The Constitution's Slavery Expansion: A Historical Analysis

The U.S. Constitution, which opens with a message of inclusivity, never uses the words slave or slavery. However, it includes clauses that protect slavery, such as the Three-Fifths Clause, which gave the South extra representation in the House of Representatives and extra votes in the Electoral College. The Framers made these concessions on slavery to achieve their highest goal of a stronger Union of republican self-government. The Constitution's ambiguous stance on slavery, along with westward expansion, caused disputes between the northern and southern sections of the nation, leading to the Civil War and, eventually, the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery.

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The Three-Fifths Clause

The Three-Fifths Compromise was proposed by delegate James Wilson and seconded by Charles Pinckney of South Carolina. Pinckney proposed that a "House of Delegates" be determined through the apportionment of "one Member for every thousand Inhabitants 3/5 of Blacks included." The Convention unanimously accepted that representation in the House of Representatives would be proportional to the relative state populations, but it initially rejected his proposal regarding the apportionment of the black population.

The Compromise was reached to resolve the impasse between slaveholding states and free states. Slaveholding states wanted their entire population to be counted when determining the number of Representatives they could elect and send to Congress. On the other hand, free states wanted to exclude the counting of slave populations in slave states, as those slaves had no voting rights. The Three-Fifths Compromise reduced the representation of slave states compared to the free states but improved it over the Northern position.

The Three-Fifths Compromise had significant implications for the representation and taxation of slave states. It gave the South extra representation in the House of Representatives and extra votes in the Electoral College. This overrepresentation in national politics was a result of counting three-fifths of each state's slave population towards its total population. Additionally, the same ratio was used to determine the federal tax contribution required of each state, increasing the direct federal tax burden of slaveholding states.

The Three-Fifths Compromise also had political consequences. Historian Garry Wills has speculated that without the additional slave state votes, Thomas Jefferson would have lost the 1800 presidential election. The Compromise also influenced the inclusion of slavery in Missouri and the success of Jackson's Indian removal policy.

Ban on Congress ending the slave trade for 20 years

The US Constitution, which was ratified in 1787, included a ban on Congress ending the slave trade for 20 years. This clause, known as the Slave Trade Clause, was a compromise made by the Framers to gain the support of southern delegates for a strong central government. The Framers recognised that slavery violated the principles of equality and liberty espoused in the Declaration of Independence. However, they also wanted to create a Union, and some slave-holding delegations threatened to walk out of the Constitution if slavery was threatened. This could have resulted in separate free and slave confederacies, with the free states losing any leverage over the slave states to end slavery.

The 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 the Electoral College. This clause, along with the ban on Congress ending the slave trade for 20 years, the fugitive slave clause, and the slave insurrection clause, provided important protections for slavery in the Constitution.

The specific wording of the Slave Trade Clause stated that the migration or importation of persons as slaves shall not be prohibited by Congress prior to the year 1808. However, a tax or duty of up to $10 could be imposed on each person imported as a slave. This clause was included in the Constitution to delay federal regulation of the slave trade and to allow time for the southern states to adjust their economies.

Despite the ban on congressional action, individual states did take steps to ban or regulate the slave trade during this 20-year period. For example, in 1794, North Carolina banned slave imports and strengthened the law in 1795. In 1794, Congress passed the Slave Trade Act, which prohibited American ships from participating in the slave trade. However, the domestic slave trade within the United States was not affected by this law.

It is important to note that the Framers of the Constitution believed that the concessions on slavery were a necessary compromise to achieve their goal of a stronger Union. They hoped that by creating a regime of liberty, slavery would eventually be extinguished. However, the Constitution's protection of slavery contributed to its expansion and the tragic events that followed, as noted by Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall.

Fugitive Slave Clause

The Fugitive Slave Clause, also known as the Slave Clause or the Fugitives From Labour Clause, is Article IV, Section 2, Clause 3 of the United States Constitution. It states that a "Person held to Service or Labour" (usually a slave, apprentice, or indentured servant) who escapes to another state must be returned to their master in the state from which they fled. The clause was adopted at the Constitutional Convention of 1787 and remained in effect until the abolition of slavery under the Thirteenth Amendment.

The Fugitive Slave Clause gave slaveholders the right to reclaim and capture enslaved people who escaped to free states. This right was enforced by the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, which was strengthened in 1850. The Act allowed slaveholders to seize and repossess escaped slaves in another state, and required state officials to assist in their recapture. However, as slavery was not explicitly mentioned in the US Constitution, Northern states increasingly resisted the enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Clause in the 19th century, enacting "personal liberty laws" to protect free Black residents and provide procedural safeguards for accused fugitives.

The exact wording of the Fugitive Slave Clause is 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 wording of the clause has been the subject of debate among modern legal scholars. Some argue that the vague wording was a political compromise that avoided overtly validating slavery at the federal level, while others contend that it functionally entrenched slaveholder power. The ambiguity allowed both pro- and anti-slavery factions to claim constitutional ground, reflecting deeper contradictions in the founding document itself.

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

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Slave insurrections

The US Constitution, drafted in 1787, did not contain the word "slave", but slavery was a fiercely debated topic during the Constitutional Convention, and the document included references and protections for enslavement. The Founding Fathers knew that slavery violated the "self-evident truth" of the Declaration of Independence, and many of them owned slaves themselves. The Framers of the Constitution made a compromise with slavery because they sought to achieve a stronger Union of republican self-government. They believed that if the Constitution restricted the slave trade, some states would refuse to join the Union, and there was a possibility of separate confederacies.

The Constitution gave the federal government the power to forcibly suppress domestic rebellions, including slave insurrections. This power was utilised to enforce the Fugitive Slave Clause, which required that escaped slaves be returned to their enslavers. This clause was agreed upon in a compromise regarding the slave trade and commerce, and it remained in place until 1861, at the start of the American Civil War, when General Benjamin Butler refused to return fugitives to slavery.

During the American Civil War, tens of thousands of slaves joined the Union Army, constituting a massive slave rebellion, according to historian Steven Hahn. Additionally, many slaves escaped to British lines, and when the British evacuated Charleston and Savannah, they took 10,000 freed slaves with them. The American Revolution also provided opportunities for slaves to gain freedom, as they fled and sometimes took up arms with the British military.

The 13th Amendment to the Constitution, ratified in 1865, officially abolished slavery in the United States. However, it is important to note that the road to emancipation was long and arduous, and the cumulative effect of numerous slave insurrections played a significant role in the eventual abolition of slavery.

Avoiding the word 'slavery'

The United States Constitution, despite its promises of inclusivity, justice, and individual rights, laid the foundation for the expansion of an oppressive system that reduced human beings to property. This system, though rarely named, was slavery.

The Framers of the Constitution consciously avoided the word "slavery" and, instead, included clauses that protected the institution of slavery. They believed that concessions on slavery were necessary to achieve their highest goal of a stronger Union of republican self-government. The specific clauses related to slavery included the Three-Fifths Clause, which counted three-fifths of a state's slave population when apportioning representation, giving the South extra representation in the House of Representatives and extra votes in the Electoral College. The Three-Fifths Clause was the only reference to the way enslaved persons were to be regarded by the federal government, and it was reinforced by the Fugitive Slave Clause, which asserted that a slave remained a slave even if they fled to a non-slavery state. Additionally, the Constitution included a ban on Congress ending the slave trade for 20 years.

The Framers' avoidance of the word "slavery" and their concessions to the institution of slavery were not due to a belief in the "positive good" of slavery, as some later generations of statesmen before the Civil War argued. Many of the Framers harbored moral qualms about slavery, and some became members of anti-slavery societies. They sought to create a Union with the institution of slavery but built a regime of liberty that they hoped would lead to slavery's ultimate extinction.

However, by sidestepping the slavery issue, the Framers left the seeds for future conflict. The spread of slavery and the opposing anti-slavery and abolitionist movements made it the most pertinent American policy issue in the first half of the 19th century. It took the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, and the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution to finally abolish slavery in the United States in 1865.

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