|
 A
flyer published in 1795 seeks the return of a runaway slave
in New Jersey. Image Source: Special
Collections & University Archives , Alexander Library,
Rutgers, the State University
of New Jersey
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The debate
over the morality and economic role of slavery began well
before the Revolution. In Pennsylvania, the influence in
the government of the colony of the Society
of Friends, whose adherents were known as Quakers, was
reflected in emerging concerns over the presence of slavery.
As early as 1688, four German Quakers in Germantown near
Philadelphia protested slavery in a resolution that condemned
the "traffic of Men-body." While some Quakers owned slaves,
slavery provoked religious debates
not only over the moral propriety of owning another person,
but also over its worldliness, with some arguing that the
possession of slaves as property was inconsistent with the
Quaker precept to live simple lives devoid of luxury. It
was not until 1758, however, that the Philadelphia
Yearly Meeting of the Society of Friends made buying
or selling a slave a bar to leadership in the Quaker meetings,
and in 1774 it became cause for being disowned or banished
from the Society.
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The intellectual
arguments for slavery's abolition also were strengthened by
the writings of John
Locke and others arguing for the recognition of natural
rights of all men--the same positions also used to justify
the revolt against the British Crown--and the mid-1770s saw
additional abolitionist movements along with the conflict
that would lead to the Revolutionary War. In 1775, The Society
for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage
was founded and later reorganized as the Pennsylvania Abolition
Society, with Benjamin
Franklin later assuming its presidency. In 1780, Pennsylvania
enacted the "Act
for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery", the first law in
America mandating an eventual end to slavery, allowing any
slave born after March 1, 1780, to be freed at the end of
twenty-eight years.
When the
Constitutional Convention met in Philadelphia in 1787, issues
related to slavery also were the subject of debate and compromise.
But the prevailing sentiment of the framers of the Constitution
was to avoid the direct confrontation on slavery that would
jeopardize the larger goal of creating a strong national union
and government. When the Pennsylvania Abolition
Society asked Benjamin
Franklin, one of the Sociey's members and later its president,
to forward a petition to the Convention calling for the abolition
of slavery in the new document, Franklin declined to submit
the petition to his fellow Convention delegates, suggesting
"...that the memorial, in the beginning of the deliberations
of the convention, might alarm some of the Southern States,
and thereby defeat the wishes of the enemies of the African
trade." In the Convention debates, James Madison argued that
a national union required that both slave-state and non-slave-state
interests be protected, and proposed, unsuccessfully, that
the representation in one house of Congress be based on each
state's free population only and the representation in the
other house be based on each state's total population including
all slaves.
The Constitution's
final draft included four specific provisions dealing directly
with slavery: (1) three-fifths of the slave population was
to be considered in apportioning direct taxes and representation
in the U.S. House of Representatives (Article
I, Section 2); (2) any tax levied on imported slaves could
not exceed ten dollars per slave (Article
I, Section 9); (3) runaway slaves had to be returned to
their masters "on demand" and could not be emancipated (Article
IV); and (4) no amendment to the Constitution prohibiting
the slave trade could be adopted before 1808 (Article
I, Section 9). Additional provisions, however, while not
expressly mentioning slavery, were part of the regional compromises
worked out in the final document, including the indirect election
of the president through electors based on Congressional representation,
which strengthened the influence of the Southern states due
to the counting of three-fifths of the slaves in the apportionment
of their Congressional representation; prohibition of the
levying of export duties by both federal and state governments,
thus exempting from taxation exports produced with the aid
of slaves like cotton or food products; creation of an effective
veto power for the South over future amendments to the Constitution
by requiring that three-fourths of the states would need to
ratify all amendments; authorization for the Congress to mobilize
the militia to suppress "domestic insurrections" (including
the growing fear of slave revolts); and limitation of the
"privileges
and immunities" clause of the Constitution to "citizens",
thus denying these protections to slaves and in some cases
to free blacks. See generally A Necessary Evil? Slavery
and the Debate Over the Constitution, ed. John P. Kaminski
(Columbia, S.C.: Model Editions Partnership, 1999). Slavery
and the Constitution
The importance
of slavery to the economies of the South greatly increased
as a result of the invention of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney
in 1793. Whitney's
machine removed seeds from the cotton, freeing slaves from
this time-consuming task and allowing much more efficient
production.
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Cotton
Gin and Eli Whitney Image Source: Eli Whitney Museum
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Demand
for cotton surged. In 1793, the first year the cotton
gin was introduced to the plantations, 180 thousand
pounds of cotton were produced. Within two years, production
had gone to more than 6 million pounds; by 1810, some
93 million pounds were being shipped from the South.
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With the
sharp increase in demand for cotton, the need for slaves to
perform other tasks in the cultivation and production process
also grew. The greater profitability of cotton also saw its
cultivation spread to territories and states outside the old
South, an expansion that also brought with it the adoption
of slavery in these new areas, thus increasing the leverage
of the slave states in the Congress. By 1860, there were 15
slave states compared to the six states in 1790. See Laura
Bohn, The Cotton Gin and Slavery, Issues &
Problems in Nineteenth Century Literature & Culture, Professor
Michael Goeller, Rutgers
University.
In 1819,
the Missouri Territory, which allowed slavery, applied for
statehood. Acquired in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, Missouri
would be the first of the new territories to become a state,
and its admission as a slave state would upset the equal balance
between slave and non-slave states.. Concerned that the South
would gain an increasing representational advantage if other
western territories followed Missouri into the Union as slave
states, New York Congressman James
Tallmadge introduced an amendment
to Missouri's statehood bill that would prohibit any further
growth of slavery in Missouri, and would eventually set free
the children of slaves born in the state when they reached
the age of 25. The Tallmadge amendment passed the House but
was rejected by the Senate. After extensive negotiations and
debate, the issue was finally resolved through the enactment
of the Missouri Compromise
primarily drafted by Senator Henry
Clay of Kentucky.
Under
the agreement, the northern part of Massachusetts was admitted
to the Union as the free state of Maine at the same time that
Missouri was admitted as a slave state, thereby maintaining
a balance of 12 slave and 12 free states. In addition, the
legislation extended an imaginary line from Missouri's northern
border at 36 degrees 30 minutes north latitude, decalring
that any portions of the Louisiana Territory lying north of
the compromise line would be free. Finally, the act declared
that fugitive slaves "escaping into any... state or territory
of the United States...may be lawfully reclaimed and conveyed
to the person claiming his or her labour or service", and
that, even in the free territories, "slavery and involuntary
servitude ... in the punishment of crimes" was allowed.
Resources
The
African-American Mosaic, Library of Congress Resource Guide
for the Study of Black History & Culture
>>Library of Congress
From
Slavery to Freedom: The African-American Pamphlet Collection
>>Library of Congress
The
Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance
and Abolition >> Yale
Center for International and Area Studies, Yale
University
Africans
in America >> PBS.org
John
Brown's Holy War >> PBS.org
Educational
Tools
Slavery
and Abolition, Social
Movements and Culture, American Studies Program, Washington
State University
Teacher's
Guide: Africans in America >>PBS.org
Teaching
With Documents Lesson Plan: The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
>> National
Archives & Records Administration
Next>
Compromise
of 1850
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