{"id":1408,"date":"2015-10-02T12:30:49","date_gmt":"2015-10-02T12:30:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-404pinsker\/?p=1408"},"modified":"2015-11-11T14:37:06","modified_gmt":"2015-11-11T14:37:06","slug":"jenkins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-404pinsker\/2015\/10\/02\/jenkins\/","title":{"rendered":"The Framers’ Constitution and Slavery"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post offers an example of how to transform initial reading into some thoughtful\u00a0first steps toward a paper topic.<\/em><\/p>\n

By Emma Jenkins<\/p>\n

Benjamin Franklin’s contributions to the 1787 Constitutional Convention were often out of place. Perhaps his most insightful observation was on Monday, September 17th,\u00a0as the delegates gathered to sign the Constitution after four long months. \u00a0He astutely remarked\u00a0that when “you assemble a number of men to have the advantage of their joint wisdom, you inevitably assemble with those men all their prejudices, their passions, their errors of opinion, their local interests, and their selfish views. From such an assembly can a perfect production be expected?” [1] \u00a0He was right. \u00a0While the Constitution was a revolutionary document, it was far from perfect.<\/p>\n

Instead, the document signed that crisp\u00a0fall afternoon reflected\u00a0how the delegates were divisive on major issues like presidential power, impeachment, apportionment, and slavery. \u00a0Rather than interrupting the Convention’s momentum to harp on\u00a0controversial\u00a0topics, the delegates either glossed over these\u00a0issues or eventually passed them off to the states. \u00a0While all of these topics were hotly contested, slavery was the issue that continuously plagued the Convention that summer. \u00a0After months of back and forth, the delegates finally decided to let each state choose whether to abolish slavery and the slave trade. \u00a0However, the Framers wrote into the Constitution multiple clauses that protected so-called state interests without ever using the words “slave” or “slavery.”<\/a>\u00a0 This is the source of one of history’s most debated issues: was the United States Constitution a pro- or an anti-slavery document? This question is open to many interpretations, especially because historians can only speculate about the Framers’ original intent. \u00a0Were they institutionalizing slavery at the\u00a0national level, conceding to southern state interests and expecting slavery to fizzle out, or were they attempting to undermine\u00a0it altogether? \u00a0Whatever their intent, the pro-slavery clauses in the Constitution allowed the institution to continue – and now it was on\u00a0the national stage.<\/p>\n

\"Frederick<\/a>

Frederick Douglass argued the Constitution was an anti-slavery document.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"William<\/a>

William Lloyd Garrison believed it was pro-slavery.<\/p><\/div>\n

This debate is not new – it was a popular topic for 19th century abolitionists Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison – and\u00a0has resurfaced after presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders claimed the United States was “created … from way back on racist principles.”<\/a>\u00a0 Historian Sean Wilentz responded in a New York Times<\/a><\/em> op-ed<\/a>, arguing that Sanders’ belief “is one of the most destructive falsehoods in all of American history.” \u00a0He makes a good\u00a0argument that the Constitution was an anti-slavery document, but I’m not entirely convinced. \u00a0He claims, for example, that “Without that antislavery outcome in 1787, slavery would not have reached ‘ultimate extinction’ in 1865.” \u00a0However, I believe that the Constitution temporarily allowed the institution to continue. \u00a0And while it’s difficult\u00a0to determine\u00a0the Framers’ original intent, historian David Waldstreicher makes a compelling argument\u00a0in response to Wilentz<\/a>. \u00a0He insists\u00a0that the Framers’ Constitution wasn’t an anti-slavery document and points out that of “the 11 clauses in the Constitution that deal with or have policy implications for slavery, 10 protect slave property and the powers of the masters.” \u00a0Yes, many of the Philadelphia Convention delegates knew that slavery was wrong. \u00a0Pennsylvania’s Gouverneur Morris even went as far as to call it “a nefarious institution.” [2] \u00a0But that didn’t mean the delegates (all of whom were white men, and many of whom were elitist) were\u00a0ready to abolish slavery and accept African Americans as equals. The harsh fact of the matter is, in Wilentz’s words, “most white Americans presumed African inferiority.”<\/p>\n

So, the Framers wrote a document that reflected the sentiment in 1787: many realized\u00a0slavery’s hypocrisy in the land where “all men are created equal,”<\/a> but they were crippled by their\u00a0“inability to imagine free blacks as equal citizens.” [3] \u00a0The delegates left the wording vague because they didn’t know how to handle the issue. \u00a0However,\u00a0it’s indisputable that the Constitution allowed slavery to continue. \u00a0It prevented Congress from amending the slave trade clause before 1808, and it didn’t even set a date to reconsider the fugitive slave clause. \u00a0Waldstreicher’s assertion that “the Constitution was deliberately ambiguous – but operationally proslavery” perfectly summarizes my argument. \u00a0Take the fugitive slave clause, for example. \u00a0The wording is obscure but the meaning is explicit. \u00a0It acknowledged the institution of slavery on the national level but left enforcement to the states. \u00a0Even worse, it “was not merely a provision that passively countenanced slavery, but, rather, it was one that required those states where slavery had been abolished to be actively complicit in keeping slaves in bondage” [4]. \u00a0As James Madison reflected in 1792, “Every word … decides a question between power & liberty.” \u00a0While the words “slave” and “slavery” were intentionally excluded from the Constitution, there’s no question that these clauses gave power to white citizens and took away liberty from slaves.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Screen<\/a>

Article IV, Section 2<\/p><\/div>\n

But as Franklin asked, “From such an assembly can a perfect production be expected?” [5] \u00a0While there were faults with the Framers’ Constitution – largest among them the national institutionalization of slavery – it was a product of the time. \u00a0Slavery was commonplace and the delegates simply believed that Americans weren’t ready to accept, and couldn’t envision, African Americans as equal citizens. \u00a0I don’t believe the Framers intended\u00a0slavery to continue indefinitely, but they permitted\u00a0it to carry on for the moment\u00a0because they didn’t want the\u00a0Union to crumble over this issue.<\/p>\n

I expect this debate\u00a0to generate a final paper topic. \u00a0It’s a good starting point because it’s a controversial topic and the 2016 presidential election has brought it back in the spotlight. \u00a0Going forward, I’d like to explore how these clauses ignited the great debate between the North and the South, and how different Constitutional interpretations led to sectional crisis and the outbreak of war.<\/p>\n

[1] Richard Beeman,\u00a0Plain, Honest Men: The Making of the American Constitution\u00a0<\/em>(New York: Random House, 2009), 360.<\/p>\n

[2] Ibid, 316.<\/p>\n

[3] Ibid, 323.<\/p>\n

[4] Ibid, 330.<\/p>\n

[5] Ibid, 360.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post offers an example of how to transform initial reading into some thoughtful\u00a0first steps toward a paper topic. By Emma Jenkins Benjamin Franklin’s contributions to the 1787 Constitutional Convention were often out of place. Perhaps his most insightful observation … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1812,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[41104],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-research-journal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-404pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-404pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-404pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-404pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1812"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-404pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1408"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-404pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1408\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-404pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-404pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-404pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}