Isabella Carter
The US Constitution was signed on September 17, 1787, and slavery was not abolished until the Thirteenth Amendment was ratified in 1865. The Constitution's protection of slavery is considered its biggest flaw by many, including Berkeley Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky. The Thirteenth Amendment's prohibitions on slavery and involuntary servitude became effective upon its ratification, without the need for further government action. The Constitution's three-fifths clause, which counted three-fifths of a state's slave population in apportioning representation, gave the South extra representation in the House of Representatives and extra votes in the Electoral College.
| Characteristics | Values |
|---|---|
| Date of Constitution signing | September 17, 1787 |
| Number of delegates who signed the Constitution | 38 |
| Number of delegates who owned slaves | ~25 |
| Date of Thirteenth Amendment ratification | December 18, 1865 |
| Number of states that ratified the Thirteenth Amendment | 27 |
| Date of abolition of slavery | 1865 |
| Number of slaves owned by George Mason | Hundreds |
| Number of proposals to amend the Constitution | 2 |
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What You'll Learn
The US Constitution's protection of slavery
The US Constitution was written in 1787, before the abolition of slavery. The framers of the Constitution believed that concessions on slavery were necessary to gain the support of southern delegates for a strong central government. The Constitution protected slavery and promoted slave ownership through several clauses.
Firstly, Article 1, Section 9, prohibited Congress from banning the importation of slaves until 1808, and Article 5 prohibited this from being amended. This meant that the slave trade could continue for 21 years after the ratification of the Constitution. Secondly, Article 1, Section 2, the Apportionment Clause, provided that for purposes of representation in Congress, enslaved black people in a state would be counted as three-fifths of the number of white inhabitants of that state. This gave the South extra representation in the House of Representatives and extra votes in the Electoral College. Thirdly, Article 4, Section 2, the Fugitive Slave Clause, required that escaped slaves be returned to their owners. This protected the rights of slave owners to recapture their escaped slaves.
The Constitution's protection of slavery has been described as its biggest flaw by some legal scholars, such as Berkeley Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky. The failure to teach the Constitution as a pro-slavery document has been criticised as a major disservice to students and society. On the 200th anniversary of the ratification of the US Constitution, Thurgood Marshall, the first African American to sit on the Supreme Court, said that the Constitution was defective from the start due to its protection of slavery and failure to include a majority of Americans in the phrase "We the People".
It took a Civil War and constitutional amendments, such as the Thirteenth Amendment, to eventually abolish slavery. However, racial inequalities that can be traced back to slavery have persisted in the United States.
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The Confederate Constitution's freedom for whites only
The Constitution of the Confederate States was the supreme law of the Confederate States of America. It superseded the Provisional Constitution of the Confederate States, the Confederate State's first constitution, in 1862. It remained in effect until the end of the American Civil War in 1865. The Confederate Constitution was approved on March 11, 1861, by delegates from the newly formed Confederate States of America.
The Confederate Constitution was based on the United States Constitution, with some crucial differences in tone and legal content, primarily regarding slavery. The Confederate version used the word "slaves," unlike the U.S. Constitution. One article banned any Confederate state from making slavery illegal. Another ensured that enslavers could travel between Confederate states with their slaves. The Confederate constitution also accounted for enslaved people as three-fifths of a state's population, and it required that any new territory acquired by the nation allow slavery.
The Confederate Constitution also included a Bill of Rights, which included an additional right stating that the government couldn't impair "the right of property in negro slaves" to owners. The Confederate preamble begins, "We, the people of the Confederate States, each State acting in its sovereign and independent character." This is similar to the preamble of the U.S. Constitution, but with some key differences.
The Confederate Constitution also gave the Confederate states the ability to impeach federal officials, collect more taxes, and make treaties with each other under certain circumstances. They could also create lines of credit. The Confederate constitution was also similar to the Articles of Confederation, which preceded the U.S. Constitution, in that it focused on states' rights and limited federal power.
The Confederate Constitution, therefore, ensured that freedom was a right reserved for whites only, with slavery being explicitly protected and expanded upon.
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The 13th Amendment's abolition of slavery
The Constitution of the United States was signed on September 17, 1787, by 38 delegates. The Constitution was a compromise between the Federalists, who believed in a strong central government, and the Anti-Federalists, who opposed a powerful central government. The Constitution did not include the word "slave" but made implicit references to slavery. For instance, the Three-Fifths Compromise counted three-fifths of each state's enslaved population as part of its free population for the purposes of apportioning seats in the United States House of Representatives. The Fugitive Slave Clause, located in Article IV, Section 2, asserted that a slave who was bound by the laws of their home state remained a slave even if they fled to a non-slavery state.
The 13th Amendment to the Constitution, passed on January 31, 1865, abolished slavery in the United States. The Amendment was passed by Congress and ratified by the required number of states (27 out of 33) on December 6, 1865. The official text of the 13th Amendment states:
> "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. Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation."
The 13th Amendment was the culmination of a decades-long struggle to abolish slavery in the United States. President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 declared that all persons held as slaves in states in rebellion against the United States would be "forever free." However, the Proclamation only applied to areas of the Confederacy in rebellion and did not end slavery in the nation. Lincoln recognized that a constitutional amendment was necessary to guarantee the abolition of slavery.
The 13th Amendment was the first of the three Reconstruction Amendments and was followed by the 14th and 15th Amendments, which further expanded the civil rights of Americans. The Amendment abolished chattel slavery and made it illegal across the United States and its territories. While the 13th Amendment ended legal slavery, Black Americans, particularly in the South, continued to face involuntary labor and other forms of oppression.
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The ratification of the 13th Amendment
The US Constitution, drafted in 1787, was a compromise between the North and the South. The framers of the Constitution avoided using the word "slave" in the document, but they made important concessions to slavery, such as the three-fifths clause, which counted three-fifths of a state's slave population when apportioning representation. This gave the South extra representation in the House of Representatives and extra votes in the Electoral College. The delegates also agreed that the slave trade could continue until 1808.
The 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery in the United States, was passed at the end of the Civil War, before the Southern states had been restored to the Union. On April 8, 1864, the Senate passed an amendment to abolish slavery, but the House initially did not. President Lincoln, who had issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, took an active role to ensure passage through Congress. He insisted that the passage of the 13th Amendment be added to the Republican Party platform for the upcoming 1864 Presidential election. Lincoln's efforts met with success when the House passed the bill in January 1865. On February 1, 1865, President Lincoln approved the Joint Resolution of Congress, submitting the proposed amendment to the state legislatures.
The 13th Amendment states:
> "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."
By December 6, 1865, the necessary number of states (27 or three-fourths of the states) had ratified the 13th Amendment. On December 18, 1865, Secretary of State Seward certified that the 13th Amendment had become valid and was adopted as part of the Constitution. The 13th Amendment was subsequently ratified by the remaining states, with Mississippi being the last state to ratify the amendment in 1995.
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The Constitution's failure to address slavery
The Constitution of the United States was written in 1787, and it failed to address the issue of slavery, which was a highly contested topic at the time. The document's authors consciously avoided using the word "slave", recognising that it would sully the document. Instead, they used the term
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 decision to sidestep the issue of slavery left the seeds for future conflict. Many of the framers had moral qualms about slavery, and some, including Benjamin Franklin and Alexander Hamilton, became members of anti-slavery societies. However, they ultimately prioritised the formation of a united country over the abolition of slavery.
On the 200th anniversary of the ratification of the US Constitution, Thurgood Marshall, the first African American to sit on the Supreme Court, called the document "defective from the start". He pointed out that the framers had excluded a majority of Americans when they wrote "We the People", as this phrase did not include enslaved individuals. Marshall argued that the framers had "consented to a document which laid a foundation for the tragic events which were to follow".
In conclusion, the Constitution's failure to address slavery was a significant omission that had far-reaching impacts on the country's history. It allowed the institution of slavery to continue and flourish, leading to tragic consequences, including the Civil War and the ongoing struggle for racial equality.
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Frequently asked questions
The US Constitution was written in 1787.
Slavery was not abolished before the Constitution was written. In fact, slavery was a contentious issue during the writing of the Constitution, with some delegates owning slaves and others voicing objections to the practice.
No, the Constitution did not abolish slavery. Instead, it included protections for slavery, such as the Three-Fifths Clause, which counted enslaved people as three-fifths of a person for representation purposes, giving the South more power.
Slavery was abolished in the US through the Thirteenth Amendment, which was ratified in 1865.
Critics have argued that the US Constitution's biggest flaw was its protection of slavery. Thurgood Marshall, the first African American Supreme Court justice, called the document "defective from the start" because it left out the majority of Americans and laid the foundation for tragic events.
