to end slavery, would be to change the Constitution. Three Articles / Sections that refer to slavery specific items are located in Article I, Section 2, pertaining to how state representation would work; Article I, Section 9, referring to the taxing and prohibiting Congress from stopping the importation of slaves for 20 years; and Article IV, Section 2, with the establishment of a Fugitive Slave Clause. ARTICLE I, SECTION 2: Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, …show more content…

One of the first stumbling blocks was how small states would be represented. The Compromise worked out was for the House of Representatives to be based upon population and the Senate to be equal among the states. This was very important because it would both affect the number of electoral votes and taxes paid to the federal government. With so many slaves in the South, the issue was, “should slaves be counted?” It was agreed upon that that slaves would be counted as three-fifths a person for both representation and taxation and clarifies adding whole numbers of free persons and three-fifths of all other persons. This statement refers to

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As mentioned in the module, "Lecture Notes for Chapter 2 The Constitution", the Three-Fifths Compromise or "the three-fifths rule", was put into motion as a way to appease Northern delegates while also preventing the Southern delegates from leaving the convention. The compromise ultimately states, "The three-fifths meant that the House of Representatives and the electoral college would be apportioned in part of the basis of property--specifically, property in slaves" (Bardes, Shelley, Schmidt 42-43). In other words, this referred to slaves in that each one would be counted as three fifths of a person, which benefited slave owners the most as that meant they would have more people from the South when it came to determining the representation in Congress. which is how the interests of Southern states were addressed.

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The 3/5ths compromise The smaller states wanted more representation in the house but the north argued that if blacks weren 't allowed to vote and didn 't have rights they shouldn 't be counted towards house seats. The compromise stated that every slave counted as 3/5ths of a person towards house

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As leaders of the nascent nation entered the Constitutional Convention of 1787, they aimed to unify the country under a set of common laws and values. During this process, the delegates were divided on the topic of slavery, in terms of how it would affect the way states were represented in Congress and how states were taxed by the national government. After many proposals, the delegates arrived at the three-fifths compromise, which valued slaves as 3/5th of free persons for the purposes of representation and taxation. If a true compromise is an agreement in which the parties involved make equal concessions, then the three-fifths compromise was not a true compromise because it favored the South by giving it disproportionate power in the national

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The founders still allowed slavery to happen during the American Revolution. The founders were George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, John Jay, and Alexander Hamilton. They had a variety of personal beliefs regarding different political and social problems during the Revolution. The founders believed in deism which started to develop during the Enlightenment, and the founders became influenced by deism since it changed their mindsets on different issues. In addition, they believed that everyone was created equal and deserved the natural rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

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Are “all men created equal”? Why did the Constitution allow slavery to continue? The framers of the Constitution allowed slavery to continue because of political, economic, and social issues. They wanted their nation to be unified and the number of states to stay intact. They wanted to secure wealth and slavery was a great part of their economy.

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On September 2nd, 1862, Abraham Lincoln famously signed the Emancipation Proclamation. After that, there’s been much debate on whether Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation truly played a role in freeing the slaves with many arguments opposing or favoring this issue. In Vincent Harding’s essay, The Blood-red Ironies of God, Harding argues in his thesis that Lincoln did not help to emancipate the slaves but that rather the slaves “self-emancipated” themselves through the war. On the opposition, Allen C Guelzo ’s essay, Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation: The End of Slavery in America, argues in favor of the Emancipation Proclamation and Guelzo acknowledges Lincoln for the abolishment of slavery through the Emancipation Proclamation.

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The Constitution was created “to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty,” and from this Douglass concluded that it “could not well have been designed at the same time to maintain and perpetuate a system of rapine and murder like slavery.” Slavery goes against all of the principles promised by the preamble of the Constitution, and therefore can be used as a means to abolish slavery since it goes against the country’s principle

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As we look back in our past, we were always disgusted and disappointed in the grim history of slavery. In the year of Constitutional Convention, slavery is a common practice. It can be inherited and trade. When the 55 delegates gathered in Philadelphia to revise the Articles of Confederation, five issues arise, and these issues defined what America is, now.

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Another major debate during the Constitutional Convention was whether or not the slaves should count towards representation in Congress. While most Northern states wanted to abolish slavery completely, the South wanted them to count towards representation, to allow them for more representatives. The North argued that if slaves could not vote, they should not count, while the South debated against this. In the end, the Three Fifths Compromise was suggested and accepted. This Compromise stated that each slave would count as three-fifths of a free white male.

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The three-fifths clause was the most important constitutional compromise because it granted the Southern states more political authority, which the Southerners then used to maintain slavery as an institution in the upcoming decades. The three-fifths clause made it so that three-fifths of a state’s slave population would be used in order to decide how many electoral votes and how many representatives a state could have. It was a compromise between the South (which relied on slaves for its economy) and the North (which had fewer slaves) for the sake of political unity. This clause guaranteed Southern states more political power than Northern States through votes or representation, so that laws would pass that allowed slavery to continue and flourish.

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One of the compromises made in the Constitutional Convention is the three-fifths compromise. In this compromise, the southerners wanted to add slaves to the population of the state they lived in. If slaves were included in their state’s population, that state would be able to add more representatives in the House of Representatives. Northerners did not agree with that statement because slaves did not have the right to vote. After the delegates compromised, they agreed that only three-fifths of the slave’s population would be counted into the state’s population.

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As a slave state in the South, we are very well versed in the treatment and necessity a slave plays in Southern culture. However, slavery has recently taken a dip in economic prosperity due to the lifeless soil in the South. Slavery is declining and we cannot continue to support a system that is not only inhumane but also economically fighting an uphill battle. Representing one of the five delegates of the state of Delaware, it is my sole purpose to abolish slavery due to its weakness, much like the Articles of Confederation. The whole state of Delaware has actually taken the initiative to frame a constitution rooted from the immorality of slavery and the economic depression it currently faces [1].

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This statement is also referred

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Slavery in the U.S. Constitution After the Unites States declared Independence from Great Britain in 1776, they greatly feared a strong national government that would be like a monarchy like the one Great Britain had. To prevent this tyrannical government from happening in the U.S., a convention of delegates from all thirteen states were brought together to create the U.S.’s first written constitution: the Articles of Confederation. This convention was called the Continental Congress. The Articles of Confederation focused on having a federal government, or a loose alliance of the states.

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Introduction: During the 1800’s, Slavery was an immense problem in the United States. Slaves were people who were harshly forced to work against their will and were often deprived of their basic human rights. Forced marriages, child soldiers, and servants were all considered part of enslaved workers. As a consequence to the abolition people found guilty were severely punished by the law.

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