Why Slavery Never Ended

Our founding fathers carefully avoided the issue of slavery, while coincidentally advocating equality. They avoid this because they felt that government shouldn't interfere with people's personal lives or business. Congress wanted to write a constitution, but the South wouldn't support it unless slaves were counted as part of the population. This way the South would have more electoral college votes. This is when the three -fifths compromise was created.

The three-fifths compromise said the 3/5 of slaves would be counted as part of the population of each state. Because of the three-fifths compromise, Southerners had more power in congress. They had more votes in the electoral college when it came time for the presidential election. "Between 1788 and 1869, nine of the fifteen presidents, including all five who served two terms, were slave owners". (Welch, 2004).

Article 1 section 2 said "Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three-fifths of all other Persons"(Boyd, 2005). This meant that one would take all the persons in the state and add 3/5 of all the slaves to that number. Rather than using the word slave the constitution says " all other persons" Slave owners agreed that if the slaves where not counted then it would be viewed that they were property, rather than humans.

Southerners made provisions while in control of congress. such as forbidding congress from ban importation of slaves. Southerners claimed it brought wealth to them and the whole nation. Another provision the South work in to congress was requiring free states to return all runaway slaves. Northern members of congress who represented the shippers, said that shippers would benefit from the importation of salves. So northerners went along with both of these changes so that shippers would benefit. The Constitution did not mentioned the word slave or slavery any where.

Slavery was next mentioned in Article 1 Section 9. "The Migration and 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 one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a Tax or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person"

(Boyd, 2005). Here the words Migration and importation of such persons refers to the slave trade. This meant that only the original thirteen colonies could participate in slave trade and that the trading slaves cannot not be stooped by congress until after 1808. But a tax can be put on each slave as long as it doesn't go over ten dollars a slave. If this clause hadn't of been created, then congress could have abolished the slavery trade before 1808. The first day of 1808 January 1st congress did abolish the slave trade.

Slavery is next mentioned in Article 4 Section 2. "No Person held to Service or Labor 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 Labor, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom Service or Labor may be due" ( Boyd, 2005). This meant that if a slave excepted from the service or their master to a free state they must be returned. This clause didn't refer o free or non free person, but refers to slavery in the title The Fugitive Slave act. IN this clause fugitives are referred to as fleeing from justice and slaves escaping from the service or labor in a state. This was replaced by the 13th amendment that abolished slavery.

One reason the south did not want to stop slavery is because economically it would cost them more in labor costs to produce the crops like cotton and tobacco. It took a lot of manpower to harvest and cultivate these crops. Also when the cotton gin was invented it increased the importance of the slaves.

Americans claimed to be in slaved by the British, which outraged the founding fathers. They didn't understand how they could say then and have African Americans slaves. The reason the government didn't stop slavery was to get the five states in the South to sign the Constitution. The declaration of Independence say all white men are created equal, this caused many people to blame the people who signed the Declaration of Independence for slavery.

Not all men agreed on slavery, a few even tried to stop it. Thomas Jefferson tried to have the Declaration of Independence say all men are created equal. James Otis also fought for all men to be free. The Massachusetts legislator voted to end slave trade. Following that the Continental Congress did the same. Northerners began to mock southerners for owning slaves. Delaware, Pennsylvania, Connecticut and Rhoad Island did every thing in their power to end slavery. They banned slaves from being imported, they taxed slave owners and some of the sates made said that all slaves that entered their state would automatically become free.

Not doing any thing about slavery has been called our nations greatest compromise. Not doing any thing about slavery led to social problems, political problems and the Civil War. The founding fathers or framer did nothing about slave because of mixed motives. "Some of the framers were wealth, some were not, some owned slaves, some did not. Some were creditors, some were deeply in debt". (DiIulio, 2004)

. The framers made the decisions that they made to best befit this country, but doing nothing about slavery can still be seen today. The constitution neither allowed slavery nor did it stop it. The framers acknowledged slavery but also limited, they believed it would die. we can see that not all of the framer where for slavery because the word slavery was never used in the constitution. We can see this because the salve trade was only protected for a short time. "Constitution was established to uphold the perpetuation of the Union and the rights and liberties of its citizens" (Boly, 2005).

References

Boyd, S. (2005). A Look Into the Constitutional Understanding of Slavery. AshBRook Center, 6n1, Retrieved

November 25,2006, from http://www.ashbrook.org/publicat/respub/v6n1/boyd.html

DiIulio, J. & James Q. (2004). American government: Institutions and policies (9th ed.).

New York: Houghton Mifflin Company.

Welch, S., et.al. (2004). Understanding American government (7th ed.). Belmont:

Wadsworth/Thomson.