How The Us Constitution Shaped The End Of Slavery

The US Constitution, drafted in 1787, had a significant impact on slavery in the country. While the Constitution never explicitly used the word slavery, several clauses directly responded to the practice. For instance, the Three-Fifths Clause counted three-fifths of a state's slave population for representation, giving southern states more power. The Constitution also included a 20-year ban on restricting the Atlantic slave trade and a fugitive slave clause requiring the return of runaway slaves. These compromises were made to maintain a united country, but they laid the foundation for future conflicts. It wasn't until the 13th Amendment in 1865 that slavery was officially abolished in the US, marking a pivotal moment in the nation's history and setting the stage for the expansion of civil rights.

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The Three-Fifths Compromise

Slaveholding states wanted their entire population to be counted to determine the number of Representatives those states could elect and send to Congress. Free states wanted to exclude the counting of slave populations in slave states, given that 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.

The three-fifths ratio was proposed by James Madison and was first proposed to the Articles of Confederation on April 18, 1783. This amendment changed the basis for determining the wealth of each state, and hence its tax obligations, from real estate to population, as a measure of ability to produce wealth. The proposal suggested that taxes "shall be supplied by the several colonies in proportion to the number of inhabitants of every age, sex, and quality, except Indians not paying taxes".

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 that a "Person held to Service or Labour" (usually a slave, apprentice, or indentured servant) who fled to another state 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 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 Fugitive Slave Clause was unanimously approved by the Convention without further debate, despite objections from James Wilson and Roger Sherman that this would oblige state executives to seize fugitive slaves at public expense. The Articles of Confederation lacked an analogous provision, but the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, which abolished slavery in the Territory, provided for the return of fugitive slaves who escaped there.

The Fugitive Slave Clause was enforced by the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, with the enforcement provisions strengthened as part of the Compromise of 1850. The Supreme Court interpreted the Clause as granting slave owners the same right to seize and repossess fugitive slaves in another state as the local laws of their own state granted them. This interpretation meant that state laws that penalised such a seizure were deemed unconstitutional.

The wording of the Fugitive Slave Clause has been the subject of debate by 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 Clause did not use the words "slave" or "slavery", and historian Donald Fehrenbacher believes that the intent was to make it clear that slavery existed only under state law, not federal law.

Resistance to the enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Clause increased in the North in the 19th century, especially after the enactment of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. Several Northern states enacted "personal liberty laws" to circumvent the Clause and protect free Black residents from kidnapping. In 1859, the Supreme Court reversed the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s decision that had freed abolitionist Sherman Booth, who had been jailed for aiding an escaped slave. Chief Justice Roger B. Taney ruled that states could not obstruct federal enforcement, reinforcing federal supremacy but further polarising public opinion.

The Fugitive Slave Clause was effectively nullified by the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which abolished slavery in 1865.

The Civil War and the 13th Amendment

The American Civil War was fought from 1861 to 1865 and resulted in the abolition of slavery in the United States. Before the war, slavery was protected by the US Constitution, which included clauses such as the Three-Fifths Compromise, the Fugitive Slave Clause, and the ban on Congress ending the slave trade for 20 years. These concessions were made to gain the support of southern delegates for a strong central government. However, they laid the foundation for future conflict, as the issue of slavery was not directly addressed.

During the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, declaring that all slaves in the Confederate states in rebellion against the Union would be "forever free." However, this proclamation did not end slavery nationwide, as it only applied to areas under Confederate control and not the "border states" that remained in the Union. Lincoln recognized that a constitutional amendment was necessary to truly abolish slavery.

The 13th Amendment to the US Constitution, passed by Congress on January 31, 1865, and ratified on December 6, 1865, abolished slavery in the United States. It states that "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." The 13th Amendment, along with the 14th and 15th Amendments, greatly expanded the civil rights of Americans and ended the debate over slavery in the nation.

The immediate impact of the 13th Amendment was the end of chattel slavery in the southern United States. It also prohibited other forms of bound labor, such as peonage, where individuals were forced to work to pay off debts. The amendment empowered Congress to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which invalidated the Black Codes passed by southern states after the Civil War that sought to keep former slaves tied to their plantation owners.

The 13th Amendment was a significant turning point in American history, providing a final constitutional solution to the issue of slavery and ensuring that the practice could never be legally reinstated. It represented a major expansion of civil rights and a step towards a more just and equitable society.

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The Founding Fathers' beliefs

The institution of slavery was a difficult issue for the Founding Fathers to navigate. Many of them had been born into a slaveholding society, and the institution had deep roots in the colonies. A majority of the signers of the Declaration of Independence and about half of the delegates to the Constitutional Convention owned slaves, and four of the first five presidents of the United States were slave owners.

Despite this, the Founding Fathers' views on slavery were diverse, and many of them changed their views over the course of their lives. Some, like Thomas Jefferson, wrote about the evils of slavery and expressed a desire to see it abolished, but still owned slaves themselves. Jefferson, for example, wrote in the Declaration of Independence that "all men are created equal," yet he owned hundreds of slaves throughout his life. Similarly, John Adams viewed slavery as wrong and immoral but supported the gradual, voluntary manumission of slaves by their owners without government interference.

Others, like Benjamin Franklin and Alexander Hamilton, became members of anti-slavery societies. In his later years, Franklin became a strong proponent of abolitionism and wrote a letter to Congress arguing for the abolition of slavery on the grounds that it was hypocritical for Americans to speak of "equal liberty" while Black people were subjected to perpetual bondage. Hamilton's alleged support for abolitionism has been exaggerated, but he did marry into a large slave-owning family and co-founded the New York Manumission Society in 1785, which established the New York African Free School in 1787.

During the Constitutional Convention, there was a bitter debate over slavery. While some delegates wanted to prohibit the federal government from regulating the Atlantic slave trade, others, like Luther Martin of Maryland, argued that the slave trade should be subject to federal regulation and was contrary to America's republican ideals. The framers of the Constitution ultimately made a compromise, avoiding any specific mention of slavery in the document while including clauses that protected the institution, such as the Three-Fifths Clause and the fugitive slave clause. They believed that these concessions were necessary to maintain the unity of the new United States and that the regime of liberty they established would eventually lead to slavery's extinction.

In conclusion, while the Founding Fathers' beliefs about slavery were diverse and often contradictory, many of them recognized that it violated the core American ideals of liberty and equality. However, their simultaneous commitment to private property rights, limited government, and intersectional harmony, as well as the deep-seated racial prejudice of the time, prevented them from taking bolder action against slavery.

The Lincoln-Douglas Debates

Douglas, as the Democratic candidate, held that the decision should be made by the white residents of the new states rather than by the federal government ("popular sovereignty"). He argued that the permit or prohibition of slavery in the territories should be determined by the settlers themselves. Douglas was a lifelong Jacksonian, who believed that power should reside at the local level and reflect the wishes of the people. He introduced the Kansas-Nebraska Act in the Senate, which became law on 30 May 1854. The Act repealed the Missouri Compromise and allowed people in the territories of Kansas and Nebraska to decide whether or not they would allow slavery.

Lincoln, on the other hand, argued against the expansion of slavery, although he stressed that he was not advocating for its abolition where it already existed. He believed that the combination of the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the Dred Scott decision only extended slavery, deeming it a necessary evil. Lincoln also argued that the Framers avoided any specific mention of slavery in the Constitution because they did not want to suggest that "such a thing as negro slavery had ever existed among us".

The debates were designed to generate publicity and served as an opportunity for Lincoln to raise his national profile and that of the burgeoning Republican Party. They were also an opportunity for Douglas to defend his record, particularly his role in promoting the doctrine of popular sovereignty in regard to American black slavery. The debates were held outdoors in various locations throughout Illinois, including Ottawa, Freeport, Jonesboro, Charleston, Galesburg, Quincy, and Alton. Each debate lasted about three hours, with each candidate speaking for sixty minutes, followed by a ninety-minute response and a final thirty-minute rejoinder by the first candidate.

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