Garrison and the Constitution

• William Lloyd Garrison, a 19th-century abolitionist, viewed the Constitution as a terrible bargain between freedom and slavery.
• Garrison labeled the American states' union a "covenant with death" and "agreement with Hell".
• Garrison and his followers did not participate in American electoral politics.
• The slogan "No Union with Slaveholders," was used by Garrisonian abolitionists to repeatedly call for an end to the nation.
• Avoiding the corruption of the proslavery Constitution was a moral principle grounding their disunion sentiments.
• Legal protection of slavery in the Constitution made political activity seem futile.
• Garrisonians believed only moral persuasion could save America from its "covenant with death."

The Convention of 1787

• Garrisonians saw the Constitution as a consequence of political give-and-take.
• Wendell Phillips analyzed the "compromise" between slavery and freedom in his pamphlet The Constitution: A Pro-Slavery Compact.
• Other 19th-century antislavery thinkers disagreed with the Garrisonians.
• Salmon P. Chase, a successful antislavery politician, argued the Constitution was opposed to slavery, although his efforts failed.
• The United States Supreme Court almost always protected slavery in the cases it heard.
• American presidents and their cabinet officers protected slavery in foreign and domestic politics.
• Political abolitionists were frustrated due to the Garrisonians agreeing with their enemies on the meaning of the Constitution.
• Constitution favored slavery.
• The Convention of 1787 explains how.
• The text of the Constitution and surrounding debates aids understanding.
• The "more perfect Union" created by the Constitution was fundamentally imperfect.

Slavery and the Constitution

• The word "slavery" only appears in the Thirteenth Amendment, where the institution is abolished.
• Slaves are called "other persons," "such persons," or "person held to Service or Labour" in the main body of the Constitution.
• Northern delegates to the 1787 Convention thought the word "slave" would "stain" the Constitution.
• Southerners avoided the term so they did not antagonize their colleagues from the North.
• Slavery received explicit and implicit sanction.
• Provisions explicitly sanctioning slavery appear in five places.

Article I, Section 2

• The three-fifths clause provided representation in Congress by counting three-fifths of all slaves.
• If any "direct tax" was levied on the states, it could be imposed only proportionately, according to population.
• Three-fifths of all slaves would be counted in assessing each state's contribution.

Article I, Section 9, Paragraph 1

• The slave importation clause prohibited Congress from banning the African slave trade before 1808.
• Congress was not required to end the trade after that date.

Article I, Section 9, Paragraph 4

• Any "capitation" or other "direct tax" imposed had to take into account the three-fifths clause.
• If a head tax were levied, slaves would be taxed at three-fifths the rate of whites.
• The "direct tax" portion of this clause was redundant because that was provided for in the three-fifths clause.

Article IV, Section 2, Paragraph 3

• The fugitive slave clause prohibited states from emancipating fugitive slaves.
• Runaways were required to be returned to their owners "on demand."

Article V

• This article prohibited any amendment of the slave importation or capitation clauses before 1808.
• The South claimed "special treatment" for its peculiar institution, supported politically by the three-fifths clause.

Indirect Protections

• Five clauses that directly protected slavery were supplemented by numerous other clauses of the Constitution.
• Some indirect protections, like the prohibition on taxing exports, were included primarily to protect the interests of slaveholders.
• Guarantee of federal support to "suppress insurrections" and the creation of the electoral college also written with slavery in mind.
• Some clauses, like the restrictions on federal court jurisdiction, did not inherently favor slavery, but ultimately did protect it .

Article I, Section 8, Paragraph 15

• This empowered Congress to call "forth the Militia" to "suppress Insurrections," including slave rebellions.

Article I, Section 9, Paragraph 5

• Prohibited taxes on exports, preventing an indirect tax on slavery by taxing staple products of slave labor, such as tobacco, rice, and eventually cotton.

Article I, Section 10, Paragraph 2

• Prohibited states from taxing exports.
• This prevented an indirect tax on the products of slave labor by a nonslave-holding state.

Article II, Section 1, Paragraph 2

• Provided for the indirect election of the president through an electoral college based on congressional representation.
• The three-fifths clause was incorporated into the electoral college, giving whites in slave states a disproportionate influence in presidential elections.

Article III, Section 2, Paragraph 1

• Limited federal diversity jurisdiction to "Citizens of different States" (rather than inhabitants).
• This ensured that slaves and, in some cases, free blacks would not have access to federal courts.

Article IV, Section 1

• Required that "Full Faith and Credit" be given to the laws and judicial proceedings of other states.
• Free states were obligated to recognize laws creating and protecting slavery.

Article IV, Section 2, Paragraph 1

• Limited the privileges and immunities clause to "citizens."
• Denied these protections to slaves and, in some cases, free blacks.

Article IV, Section 2, Paragraph 2

• Provided for the return of fugitives from justice.
• Required that free states return for trial whites and free blacks accused of aiding fugitive slaves or in some other way violating slave codes.

Article IV, Section 4

• Guaranteed that the United States government would protect states from "domestic Violence," including slave rebellions.

Article V

• Required a three-fourths majority of the states to ratify the Constitution.
• Ensured that slaveholding states would have a perpetual veto over any constitutional changes.
• The structure of the Constitution ensured against emancipation by the new federal government.
• The Constitution created a government of limited powers.
• Congress lacked the power to interfere in the domestic institutions of the states.
• Only the most fearful southern Antifederalists opposed the Constitution, claiming it threatened slavery.

General Charles Cotesworth Pinckney

• Said general government can never emancipate slaves.
• General government has no powers but what are expressly granted by the Constitution, reserving all other rights to the states.
• Constitution provided protections for the peculiar institution of the South.
• Edmund Randolph denied the Constitution posed any threat at all to slavery at the Virginia ratifying convention.
• Southerners, including South Carolinians, felt their property was secure.
• The security species of property made was best possible.

Other Convention Issues

• General Pinckney had reason to be proud in Philadelphia.
• Pinckney and other delegates from the Deep South protected the interests of slaveholders.
• Slavery did not seem a pressing issue at the beginning of the convention.
• Rivalries between large and small states appeared to pose the greatest obstacle to a stronger Union.

Virginia Plan

• Submitted by Governor Edmund Randolph of Virginia.
• Designed to respond to the "crisis" of the nation.
• Central government's power would be enhanced at the expense of the states.
• Congress would have greater powers to tax, secure the nation, settle disagreements, and regulate commerce.
• Randolph's plan made population the basis for representation.
• Randolph's plan raised the dilemma of whether slaves would be counted for representation.
• The delegates were troubled throughout the Constitutional Convention on how to count slaves.
• Randolph came from the most populous state.
• How population would be counted affected the potential representation of Virginia and the rest of the South.
• The state's white population to be only slightly larger than Pennsylvania.

Representation Compromises

• If representation was based solely on free persons, the North would overwhelm the South.
• If slaves were counted equally with free persons, the Virginia delegation overwhelmed any other state.
• Randolph's plan hedged the issue, declaring that suffrage should be proportioned to the quotas of contribution.
• Avoiding the term "slaves" indicated the sensitivity of the subject.
• Slavery began on May 30.
• James Madison moved to delete "free inhabitants" because he felt the phrase might occasion debates.
• Madison understood that any debate over the role of slavery in the Union might destroy the convention.
• Representation left based solely on "quotas of contribution" was also unacceptable to most delegates.
• Alexander Hamilton proposed representation be based on "free inhabitants," deemed too volatile, and tabled.
• Delaware delegates helped put a temporary end to the debate.
• The issue was then postponed, and the convention adjourned for the day.
• Slavery Reemerged on June 11.
• Roger Sherman of Connecticut proposed representation be based on the numbers of free inhabitants.
• John Rutledge and Pierce Butler of South Carolina objected and argued for representation according to "quotas of contribution".
• That argument had become a euphemism for counting slaves in a formula for representation.
• James Wilson and Charles Pinckney headed off Rutledge-Butler proposal.
• Wilson proposed the three-fifths clause.
• This an example of cooperation between the North and the South over slavery.
• Wilson was known to oppose slavery and came from Pennsylvania, which had already adopted a gradual emancipation scheme.
• Harmony at the convention was more important to Wilson than the place of slavery in the new nation.
• The antislavery Pennsylvanian and the proslavery Carolinian hoped to undercut antislavery sentiments.
• In addition, they hoped to satisfy the demands of the proslavery delegates like Butler and Rutledge.
• Elbridge Gerry on Blacks.
  • Said that the "Blacks are property and towards the South are cattle to the North and why not representation should increase south on account of the num-
• This would be better for taxation not representation.

The Three-Fifths Clause

• It gives South enormous influence.
• It was accepted w/o a quid pro quo
• Tax application came later in convention

Convention Standstill

• Delegates were in favor of adopting representation.
• Madison contends
  • That the states were dived not by size but by certain matter
  • Climate
  • The fact from there having not having slaves
• Convention was to propose two branches of congress The South would have one advantage while the North would have the other.