The Constitution's Complicity In Slavery's Expansion

The United States Constitution and its amendments have had a complex and often contradictory relationship with slavery. The original document, drafted in 1787 and ratified in 1789, did not contain the words slave or slavery but dealt directly with the issue in at least five provisions and indirectly protected the institution in others. The Three-Fifths Clause, for example, gave the South extra representation in the House of Representatives and extra votes in the Electoral College. The Fugitive Slave Clause required states to return fugitive slaves. The Constitution also prohibited federal interference with the international slave trade for at least 20 years. These measures ensured that slavery remained a national issue and contributed to a moral and legal crisis that would lead to the Civil War. The 13th Amendment, passed in 1865, finally abolished slavery in the United States, but the legacy of slavery and its constitutional history continue to impact issues today, such as educational equality.

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The Three-Fifths Clause

The Three-Fifths Compromise was a compromise between the slave-holding states and the free states. The slave-holding states wanted their entire population, including slaves, to be counted when determining the number of Representatives they could elect to Congress. On the other hand, the free states wanted to exclude the counting of slave populations in slave states since those slaves had no voting rights. The compromise counted three-fifths of each state's slave population toward that state's total population for the purpose of apportioning the House of Representatives, giving the Southern states more power in the House relative to the Northern states.

However, some have argued that the Three-Fifths Clause actually encouraged freedom over slavery. According to this interpretation, the Clause gave an increase of "two-fifths" of political power to free over slave states. Additionally, the Constitution did not explicitly forbid a coloured man from voting. Nonetheless, the Three-Fifths Clause has been criticised as a concession to slavery and as a "disability laid upon the slaveholding States."

The Three-Fifths Compromise was later superseded and explicitly repealed by Section 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868.

Fugitive Slave Clause

The Fugitive Slave Clause, also known as the Slave Clause or the Fugitives From Labour Clause, was Article IV, Section 2, Clause 3 of the United States Constitution. It required a "person held to service or labour" (usually a slave, apprentice, or indentured servant) who fled to another state to be returned to their master in the state from which they escaped. The clause was adopted at the Constitutional Convention of 1787.

The exact wording of the Fugitive Slave Clause was as follows:

> No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due.

The Fugitive Slave Clause was unanimously approved by the Convention without further debate, despite objections from James Wilson and Roger Sherman, who argued that it would oblige the executive of the state to seize fugitive slaves at public expense. The clause was also included in the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, which abolished slavery in the territory but provided for the return of fugitive slaves who escaped there.

The Fugitive Slave Clause was interpreted by the Supreme Court as granting slave owners the same right to seize and repossess their escaped slaves in another state as the local laws of their own state granted them. It was also interpreted as not allowing states to have concurrent power to legislate on the subject. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 further strengthened the enforcement provisions of the Fugitive Slave Clause, and these were strengthened again as part of the Compromise of 1850.

The Fugitive Slave Clause was nullified by the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which abolished slavery except as a punishment for criminal acts.

Abolitionist opposition

The question of whether the US Constitution supported the expansion of slavery is a highly contested one. The word "slave" does not appear in the Constitution, and the framers consciously avoided using it, recognising that it would sully the document. However, slavery received important protections in the Constitution, and the three-fifths clause gave the South extra representation in the House of Representatives and extra votes in the Electoral College.

The abolitionist opposition to the Constitution stems from the belief that it was a pro-slavery document that entrenched and expanded the institution of slavery. Abolitionists argued that the Constitution's concessions to slavery were made to gain the support of southern delegates and that these concessions contradicted the principles of equality and individual rights that the document claimed to uphold.

One notable abolitionist was William Lloyd Garrison, who, in 1854, burned the Constitution, calling it "a covenant with death and an agreement with Hell". Garrison and other abolitionists believed that the Constitution's protections of slavery, such as the Fugitive Slave Clause and the Three-Fifths Clause, were evidence that it supported the expansion of slavery.

Another argument made by abolitionists was that the Constitution's failure to explicitly ban slavery or recognise a right to property in humans was a tacit endorsement of the institution. This argument was particularly salient given that, at the time of the Constitution's drafting, slavery had already been banned in several states and by the Congress of the Confederation in the Northwest Territory.

The abolitionist opposition also highlighted the moral and ethical implications of slavery, arguing that it was a "nefarious institution" and a "curse" that debased human nature. They believed that the Constitution's authors, many of whom were slave owners, had put their economic interests ahead of their Enlightenment ideals.

The abolitionist movement gained momentum in the lead-up to the Civil War, with figures like Abraham Lincoln contending that the Constitution put slavery "in the course of ultimate extinction". Lincoln recognised that a constitutional amendment would be necessary to guarantee the abolishment of slavery, and he played an active role in ensuring the passage of the 13th Amendment, which finally abolished slavery in the United States in 1865.

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Southern economic dependence on slavery

The Southern economy was heavily dependent on slavery, particularly in the cotton-growing regions and slave-trading areas. Slaves were essential for cultivating and harvesting cash crops such as cotton, which became a lucrative commodity. This economic dependence on slavery led to the expansion of plantations and the concentration of wealth among plantation owners, who relied on slave labour to maximise their profits.

The Southern colonies depended on slaves, whether for the economy, society, or their own personal needs. Even Southerners who did not own slaves still depended on the system of slavery, as it made them feel better about their place in society. The Southern economy was fuelled by slavery, with the South producing 75% of the world's cotton by the start of the Civil War. Enslaved workers represented Southern planters' most significant investment and the bulk of their wealth.

The lower South, with its cotton-growing areas, became increasingly dependent on slaves due to the rise of King Cotton. The warm climate and the invention of the cotton gin further contributed to the expansion of cotton production. Between 1801 and 1835, US cotton exports grew from 100,000 bales to over a million, comprising half of all US exports. As cotton became the backbone of the Southern economy, slavery drove impressive profits.

The benefits of cotton produced by enslaved workers extended beyond the South, as cotton mills in the North and Great Britain thrived, and the financial and shipping industries also saw gains. Banks in New York and London provided capital to new and expanding plantations for purchasing both land and enslaved workers. The expansion of cotton production and the need for more land led to the growth of plantations in the South and their westward movement into new territories.

The reliance on slavery varied between different regions of the Southern colonies. While the lower South focused on cotton cultivation, the upper South, centred around the tobacco industry, focused more on slave trading to support its agricultural endeavours. This diversity in reliance on slavery resulted in distinct social and economic dynamics between plantation society and regions involved in slave trading.

The economic dependence on slavery in the South was so entrenched that it influenced the framing of the US Constitution. The framers of the Constitution believed that concessions on slavery were necessary to gain the support of southern delegates for a strong central government. They were convinced that if the Constitution restricted the slave trade, southern states like South Carolina and Georgia would refuse to join the Union. This led to the infamous three-fifths clause, which counted each enslaved person as three-fifths of a person for the purpose of political representation.

The Compromise of 1850

After Taylor's death, Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois stepped forward with substitute bills that passed both Houses. The Compromise of 1850 addressed the immediate crisis created by the recent territorial expansion. However, one aspect of the compromise—a strengthened fugitive slave act—soon began to threaten sectional peace. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 added several new regulations, requiring both federal and local law enforcement in all states to enforce the legislation and arrest suspected fugitive slaves. Anyone aiding an escaped slave was subject to imprisonment and a fine.

The five statutes that made up the Compromise of 1850 were as follows:

• California was admitted as a "free state", while the remaining portions of the Mexican Cession were organized into the New Mexico Territory and the Utah Territory.
• Texas's borders were defined in exchange for debt relief, with the federal government assuming Texas's public debt.
• The New Mexico and Utah territories were given popular sovereignty to decide the issue of slavery.
• The slave trade was banned in Washington, D.C., and the public trading areas near the Executive Mansion (the White House) and Congress were abolished.
• A stricter Fugitive Slave Law was enacted, requiring federal officials in all states to help return escaped slaves to their owners.

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