Slavery: history, impact, and social context

Slavery

The Founding Fathers of the United States were passionate proponents of "equality and liberty" of "all men" as they so famously declared in the U.S. Declaration of Independence in 1776. While framing the Constitution for the country, however, they carefully avoided the issue and even included specific compromises to slavery in the document. This essay discusses why the Founding Fathers did not write provisions to end slavery into the Constitution and outlines the provisions relating to slavery that were included in it.

The Economic Reasons: When the American colonies decided to break away from the British in 1776, the economy of the South was heavily dependant on slave labor who worked in large numbers on cotton and tobacco plantations. A majority of white people in the South were, therefore, supporters of slavery. On the other hand, the economy of the Northern states was more industrialized and did not depend on slave labor as much as in the South. In fact, as the North employed 'free labor' slavery was considered 'unfair competition' and most people in the Northern states were against slavery (Spicer 2004). However, as the Southern states made the continuance of slavery a pre-condition for joining the Union, the Northern states and the founding fathers agreed to sweep the issue of slavery under the carpet. As a result, the Articles of Confederation (1781) under which the first U.S. national government was formed said nothing about slavery and left the power to regulate slavery to the individual states.

Drafting the Constitution. The government under the Articles failed to function effectively as it had little power to execute its laws or collect taxes and the need for a stronger federal government was acutely felt. Delegates from the 12 states of the Union, thus, met in the famous Philadelphia Convention of 1787 to draft a Constitution. The delegates soon agreed that the new government would have three branches -- an executive, a judiciary and a two-part legislature. Dispute, however, rose over the formation of the legislature. States with large populations wanted representation in the two Houses to be based on the population while smaller states wanted each state to have the same number of delegates as was the case in the Articles of Confederation. It was finally agreed through a compromise that the House of Representatives would be based on population while the Senate would have the same number of seats from each state ("Ratification Debate..." n.d.).

The Three-Fifths Compromise: A related dispute between the Northern and Southern states arose about the question of whether to count the slaves in the population. At the time, most slaves lived in the Southern states where they made up about 40% of the population. Thus, if slaves were considered as part of the population, it would increase the members of the Southern states in the House of Representatives and the number of votes they would have in the Electoral College, which elected the President. At the same time, it would also increase the share of taxes payable to the federal government. The Southern states were willing to pay higher taxes in exchange for increased political power and wanted the slaves to be counted among the population. The Northern states were opposed as it would reduce their political powers in the federal government (Boyd, 1995).

After hectic debate, a compromise was reached among the delegates that each slave would count as three-fifths of a person for the purposes of a population census and the provision known as the "Three-Fifths Compromise" was included in Section 2 of Article I of the Constitution. The relevant portion of the Article specified that "Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States" by adding free Persons to three fifths of "all other Persons" (meaning slaves). The immediate effect of compromise increased the seats of the Southern states from 38% in the Continental Congress to 45% in the first U.S. Congress; it also helped to elect slave-owning presidents in 12 of the first 16 presidential elections.

Importation of Slaves: Another dispute on slavery arose during the drafting of the Constitution. While a majority of states were opposed to further import of slaves, three states -- Georgia, North and South Carolina, threatened to leave the Union if such a ban was placed. As a result, Section 9 Article I was incorporated in the Constitution, allowing the import of new slaves into the U.S. until 1808. Extending the slave trade past 1800 brought many more slaves to America with South Carolina alone importing about 40,000 slaves between 1803 and 1808, when import of slaves was finally banned.