At the Constitutional Convention in 1787, delegates fiercely debated the issue of slavery. They ultimately agreed that the United States would potentially cease importation of slaves in 1808. An act of Congress passed in 1800 made it illegal for Americans to engage in the slave trade between nations, and gave U.S. authorities the right to seize slave ships which were caught transporting slaves and confiscate their cargo. Then the "Act Prohibiting the Importation of Slaves" took effect in 1808. However, a domestic or "coastwise" trade in slaves persisted between ports within the United States, as demonstrated by slave manifests and court records.
Related Primary Sources
Teaching Activities
U.S. v. Amistad: A Case of Jurisdiction on DocsTeach asks students to analyze specified passages from the Supreme Court's decision in United States v. Libellants of Schooner Amistad to explore the concept of jurisdiction and how a case travels through the Federal court system. Students will also interpret the Supreme Court's role in the judicial branch by connecting the document back to the United States Constitution, and ultimately decide if they agree with the Supreme Court's ruling in the case.
Find other teaching activities related to slavery on DocsTeach.
Introduction
Sections 4, 5, and 6, of Article VII of the Committee of Detail Report, August 6, 1787, restrained the 18 powers granted to Congress. Included in that list of powers was the power to regulate international commerce. Five delegates wrote this first draft of the Constitution: Nathaniel Gorham from Massachusetts, Edmund Randolph from Virginia, James Wilson from Pennsylvania, Oliver Ellsworth from Connecticut, and John Rutledge from South Carolina.
Article VII, Sections 4, 5, and 6
Section 4. No tax or duty shall be laid by the Legislature on articles exported from any State; nor on the migration or importation of such persons as the several States shall think proper to admit; nor shall such migration or importation be prohibited.
Section 5. No capitation tax shall be laid, unless in proportion to the census herein before directed to be taken.
Section 6. No navigation act shall be passed without the assent of two-thirds of the members present in each House.
According to Section 4, what we now call the slave trade is completely 1) in the hands of each state and 2) out of the reach of Congress forever. Note that the word “slavery” is not mentioned.
The Three Sides
Three sides emerged in late August: principle, interest, and politics.
1. John Langdon “was strenuous for giving the power to the general government. He could not, with a good conscience, leave it with the States, who could then go on with the traffic.” John Dickinson, Luther Martin, George Mason, James Madison, Gouverneur Morris, James Wilson, and Edmund Randolph also opposed the slave trade on the grounds of principle. Martin argued that the slave trade was “inconsistent with the principles of the Revolution, and dishonorable to the American character, to have such a feature in the Constitution.” Mason stated that “every master of slaves is born a petty tyrant. They bring the judgment of Heaven on a country.”
This essay is part of a discussion about the Slave Trade Clause with Jenny S. Martinez, Professor of Law and Warren Christopher Professor in the Practice of International Law and Diplomacy, Stanford Law School. Read the full discussion here.
2. Hugh Williamson, from North Carolina, reminded the delegates of political reality. “The Southern States could not be members of the Union, if the clause should be rejected.” He added: “both in opinion and practice he was against slavery; but thought it more in favor of humanity, from a view of all circumstances, to let in South Carolina and Georgia on those terms, than to exclude them from the Union.” Rutledge, chairman of the Committee of Detail, proclaimed: “Religion and humanity had nothing to do with this question. Interest alone is the governing principle with nations. The true question at present is, whether the Southern States shall or shall not be parties to the Union. . . . If the Convention thinks that North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, will ever agree to the plan, unless their right to import slaves be untouched, the expectation is vain. The people of those States will never be such fools as to give up so important an interest.” Charles Pinckney agreed: “If slavery be wrong, it is justified by the example of all the world.”
3. Roger Sherman from Connecticut thought “it was better to let the Southern States import slaves than to part with them, if they made that a sine qua non.” He observed that the abolition of slavery seemed to be going on in the United States, and that the good sense of the several States would probably by degrees complete it. Mr. Ellsworth, also a member of the Committee of Detail, articulated the political position: the morality or wisdom of slavery are considerations belonging to the States themselves. Moreover, “slavery in time, will not be a speck in our country.” Massachusetts also sought accommodation. King said the whole “subject should be considered in a political light only.”
What is to be Done?
Mr. G. Morris “wished the whole subject to be committed, including the clauses relating to taxes on exports and to a navigation act. These things may form a bargain among the Northern and Southern States.”
The delegates appointed to a Committee of Eleven were Langdon, King, Johnson, Livingston, Clymer, Dickinson, L. Martin, Madison, Williamson, C.C. Pinckney, and Baldwin.
What sort of “bargain” would this Committee recommend? Langdon, King, Dickinson, Martin, and Madison opposed the Slave Clause provision on principle. Williamson, Pinckney, and Baldwin supported the Clause on the ground of interest. Perhaps Livingston, Johnson, and Clymer could help create an accommodation.
Governor Livingston from the Committee delivered the Report:
“Strike out so much of the fourth Section as was referred to the Committee, and insert, ‘The migration or importation of such persons as the several States, now existing, shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Legislature prior to the year 1800; but a tax or duty may be imposed on such migration or importation, at a rate not exceeding the average of the duties laid on imports.’ The fifth section to remain as in the Report. The sixth Section to be stricken out. . . . ”
Conclusion
The Committee permitted Congress to regulate the slave trade after 1800 and impose a tax on such importation. Moreover, the Clause was confined to “the several states, now existing” that considered it “proper.” Congress was free to regulate the slave trade in the territories and impose restrictions on new states that entered the Union.
General Pinckney moved to strike out the words, “the year eighteen hundred,” and to insert the words “the year eighteen hundred and eight.” It passed 7-4.
The delegates had moved a long way from never permitting Congress to regulate the slave trade to permitting Congress to regulate the trade after 1808. Madison considered 1800—the birth of a new century—to be the more principled compromise. New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Virginia voted “no.” They wanted 1800 instead of 1808.
Thus Article 1, Section 9 of the Constitution: “The migration or importation of such persons as the several states now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the legislature prior to the year 1808.”
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
— Declaration of Independence, 1776
| Thomas Jefferson presented the Declaration of Independence to the Continental Congress in 1776. (Wikimedia Commons) |
When the American colonies broke from England, the Continental Congress asked Thomas Jefferson to write the Declaration of Independence. In the declaration, Jefferson expressed American grievances and explained why the colonists were breaking away. His words proclaimed America’s ideals of freedom and equality, which still resonate throughout the world.
Yet at the time these words were written, more than 500,000 black Americans were slaves. Jefferson himself owned more than 100. Slaves accounted for about one-fifth of the population in the American colonies. Most of them lived in the Southern colonies, where slaves made up 40 percent of the population.
Many colonists, even slave holders, hated slavery. Jefferson called it a “hideous blot” on America. George Washington, who owned hundreds of slaves, denounced it as “repugnant.” James Mason, a Virginia slave owner, condemned it as “evil.”
But even though many of them decried it, Southern colonists relied on slavery. The Southern colonies were among the richest in America. Their cash crops of tobacco, indigo, and rice depended on slave labor. They weren’t going to give it up.
The first U.S. national government began under the Articles of Confederation, adopted in 1781. This document said nothing about slavery. It left the power to regulate slavery, as well as most powers, to the individual states. After their experience with the British, the colonists distrusted a strong central government. The new national government consisted solely of a Congress in which each state had one vote.
With little power to execute its laws or collect taxes, the new government proved ineffective. In May 1787, 55 delegates from 12 states met in Philadelphia. (Rhode Island refused to send a delegation.) Their goal was to revise the Articles of Confederation. Meeting in secret sessions, they quickly changed their goal. They would write a new Constitution. The outline of the new government was soon agreed to. It would have three branches — executive, judiciary, and a two-house legislature.
A dispute arose over the legislative branch. States with large populations wanted representation in both houses of the legislature to be based on population. States with small populations wanted each state to have the same number of representatives, like under the Articles of Confederation. This argument carried on for two months. In the end, the delegates agreed to the “Great Compromise.” One branch, the House of Representatives, would be based on population. The other, the Senate, would have two members from each state.
Part of this compromise included an issue that split the convention on North–South lines. The issue was: Should slaves count as part of the population? Under the proposed Constitution, population would ultimately determine three matters:
(1) How many members each state would have in the House of Representatives. (2) How many electoral votes each state would have in presidential elections.
(3) The amount each state would pay in direct taxes to the federal government.
| In 1787 after months of debate, delegates signed the new Constitution of the United States. (Wikimedia Commons) |
Only the Southern states had large numbers of slaves. Counting them as part of the population would greatly increase the South’s political power, but it would also mean paying higher taxes. This was a price the Southern states were willing to pay. They argued in favor of counting slaves. Northern states disagreed. The delegates compromised. Each slave would count as three-fifths of a person.
Following this compromise, another controversy erupted: What should be done about the slave trade, the importing of new slaves into the United States? Ten states had already outlawed it. Many delegates heatedly denounced it. But the three states that allowed it — Georgia and the two Carolinas — threatened to leave the convention if the trade were banned. A special committee worked out another compromise: Congress would have the power to ban the slave trade, but not until 1800. The convention voted to extend the date to 1808.
A final major issue involving slavery confronted the delegates. Southern states wanted other states to return escaped slaves. The Articles of Confederation had not guaranteed this. But when Congress adopted the Northwest Ordinance, it a clause promising that slaves who escaped to the Northwest Territories would be returned to their owners. The delegates placed a similar fugitive slave clause in the Constitution. This was part of a deal with New England states. In exchange for the fugitive slave clause, the New England states got concessions on shipping and trade.
These compromises on slavery had serious effects on the nation. The fugitive slave clause (enforced through legislation passed in 1793 and 1850) allowed escaped slaves to be chased into the North and caught. It also resulted in the illegal kidnapping and return to slavery of thousands of free blacks. The three-fifths compromise increased the South’s representation in Congress and the Electoral College. In 12 of the first 16 presidential elections, a Southern slave owner won. Extending the slave trade past 1800 brought many slaves to America. South Carolina alone imported 40,000 slaves between 1803 and 1808 (when Congress overwhelmingly voted to end the trade). So many slaves entered that slavery spilled into the Louisiana territory and took root.
Northern states didn’t push too hard on slavery issues. Their main goal was to secure a new government. They feared antagonizing the South. Most of them saw slavery as a dying institution with no economic future. However, in five years the cotton gin would be invented, which made growing cotton on plantations immensely profitable, as well as slavery.
The Declaration of Independence expressed lofty ideals of equality. The framers of the Constitution, intent on making a new government, left important questions of equality and fairness to the future. It would be some time before the great republic that they founded would approach the ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence.
For Discussion and Writing
- What were the ideals of equality expressed in the Declaration of Independence?
- Why was slavery so important to the South?
- Do you think the framers of the Constitution could have limited or banned slavery? Why or why not?
For Further Reading
Horton, James Oliver. Slavery and the Making of America. New York: Oxford University Press. 2005.
Davis, David Brion. Inhuman Bondage: The Rise and Fall of Slavery in the New World. New York: Oxford University Press. 2006.
Berlin, Ira. Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America. Cambridge: Harvard College. 1998.
Return to Black History Month Home Page