Why Was Slavery Not Constitutional

As mentioned in the module, "Lecture Notes for Chapter 2 The Constitution", the Three-Fifths Compromise or "the three-fifths rule", was put into motion as a way to appease Northern delegates while also preventing the Southern delegates from leaving the convention. The compromise ultimately states, "The three-fifths meant that the House of Representatives and the electoral college would be apportioned in part of the basis of property--specifically, property in slaves" (Bardes, Shelley, Schmidt 42-43). In other words, this referred to slaves in that each one would be counted as three fifths of a person, which benefited slave owners the most as that meant they would have more people from the South when it came to determining the representation in Congress. which is how the interests of Southern states were addressed.

The house’s representatives would be decided based on population, while the congress would have 2 representatives per state. It was decided slaves would be counted as 3/5th of a person for taxation and representation purposes. There were tensions between southern states and northern states as well. Southern states feared that the ability to regulate trade could greatly affect their agrarian economy and their slave trade.

In this paper I will be discussing the major importance’s of William Lloyd Garrison and his calls for immediate abolition. Garrison also known as “The Liberator”, was the voice of abolitionism. He was originally a supporter of colonization, but he changed his view and became the leader of an emerging anti-slavery movement. I will also be discussing the importance of Fredrick Douglass’s speech “The meaning of July Fourth to the Negro”. His speech starts out by praising what the founding fathers did for this country, but it quickly turns into a denunciation of the American’s attitude towards slavery.

The 3/5ths compromise The smaller states wanted more representation in the house but the north argued that if blacks weren 't allowed to vote and didn 't have rights they shouldn 't be counted towards house seats. The compromise stated that every slave counted as 3/5ths of a person towards house

As leaders of the nascent nation entered the Constitutional Convention of 1787, they aimed to unify the country under a set of common laws and values. During this process, the delegates were divided on the topic of slavery, in terms of how it would affect the way states were represented in Congress and how states were taxed by the national government. After many proposals, the delegates arrived at the three-fifths compromise, which valued slaves as 3/5th of free persons for the purposes of representation and taxation. If a true compromise is an agreement in which the parties involved make equal concessions, then the three-fifths compromise was not a true compromise because it favored the South by giving it disproportionate power in the national

As we look back in our past, we were always disgusted and disappointed in the grim history of slavery. In the year of Constitutional Convention, slavery is a common practice. It can be inherited and trade. When the 55 delegates gathered in Philadelphia to revise the Articles of Confederation, five issues arise, and these issues defined what America is, now.

The Constitution was created “to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty,” and from this Douglass concluded that it “could not well have been designed at the same time to maintain and perpetuate a system of rapine and murder like slavery.” Slavery goes against all of the principles promised by the preamble of the Constitution, and therefore can be used as a means to abolish slavery since it goes against the country’s principle

The three-fifths clause was the most important constitutional compromise because it granted the Southern states more political authority, which the Southerners then used to maintain slavery as an institution in the upcoming decades. The three-fifths clause made it so that three-fifths of a state’s slave population would be used in order to decide how many electoral votes and how many representatives a state could have. It was a compromise between the South (which relied on slaves for its economy) and the North (which had fewer slaves) for the sake of political unity. This clause guaranteed Southern states more political power than Northern States through votes or representation, so that laws would pass that allowed slavery to continue and flourish.

With this being said, President Abraham Lincoln was one of the few who kept the nations ongoing insecurity of slavery in mind. Knowing that there were still Americans throughout the Union that still preferred slavery but neglected their preferences for the sake of the Union. In light of the president’s presumptions on the focused intentions of the civil war, we observe the thoughts of Americans on the topic of slavery in the 1860’s. From the New York Harold in 1862, “what to Do with the Slaves when Emancipated,” the article reveals, “The policy of the abolitionists would be destructive: That of the President is benign.” Because this article presented by Northerners argues that the removal of slavery would harm the nation and provide further logic on why African Americans should be kept as slaves averting the possibility of whites performing the slave’s

One of the compromises made in the Constitutional Convention is the three-fifths compromise. In this compromise, the southerners wanted to add slaves to the population of the state they lived in. If slaves were included in their state’s population, that state would be able to add more representatives in the House of Representatives. Northerners did not agree with that statement because slaves did not have the right to vote. After the delegates compromised, they agreed that only three-fifths of the slave’s population would be counted into the state’s population.

As a slave state in the South, we are very well versed in the treatment and necessity a slave plays in Southern culture. However, slavery has recently taken a dip in economic prosperity due to the lifeless soil in the South. Slavery is declining and we cannot continue to support a system that is not only inhumane but also economically fighting an uphill battle. Representing one of the five delegates of the state of Delaware, it is my sole purpose to abolish slavery due to its weakness, much like the Articles of Confederation. The whole state of Delaware has actually taken the initiative to frame a constitution rooted from the immorality of slavery and the economic depression it currently faces [1].

Ultimately, the U.S. Constitution was pro-slavery because there wasn 't anything in it that was overly anti-slavery; slavery was being supported. I think that it makes sense to have the Constitution be pro-slavery because the country was left in a chaotic state after the Articles of Confederation failed and it needed to become united fast. To quickly unite the country, the Constitution needed everyone’s support and help, which couldn 't have been received without slavery. The large slave states wouldn 't have ratified the Constitution if slavery was going to be abolished

Are “all men created equal”? Why did the Constitution allow slavery to continue? The framers of the Constitution allowed slavery to continue because of political, economic, and social issues. They wanted their nation to be unified and the number of states to stay intact. They wanted to secure wealth and slavery was a great part of their economy.

On September 2nd, 1862, Abraham Lincoln famously signed the Emancipation Proclamation. After that, there’s been much debate on whether Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation truly played a role in freeing the slaves with many arguments opposing or favoring this issue. In Vincent Harding’s essay, The Blood-red Ironies of God, Harding argues in his thesis that Lincoln did not help to emancipate the slaves but that rather the slaves “self-emancipated” themselves through the war. On the opposition, Allen C Guelzo ’s essay, Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation: The End of Slavery in America, argues in favor of the Emancipation Proclamation and Guelzo acknowledges Lincoln for the abolishment of slavery through the Emancipation Proclamation.

Introduction: During the 1800’s, Slavery was an immense problem in the United States. Slaves were people who were harshly forced to work against their will and were often deprived of their basic human rights. Forced marriages, child soldiers, and servants were all considered part of enslaved workers. As a consequence to the abolition people found guilty were severely punished by the law.