The intention was that since the Constitution, which created our federal government, is a document that grants powers to the federal government, and that all authorities not expressly delegated are reserved to the States, slavery would remain an issue addressed by the States. The federal government, based on the limiting principles in place, could not legislate regarding slaves once they were in the States.
According to Article I, Section 9, Clause 1, in 1808 Congress would possess the power to stop the importation of slaves, but not before.
In March of 1794, Congress prohibited the use of any U.S. port or shipyard for the purpose of fitting out or building any ship to be used for the import of slaves. This law halted the slave trade, until after 1800 when Georgia and South Carolina reopened their international slave trade, and in eight years, introduced about 100,000 new slaves from Africa. In 1800, Congress amended the 1794 act by dramatically increasing fines for illegal American participation in the slave trade, and gave informants a right to the entire value of any ship condemned under the law. The 1800 amendment prohibited any American citizen or resident alien from voluntarily serving "on board any foreign ship or vessel . . . employed in the slave trade." American sailors found on slavers were now subject to a $2,000 fine. Another law passed in 1803 imposed more fines for people who brought newly imported slaves into states that banned the international slave trade.[2]
In December 1806, Thomas Jefferson reminded the nation that on January 1, 1808, the constitutional suspension of congressional power on this issue would finally expire as per Article I, Section 9, Clause 1. Jefferson said America was ready to "withdraw from all further participation in those violations of human rights which have been so long continued on the unoffending inhabitants of Africa, and which the morality, the reputation, and the best interests of our country have long been eager to proscribe."[2]
No law by Congress to completely outlaw U.S. participation in the Atlantic Slave Trade could take effect until January 1, 1808, but Jefferson urged Congress to act before that date, so that legislation would be in place immediately. Congress complied, writing and passing legislation to absolutely ban all importations of slaves after January 1, 1808.
Decades of abolition movements and various anti-slavery legislation, and a bloody civil war between the States leaving over 600,000 dead, occurred before slavery was finally wiped from the laws of the nation that was founded on the principle that "All men are created equal."
The Founding Fathers wrote it to be "self-evident" that "All men are created equal." They affirmed that our rights as human beings are God-given, and that the Creator endows every person with “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Frederick Douglass called them "saving principles."[3]
Thomas Jefferson recognized that the elimination of slavery in America would be a slow process, and for the sake of the union surviving through its early years, compromises were necessary. He said, "Where the disease [slavery] is most deeply seated, there it will be slowest in eradication. In the Northern states, it was merely superficial and easily corrected. In the Southern, it is incorporated with the whole system and requires time, patience, and perseverance in the curative process."[4]
Jefferson was optimistic that eventually slavery fade from reality. He acknowledged to Reverend Richard Price of England through letters in 1785 his own desire to abolish slavery, but his position, if he voiced it, would place him in the "respectable minority" in his own State.[4]
Jefferson was a slave owner in the pro-slavery State of Virginia. His status as a slave owner is indeed not a surprise. He couldn't even free his slaves after his death because Virginia law at the time of Jefferson's death actually disallowed such a practice. The deconstructionist may argue that the founders were a bunch of hypocrites. In response, Why, then, did they write Article I, Section 9, Clause 1 into the Constitution that led to the eradication of the Atlantic Slave Trade? Why, despite being a slave owner in a place where owning slaves was not just a normal practice, but sometimes expected, would these men characterize slave ownership as a sin against God, or in Jefferson's case, call it "The most unremitting despotism"?[5]
"Indeed," Jefferson wrote, "I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever."[5]
The founders recognized the controversy. They knew that the universal ideals they embraced in the Declaration of Independence were not in line with the reality of their new country. The political fight over slavery, if allowed, would serve as a distraction in the fight against the mighty British Empire for independence. The issue of slavery was one that had to be set aside, and saved for another day. The urgency for independence was paramount, and as Dr. Benjamin Franklin stated in reply to John Hancock during the debates over the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia, 1776, "Yes, we must indeed all hang together, or most assuredly, we shall all hang separately."[6]
The ideal of equality remained a dream for the future, and was indeed enshrined in the Declaration of Independence. It gave hope to the moral efforts of the abolitionists. It created the opportunity to speak those fighting words in the first place, "If all men are created equal, why is slavery still a part of our land?"
Frederick Douglass, an escaped slave and leader in the abolitionist movement, recognized the plight of the founders, and recognized that the Constitution was an anti-slavery document. On March 26, 1860, in a speech in Glasgow, Scotland, Mr. Douglass proclaimed, "I, on the other hand, deny that the Constitution guarantees the right to hold property in man, and believe that the way to abolish slavery in America is to vote such men into power as well use their powers for the abolition of slavery. This is the issue plainly stated, and you shall judge between us. Before we examine into the disposition, tendency, and character of the Constitution, I think we had better ascertain what the Constitution itself is. Before looking for what it means, let us see what it is. . . The American Constitution is a written instrument full and complete in itself. No Court in America, no Congress, no President, can add a single word thereto, or take a single word threreto. It is a great national enactment done by the people, and can only be altered, amended, or added to by the people. . . It should also be borne in mind that the intentions of those who framed the Constitution, be they good or bad, for slavery or against slavery, are so respected so far, and so far only, as we find those intentions plainly stated in the Constitution. It would be the wildest of absurdities, and lead to endless confusion and mischiefs, if, instead of looking to the written paper itself, for its meaning, it were attempted to make us search it out, in the secret motives, and dishonest intentions, of some of the men who took part in writing it. It was what they said that was adopted by the people, not what they were ashamed or afraid to say, and really omitted to say. Bear in mind, also, and the fact is an important one, that the framers of the Constitution sat with doors closed, and that this was done purposely, that nothing but the result of their labours should be seen, and that that result should be judged of by the people free from any of the bias shown in the debates. It should also be borne in mind, and the fact is still more important, that the debates in the convention that framed the Constitution, and by means of which a pro-slavery interpretation is now attempted to be forced upon that instrument, were not published till more than a quarter of a century after the presentation and the adoption of the Constitution."[7]
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." The Founding Fathers recognized that those words did not describe the place they lived, but a place they desired America to become. Their words became a creed, a call to action, a demand for equality.
Equality, however, is not equality through government, or equality in the outcome of our lives, but equality in opportunity as individuals to pursue happiness, to take risks, to fail and try again, to toil for a better life, and to succeed in ways people in other parts of the world could only imagine. We are created equal, and we have equal opportunity, though for some the fight is a little harder than for others. Equality is all about the pursuit, not the result. It is all about Americans who have the right to open a business, or pursue an education, or do neither and decide for themselves to become an employee. Equality is about local issues remaining local, and the centralized federal government staying out of the business of individuals so that they can pursue their happiness in the way they desire to pursue it. Equality is the struggle. Equality is the journey. Equality is the pursuit.
The United States has become the nation where all men are created equal, as the founders envisioned, and it will continue to be. Still, Ben Franklin's warning comes to mind, when asked what the delegates in the Constitutional Convention had given the people of the United States. "A republic," he replied, "If you can keep it."[8]
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Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
[1]
Taxation No Tyranny by Samuel Johnson
[2]
The Abolition of the Slave Trade - U.S. Constitution and Acts
[3]
What to the Slave is the Fourth of July by Frederick Douglass - Teaching American History
[4] David Barton,
The Jefferson Lies, (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2012), 90-91
[5]
Notes on the State of Virginia, Query XVIII: Manners by Thomas Jefferson - Teaching American History
[6] Andrew M. Allison,
The Real Benjamin Franklin, (Washington: National Center for Constitutional Studies, 2009), 202
[7]
The Constitution of the United States: Is It Pro-Slavery or Anti-Slaver? by Frederick Douglass - Teaching American History
[8] Andrew M. Allison, The Real Benjamin Franklin, (Washington: National Center for Constitutional Studies, 2009), 263
