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The United States Constitution and Slavery: The Inevitable Path to Civil War

By Darius Spearman (africanelements)

About the author: Darius Spearman is a professor of Black Studies at San Diego College, where he has been pursuing his love of teaching since 2007. He is the author of several books, including Between The Color Lines: A History of African Americans on the California Frontier Through 1890. You can visit Darius online at africanelements.org.

Summary:

The U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1787, avoided directly addressing the issue of slavery, leading to conflicts between slaveholding and non-slaveholding states.
The Three-Fifths Compromise allowed Southern states to count enslaved people as part of their population, boosting their representation in Congress.
The Constitution included clauses that indirectly referred to slavery, such as the Fugitive Slave Clause and the clause allowing the continuation of the slave trade until 1808.
The vagueness of the Constitution on the issue of slavery left the Union with no constitutional means to deal with it, leading to a series of failed compromises.
The expansion westward, the competing interests over the western frontier, and the lack of constitutional means to address slavery set the country on a collision course toward the Civil War.

On September 17, 1787, a group of men, about a third of whom were slaveholders, ratified a document that was initially premised on a bold declaration: that all men are created equal and are endowed by their creator with the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This document, known today as the U.S. Constitution, was meant to serve as the foundation of a new nation, a beacon of democracy and freedom. However, the Constitution’s framers faced a significant challenge: reconciling the conflicting interests of slaveholders and non-slaveholders.

The U.S. Constitution and Avoidance of Slavery

In their attempt to balance these competing interests, the framers of the Constitution chose not to address the issue of slavery directly. A quick search of the U.S. Constitution reveals that neither the words “slave” nor “slavery” appear anywhere in the document. This avoidance is almost comical when considering the significant role slavery played in the economic and social structures of the time.

One of the ways this conflict manifested was in determining representation in the House of Representatives. The convention settled on a model that decided representation by population. That is, the larger a state’s population, the more representatives for that state. But what about enslaved people? Did they count as part of the state’s population? The answer was no for the Northern states, who sought to stack the number of representatives in their favor. For Southerners who wanted to use the slave population to boost their representation in the House, the answer was clearly yes.

The Three-Fifths Compromise

In reconciling this conflict, the infamous Three-Fifths Compromise was born. The 3/5 clause stated that representation “shall be determined by adding the whole of the number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years and, excluding Indians not taxed, and three-fifths of all other persons.” “All other persons” was a thinly veiled reference to enslaved people, further highlighting the framers’ avoidance of directly addressing slavery. Despite the faster population growth in the North, this compromise boosted Southern power in Congress and propelled seven of the first 10 U.S. presidents from the Southern state of Virginia alone.

The Fugitive Slave Clause

Another example of the Constitution’s indirect reference to slavery is the Fugitive Slave Clause. This clause states: “No person held to service of 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 upon claim of the party to whom such service or labour may be due.” This clause, in essence, required that escaped slaves who made it to non-slaveholding states be returned to their owners.

The Slave Trade and the Constitution

Finally, the Constitution addressed the slave trade, albeit indirectly. The document allowed the slave trade to continue for the next 20 years in a clause that read: “The migration or importation of such persons as any of the states now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the year 1808.” This clause ensured that the lucrative slave trade, a cornerstone of the Southern economy, would continue unabated for at least two decades.

The Constitution’s Failure to Resolve Slavery

As vaguely written as these references to slavery were, the rift between North and South was already so great that the Constitution wouldn’t have been ratified without them. This fact prompted James Madison to declare, “Great as the evil is, a dismemberment of the Union would be worse.” The Constitution’s vagueness on the issue of slavery left the Union with no constitutional means to deal with the matter. This problem would finally come to a head four score and seven years later.

The Expansion Westward and the Issue of Slavery

The first sign of trouble occurred after the peace deal was ratified with Britain. Britain granted independence to its 13 North American colonies by the treaty’s terms. The problem was that Britain had no further need for the western territories it had acquired from France due to the Seven Year’s War, so that land was also ceded to the United States. Immediately, the U.S. doubled its size and created a new western frontier.

The new western frontier presented a problem. Suddenly, a large new territory and two emerging sections – North and South – had competing interests in what should be done with the newly acquired land. Would this new territory be an extension of the Southern slaveholding interests, or would it be a safety valve allowing Northern interests to continue to exploit the cheap labor of poor whites with the promise of free land for them out West?

With its growing industrial economy, the North saw the western territories as an opportunity for expansion and economic growth. They envisioned a west populated by free white laborers working on their farms or in burgeoning industries. The South, on the other hand, saw the western territories as an opportunity to expand the institution of slavery and secure their economic and political power.

The Role of Thomas Jefferson

In this case, Thomas Jefferson proposed that slavery not be introduced in the territory west of the Appalachians. Why would Thomas Jefferson – a man who owned hundreds of enslaved people – suggest that slavery not be introduced on the frontier? The frontier tends to be an attractive place for poor and marginalized folk. There was already a steady stream of poor white ethnic Europeans who were supplying cheap labor for northern industry. Many of those poor ethnic whites were finding that the wealthy elite were essentially reaping the rewards of their labor. As we saw in Bacon’s Rebellion, that could be dangerous – potentially creating another discontented class of poor whites that could end up revolting against the elite.

The frontier offered poor whites cheap land and an opportunity to acquire wealth – unless those poor whites had to go head-to-head with slave labor. For that reason, slavery was the last thing these poor whites wanted to see out on the frontier. Jefferson recognized that and was perfectly happy to see those poor whites out of sight on the frontier and out of mind. It turns out that slavery would have ruined that dynamic.

The Southern Slave Owners

For Southern enslavers, the increasing profitability of slave labor made the expansion of slavery to the West inevitable. So here we have our first crisis of the post-Revolutionary period. What to do? Extending the Mason-Dixon line to the Ohio River resolved the issue in this case. The territory north of the Ohio River was opened to non-slaveholding interests, while slavery expanded South of the Ohio River and west to the Mississippi.

So, the crisis in the Ohio Valley was averted… for now. But, with each acquisition of territory came another attempt to solve the issue of slavery that the Constitution failed to resolve. The Missouri Compromise in 1820, the Compromise of 1850, and the Kansas-Nebraska Act each attempted and failed to address this problem.

The Struggle for Freedom

The struggle for freedom was not confined to the United States. In the Caribbean, the Haitian Revolution, led by enslaved Africans against their French colonizers, established the first Black republic in the Western Hemisphere. This revolution, which took place around the same time as the drafting of the U.S. Constitution, served as a beacon of hope for enslaved people in the United States and elsewhere.

In the United States, enslaved people resisted their condition in various ways, from everyday acts of resistance to organized rebellions. One of the most significant of these rebellions was the Denmark Vesey Slave Revolt in 1822, which, although it was uncovered before it could take place, shook the foundation of slavery and served as a rallying point for abolitionists.

The Role of Compromises in the Expansion of Slavery

A series of compromises sought to maintain the delicate balance between the slaveholding South and the free North. The first was the extension of the Mason-Dixon line to the Ohio River, which determined that the territory North of the Ohio River would be open to non-slaveholding interests. At the same time, slavery was allowed to expand south of the Ohio River and west to the Mississippi.

This compromise, however, was only a temporary solution. As the United States continued to acquire new territories, the question of slavery would resurface again and again. Each new domain brought the potential for conflict as the North and the South vied for control and sought to shape these territories in their image.

The Missouri Compromise and the Compromise of 1850

The Missouri Compromise of 1820 and the Compromise of 1850 were further attempts to maintain the balance between the North and the South. The Missouri Compromise admitted Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state, maintaining the balance of power in the Senate. The Compromise of 1850, on the other hand, allowed California to be admitted as a free state, while the territories of Utah and New Mexico were allowed to decide the issue of slavery for themselves.

These compromises, however, were only temporary solutions to a deep-seated problem. The issue of slavery was not something that could be resolved through compromise. It was a fundamental contradiction in a nation that prided itself on its commitment to liberty and equality. The failure of these compromises to provide a lasting solution to the issue of slavery only served to deepen the divide between the North and the South, setting the stage for the Civil War.

The Kansas-Nebraska Act and the Dred Scott Decision

The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 and the Dred Scott Decision of 1857 were the final nails in the coffin of compromise. The Kansas-Nebraska Act allowed the territories of Kansas and Nebraska to decide the issue of slavery for themselves, effectively repealing the Missouri Compromise and opening up the possibility of slavery in territories where it had previously been prohibited.

The Dred Scott Decision, meanwhile, ruled that Congress had no authority to prohibit slavery in the territories, effectively declaring the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional. This decision, handed down by the Supreme Court, was a clear indication that the issue of slavery could not be resolved within the existing constitutional framework.

The Inevitability of the Civil War

In hindsight, we can see that the Civil War was inevitable from the moment the Constitution was ratified. The Constitution’s failure to adequately address the issue of slavery, the series of failed compromises, and the competing interests between the North and the South over the western frontier set the country on a collision course toward the Civil War.

The Civil War was not just a war over slavery; it was a war over the very meaning of the Constitution and the ideals it embodied. It was a war to determine whether the United States would live up to its founding principles of liberty and equality for all or continue to compromise them in the name of political expediency.

The continued expansion westward, the competing interests between North and South over the western frontier, and the failure of the nation’s founders to provide any constitutional means of addressing the issue of slavery put the country on a collision course toward the Civil War. That much was clear after the Supreme Court’s final failed attempt to resolve the constitutionality of slavery in the Dred Scott Decision in 1857. Still, in hindsight, we can see that the Civil War was inevitable the moment the ink dried on the United States Constitution.

The Aftermath of the Civil War and the Struggle for Freedom

The end of the Civil War did not mean the end of the struggle for freedom for Black Americans. The failure of post-Civil War Reconstruction to fully integrate formerly enslaved people into American society and the subsequent era of Jim Crow segregation set the stage for the Civil Rights Movement of the mid-20th century.

The struggle for freedom and equality, which began during the era of slavery, continues to this day. The legacy of slavery and the Constitution’s failure to adequately address this issue continue to shape the United States profoundly. Black Americans continue to fight against systemic racism and strive for equality. The fight for Black political power is a testament to this ongoing struggle.

The Constitution’s avoidance of the issue of slavery was not just a failure of moral courage; it was a failure of political foresight. In their attempt to preserve the Union, the framers of the Constitution failed to foresee the inevitable conflict that would arise from the institution of slavery. This failure and the series of failed compromises set the country on a collision course toward the Civil War.

The Fight for Freedom Continues

The fight for freedom did not end with the abolition of slavery or the end of the Civil War. It continued through the era of Jim Crow, the Civil Rights Movement, and into the present day. The struggle for equality and justice is a constant thread in the fabric of American history. This struggle is deeply intertwined with the legacy of slavery and the Constitution’s failure to address this issue.

The failure of post-Civil War Reconstruction to fully integrate formerly enslaved people into American society and the subsequent era of Jim Crow segregation set the stage for the Civil Rights Movement of the mid-20th century. This historical period is a stark reminder of the long and challenging road to equality and justice.

The Legacy of the U.S. Constitution and Slavery

The legacy of slavery continues to shape the United States in profound ways. Life on the slave plantations of the Deep South left an indelible mark on the country’s social, economic, and political landscape. The struggle for freedom and equality, which began during the era of slavery, continues to this day as Black Americans fight against systemic racism and strive for political power.

The end of the Civil War did not mean the end of the struggle for Black Americans. The failure of post-Civil War Reconstruction to fully integrate formerly enslaved people into American society and the subsequent era of Jim Crow segregation set the stage for the Civil Rights Movement of the mid-20th century.

The Constitution’s failure to adequately address the issue of slavery was a significant factor in the lead-up to the Civil War. The framers’ avoidance of the problem and the subsequent compromises to appease both slaveholding and non-slaveholding states only served to delay the inevitable conflict. The Civil War was not just a war between the North and the South; it was a war over the nation’s soul to determine whether the United States would live up to its founding ideals of liberty and equality for all.

The Constitution’s avoidance of the issue of slavery, the Three-Fifths Compromise, the Fugitive Slave Clause, and the clause allowing the continuation of the slave trade until 1808 all contributed to the deepening divide between the North and the South. These compromises, while perhaps necessary for the ratification of the Constitution, ultimately failed to resolve the issue of slavery and set the stage for the Civil War.

The legacy of these compromises continues to shape the United States today. The echoes of the past can be heard in the ongoing debates about racial justice, systemic racism, and the role of government in addressing these issues. The Constitution’s failure to adequately address the issue of slavery is a stark reminder of the dangers of avoiding difficult conversations and the importance of confronting injustice head-on.