FREE ESSAY ON DEBATES OVER SLAVERY

DEBATES OVER SLAVERY

Debates Over Slavery
In 1787, delegates arrived in Philadelphia to begin work on revising the Articles of
Confederation. Most states agreed that the Articles had not provided the country with the
type of guidelines that it needed to run smoothly. There were many things missing, and
many issues that needed further consideration. One of the most controversial topics at
the Constitutional Convention was figuring out the country's policy towards slavery. When
all was said and done, slavery was still legal after the Convention because the southern
economy depended on it and because most people decided that this was an issue that should
be decided by each individual state, rather than the country as a whole.
The issue of slavery was taken very seriously at the Convention, and there were many
different sides to the issue that were debated. Although the southern state's economies
depended on slaves immensely, the northern states believed that the US could not in good
will allow slavery because of the moral repercussions that go along with it. The US was
founded in the first place because they felt that they were their own country, a separate
entity from England. Now, nearly seven years later they were going to sign a document
that would give Americans the right to hold people against their will and force them to
work for free. This seems like a large contradiction to everything the US stands for,
especially since they had just earned their own freedom a few years ago. Luther Martin of
Maryland brought up this point at the Convention by saying, ...it is inconsistent with
the principles of the revolution and dishonorable to the American character to have such
a feature in the Constitution (Peters 164).
Many people viewed slavery as an economic issue, and not a moral issue at all. John
Rutledge of South Carolina said, Religion and humanity have 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 (Peters
164). Many people agreed with Rutledge, because the entire southern economy depended on
slavery at that time. They believed each individual state should be able to decide for
themselves how they feel about slavery. A northern man may oppose slavery because of its
moral effects, but he wouldn't know what it was like to run a large plantation and then
lose his entire work force. This is why the south demanded that it be left up to each
state.
Some southern states, such as Virginia and Maryland had already begun to change their
laws dealing with slavery. They made laws preventing the import of more slaves into their
states, and North Carolina was in the process of discussing the same thing. Many people
opposed this idea, because if two or three states oppose the importation of slavery, but
two or three allow it, then the law of the other two states is useless. This seeming
contradiction caused many people to reaffirm the idea that this was a national issue.
This brought about one of the first tests of federalism.
Once the Convention heard all the arguments and voted on all the clauses contained about
slavery, the delegates concluded that slavery should still be legal. There are a few
reasons why they decided this. The first major reason was that the southern economy
depended on slavery to operate their plantations. If slavery were abolished, then they
would lose their entire work force and would be forced to find white people to work for
them instead. This is a major problem, however, since poor white people felt that they
were a step up from the African slaves. They didn't want to be doing a job that was
normally done by the blacks (It's important to realize that most southern people at that
time felt that blacks were an inferior race, and should be treated as such). Many
supporters of slavery, such as Charles Pinckney even argued that In all ages, one-half of
mankind have been slaves (Peters 167).
Since the north depended on factories and other industries to drive its economy, most
people had no need for slaves and most believed that it was generally immoral. However,
the south was very different from this since it relied heavily on plantations as a means
of driving the economy. By immediately taking away their work force, there would be no
one left to pick the cotton, their main crop at the time. Without cotton, the northern
factories would have nothing to produce their textiles from. This chain reaction would
basically collapse the entire US economy, so they proposed many different ideas, such as
slowly getting rid of slavery and not dealing with the issue again until 1808 (Edel 24).
This is exactly what the Convention finally agreed on.
The next reason why slavery was not abolished during the Constitutional Convention was
because many people saw slavery as an issue that should be decided by individual states,
rather than the national government. Oliver Ellsworth argued at the Convention by saying,
Let every state import what it pleases. The morality or wisdom of slavery are
considerations belonging to the states themselves. What enriches a part enriches the
whole, and the states are the best judges of their particular interest (Peters 165).
Before his death in 1790, Benjamin Franklin wrote a memorial to Congress asking for the
abolition of slavery. Congress responded by saying that they could not interfere in the
internal affairs of the states (Peters 241). People such as Roger Sherman pointed out
that abolition of slavery was slowly happening in the United States any ways, so there
was no need for the national government to intercede.
The other issue involved with the slaves was that many people saw the Union as an entity
made up of large and small states. Others believed the Union was divided into
slave-owning states and non-slave-owning states. This caused a lot of confusion between
larger states up north who sympathized with larger states down south, and vice versa.
Other issues such as suffrage and representation in Congress became interrelated with the
slavery issue (Edel 24-5). Small states wanted equal representation in Congress, so they
would agree with other smaller states on representation issues, but then disagree with
the northern states about slavery. This caused many disputes among the states and
prolonged the process of finishing the Constitution, as well as coming up with a
conclusion about the slavery issue.
At the completion of the Convention, the delegates had voted to let slavery remain legal
until they discussed it again in 1808. Due to the South's dependence on slaves and the
popular belief that slavery is an issue that should be dealt with by each state
individually, the slaves were not freed in 1787. Many other issues became entangled in
this argument, but those were the major causes of the Convention's decision.