{"id":35,"date":"2021-06-18T14:24:56","date_gmt":"2021-06-18T14:24:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/teagle-rickert\/?page_id=35"},"modified":"2021-07-07T17:54:11","modified_gmt":"2021-07-07T17:54:11","slug":"us-constitution-on-slavery-and-constitutional-convention-1787","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/teagle-rickert\/us-constitution-on-slavery-and-constitutional-convention-1787\/","title":{"rendered":"US Constitution on Slavery"},"content":{"rendered":"

Division of the Framers over Slavery<\/strong><\/p>\n

The US Constitution originally excluded the word \u201cslavery.\u201d Several clauses of the original document concerned slavery, but the Framers went out of their way \u2013sometimes quite awkwardly\u2014to avoid mentioning the word.\u00a0 Article 1, Section 2 included the phrase, \u201cthree-fifths of all other persons.\u201d\u00a0 Article 1, Section 9 addressed the \u201cMigration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit.\u201d\u00a0 Article 4, Section 2 offered some rules about returning runaways that began, \u201cNo Person held to Service or Labour in one State.\u201d\u00a0 However, the 1787 debates in Philadelphia included slavery explicitly many times. The assigned excerpts include some notes from a speech by John Dickinson on slavery from July 9 and other passages from James Madison\u2019s notes on the general discussion from August 22<\/a>.\u00a0 That day alone, various Framers mentioned \u201cslaves\u201d or \u201cslavery\u201d at least 42 times, according to Madison.<\/p>\n

\"Dickinson\"<\/a>

John Dickinson (Deleware.gov)<\/p><\/div>\n

Dickinson\u2019s speech from July 9th<\/a> included the word \u201cslave\u201d three times as he emphasized the charges of hypocrisy that would be leveled at the Americans from around the word by their unwillingness to confront the evils of slavery in their new constitution.\u00a0 Dickinson had been a large slaveholder in Delaware, but he had also started the manumission or freedom for his slaves a decade prior in 1777. As a student enrolled at Dickinson College, I am proud of his evolving anti-slavery position, but also discouraged because of his previous ownership of up to sixty enslaved people. I wonder if Dickinson felt ashamed of his own slave ownership when he asserted that the country should feel ashamed of the institution.<\/p>\n

Madison\u2019s notes on August 22 covered a debate over possible restrictions on the African slave trade. Five different delegates used the word \u201cslavery\u201d that day.\u00a0 Roger Sherman from Connecticut was clear in his denunciation of the kidnapping of African lives but also stated that it would be \u201cexpedient\u201d not to ruin the convention over arguments about it.\u00a0 He claimed \u201cthe abolition of Slavery seemed to be going on in the U. S. & that the good sense of the several States would probably by degrees complete it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sherman didn\u2019t say so directly, but he seemed worried that too much anti-slavery in 1787 would drive away the Southern delegates.\u00a0 Charles Pinckney from South Carolina made statements that conveyed some of Sherman\u2019s points.\u00a0 He defended the existence of slavery, claiming, \u201cIn all ages one half of mankind have been slaves,\u201d but also stated that if South Carolina was \u201clet alone\u201d to decide on the fate of the African slave trade, he would vote to prohibit it.\u00a0 Pinckney\u2019s second cousin and fellow South Carolina delegate, General Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, went much further.\u00a0 He not only defended the rights of southern states, but also justified the slave trade partly because of its economic benefit for the entire nation. The general was eleven years older. Not only did I find the defense of slavery bleak, but also the Constitution\u2019s purposeful ambiguity that devalues the ownership of human beings in contrast to the convention\u2019s frequent mentioning of slavery.<\/p>\n

By Nick Rickert, June 2021<\/strong><\/p>\n