Slavery's End: The Constitution's Role

The issue of slavery in the United States Constitution has been a topic of historical controversy. The Constitution, drafted in 1787 and ratified in 1789, did not contain the words slave or slavery but addressed American slavery in several provisions and indirectly protected the institution. The framers of the Constitution held conflicting views on slavery, with some owning slaves and others advocating for abolition. They avoided direct language about slavery, instead using euphemisms like Person held to Service or Labour. The Constitution included the Three-Fifths Clause, which counted three-fifths of a state's slave population in apportioning representation, giving the South greater representation in the House of Representatives and more electoral votes. It also included the Fugitive Slave Clause, which required states to return fugitive slaves to their owners. The issue of slavery was further complicated by economic and political factors, and the fear of slave uprisings among whites in slave-holding states. It was only in 1865, with the ratification of the 13th Amendment, that slavery was officially abolished in the United States, marking a final constitutional resolution to the issue.

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The 13th Amendment

> "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."

Fugitive Slave Clause

The Fugitive Slave Clause, also known as the Slave Clause or the Fugitives From Labour Clause, was a part of the United States Constitution. It was Article IV, Section 2, Clause 3, which 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:

> 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.

This clause effectively nullified the Thirteenth Amendment's abolition of slavery. It contemplated the existence of a right on the part of a slaveholder to reclaim an enslaved person who had escaped to another state. The Supreme Court's interpretation of the Fugitive Slave Clause gave the owner of an enslaved person the same right to seize and repossess them in another state as the local laws of their own state granted to them.

The Fugitive Slave Clause was controversial, with James Wilson and Roger Sherman objecting that it would oblige the executive of the State to seize fugitive slaves at public expense. It was nonetheless approved by the Convention unanimously without further debate. The clause was also criticised for not using the words "slave" and "slavery", instead referring to "persons held to Service or Labour".

The Fugitive Slave Clause was eventually rendered mostly irrelevant by the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which abolished slavery "except as a punishment for crime".

Three-Fifths Compromise

The Three-Fifths Compromise was an agreement reached during the 1787 United States Constitutional Convention over the inclusion of slaves in a state's total population. This count would determine the number of seats in the House of Representatives, the number of electoral votes each state would be allocated, and how much money the states would pay in taxes.

Slaveholding states wanted their entire population to be counted to determine the number of Representatives they could send to Congress. Free states, on the other hand, wanted to exclude the counting of slave populations in slave states, since those slaves had no voting rights. A compromise was struck to resolve this impasse: 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, effectively giving the Southern states more power in the House relative to the Northern states. This additional representation in Congress created the "Slave Power" in the legislature, allowing bills favourable to the South to pass more easily.

The three-fifths ratio was derived from an approximation of measuring the wealth that an enslaved person contributed to a state's economy, rather than from a belief that enslaved people were three-fifths human. The compromise was proposed by delegate James Wilson and seconded by Charles Pinckney, and it was ultimately proposed by James Madison. It was included in Article 1, Section 2, Clause 3 of the United States Constitution, and was later superseded and repealed by Section 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868.

The Three-Fifths Compromise was one of several compromises made by Congress to put off the controversy over slavery until it could no longer be ignored, and it was one of the factors that led to the American Civil War. During and after the Civil War, Americans ended slavery constitutionally with the Thirteenth Amendment, which was passed by Congress and ratified by the states in 1865.

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The Civil War

The issue of slavery was a key factor in the American Civil War. The conflict between the northern and southern states over slavery had been left unresolved by the Constitution, and it continued to simmer in the decades leading up to the war. The southern states relied heavily on enslaved persons' labour, while the inhabitants of the northern states increasingly opposed the practice on moral grounds. The Constitution's original text did not specifically refer to slavery, but it also did not restrict the slave trade, and it included the notorious three-fifths clause, which gave the South extra representation in the House of Representatives and the Electoral College.

As early as 1787, there were bitter debates over the role that slavery would play in the newly created United States. During the Federal Convention of that year, there was a vigorous debate over a South Carolina proposal to prohibit the federal government from regulating the Atlantic slave trade. Despite these debates, the Constitution's framers sidestepped the issue of slavery, leaving the seeds for future conflict.

In the decades leading up to the Civil War, political tensions continued to rise as abolitionists and proponents of slavery argued over whether new US territories would be admitted to the union as "slave" or "free" states. The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 repealed the Missouri Compromise, allowing each territory's population to decide whether to permit slavery. This led to an outbreak of violence between abolitionists and proponents of slavery in Kansas. The Supreme Court's 1857 decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford further exacerbated tensions by declaring that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional.

Disagreements over slavery and the election of Abraham Lincoln, who opposed slavery, were the primary causes of the Civil War. The war began on April 12, 1861, when the Confederate army fired on Fort Sumter. During the war, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, declaring that all persons held as slaves within any state in rebellion against the United States shall be "forever free." However, the Emancipation Proclamation did not end slavery in the nation since it only applied to areas of the Confederacy in rebellion and not to the "loyal" border states that remained in the Union.

It was the 13th Amendment, passed at the end of the Civil War, that finally abolished slavery in the United States. The 13th Amendment, along with the 14th and 15th Amendments, greatly expanded the civil rights of Americans. With the adoption of these amendments, the United States found a final constitutional solution to the issue of slavery.

Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation

The issue of slavery in the United States Constitution was resolved with the 13th Amendment, which was passed by Congress on January 31, 1865, and ratified on December 6, 1865. The amendment abolished slavery and prohibited involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime.

Now, here is a detailed account of Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation:

On January 1, 1863, as the American Civil War entered its third year, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. This proclamation declared that "all persons held as slaves within any State, or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free."

The Emancipation Proclamation was a significant step towards ending slavery in the United States. It changed the legal status of over 3.5 million enslaved African Americans in the Confederate states, freeing them from their enslavers. It also allowed former slaves to join the Union Army and Navy, empowering them to fight for their freedom.

However, the Emancipation Proclamation had limitations. It only applied to states that had seceded from the Union, leaving slavery in place in the loyal border states. Additionally, it did not make slavery illegal and did not apply to all slave-holding states. The proclamation was a military measure, designed to weaken the Confederacy and strengthen the Union's position during the Civil War.

Lincoln's proclamation was a bold move that transformed the character of the war. It added moral force to the Union's cause and inspired millions of Americans. While it did not immediately end slavery nationwide, it played a crucial role in the eventual abolition of slavery with the passage of the 13th Amendment.

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