The US Constitution
When the Constitution was drafted in 1787, slavery was a major component of the economy and society in the United States. It is odd that the Constitution does not use the word “slavery” in the provisions that most directly respond to the practice. It takes a careful reader to notice the “Importation of Persons Clause” in Article 1, Section 9, Clause 1, which does not mention exactly who are the persons who might be “imported.”
Likewise, the “Three-Fifths Clause” in Article 1, Section 2, Paragraph 3, provides that apportionment of representatives would be based on the population of free persons excluding “Indians not taxed” and “three fifths of all other persons.” Those “other persons” were, of course, the African slaves who made up around a third of the population of the Southern states at that time. The “Fugitive Slave Clause” in Article IV, Section 2, Clause 2, provides that “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.” Again, the text studiously avoids the use of the word slavery. Traces of a slave-holding society can be seen in other parts of the early Constitution, from the federal structure of the government including the Senate and limitations on the powers of the federal government, to the protection of property in the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment.
There was obviously deep tension between the practice of slavery and the notion in the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.” Perhaps the drafters of the Constitution were too embarrassed to use the word “slavery.” Or perhaps, as other historians have argued, the drafters did not want to suggest that slavery was recognized under federal law, but rather existed only as a result of state laws.
These constitutional provisions related to slavery reflected a compromise between Northern and Southern states that was essential to ratification of the Constitution and formation of the Union, but ultimately a compromise that was unsustainable, as shown finally by the Civil War.
Political support for banning the slave trade came earlier and was more broadly shared than support for banning slavery itself. The practice of capturing and enslaving free persons in Africa and cruelly transporting them in crowded ships across the Atlantic was viewed by some at that time as more unjust than keeping generations of persons enslaved on plantations in the New World. Indeed, opposition to the slave trade was so strong that the constitution of the Confederacy in the Civil War even prohibited it. There was also international pressure to regulate the slave trade on the high seas, led by the United Kingdom and enforced through a network of international treaties prohibiting the slave trade.
Likewise, the “Three-Fifths Clause” in Article 1, Section 2, Paragraph 3, provides that apportionment of representatives would be based on the population of free persons excluding “Indians not taxed” and “three fifths of all other persons.” Those “other persons” were, of course, the African slaves who made up around a third of the population of the Southern states at that time. The “Fugitive Slave Clause” in Article IV, Section 2, Clause 2, provides that “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.” Again, the text studiously avoids the use of the word slavery. Traces of a slave-holding society can be seen in other parts of the early Constitution, from the federal structure of the government including the Senate and limitations on the powers of the federal government, to the protection of property in the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment.
There was obviously deep tension between the practice of slavery and the notion in the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.” Perhaps the drafters of the Constitution were too embarrassed to use the word “slavery.” Or perhaps, as other historians have argued, the drafters did not want to suggest that slavery was recognized under federal law, but rather existed only as a result of state laws.
These constitutional provisions related to slavery reflected a compromise between Northern and Southern states that was essential to ratification of the Constitution and formation of the Union, but ultimately a compromise that was unsustainable, as shown finally by the Civil War.
Political support for banning the slave trade came earlier and was more broadly shared than support for banning slavery itself. The practice of capturing and enslaving free persons in Africa and cruelly transporting them in crowded ships across the Atlantic was viewed by some at that time as more unjust than keeping generations of persons enslaved on plantations in the New World. Indeed, opposition to the slave trade was so strong that the constitution of the Confederacy in the Civil War even prohibited it. There was also international pressure to regulate the slave trade on the high seas, led by the United Kingdom and enforced through a network of international treaties prohibiting the slave trade.
Source: Jenny S. Martinez, "The Invisible Past: Relics of Slavery in the Constitution." National Constitution Center: Interactive Constitution. 2021.
https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/interpretation/article-i/clauses/761#article-1-section-9-by-jenny-martinez