SLAVERY & THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION

SLAVERY AND THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION OF 1787

This research paper examines the relationship between the issue of slavery and the political decisions made at the Constitutional Convention of 1787. The institution of slavery of blacks (African Americans) in the original colonies which made up the new union was left intact as a result of the Constitutional Convention and in some important respects its constitutional status was buttressed. At the same time, partial limitations were placed on its spread by the constitutional phased in abolition of the importation of slaves into the United States and the contemporaneous Congressional ban on its spread into the Northwest Territory. These seemingly contradictory political decisions arose out of the dynamics of the debates at the Constitutional Convention which reflected conflicts between the larger and smaller states over the powers of the new central government, the competing economic interests of different sections of the country and of the dominant property-owning elites represented in Philadelphia and the prevailing attitudes of most white Americans toward blacks and slavery.

Slavery in America in the Late 1780s

Small numbers of blacks accompanied the first Spanish and later French explorers of North America. The trans-Atlantic slave trade to North America reached its apogee in the first half of the 18th century. According to Eltis, "after 1700 . . . the British slave trade tripled in size compared to the four decades

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abitants or "proportional to the Quotas of contributions" of the states (Finkleman Slavery and the Constitutional 67). The voters would elect the lower house, the state legislatures the upper one. The national legislature would be vested with the power to override state legislation it deemed incompetent. A strong executive would be created with powers to veto Congressional legislation and national courts. The Virginia Plan was the creation of the three most populous states, Virginia, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts, which then possessed 45 percent of the population. It quickly became apparent that most of the smaller states, which outnumbered the larger ones, while in favor of a stronger national government, were not about to be stampeded into approving the principle of proportional representation in Congress. When Delaware threatened to walk out of the Convention over the issue of one state=one vote in Congress, the Convention referred the entire matter of representation in Congress to a Committee of the Whole. In the latter, it quickly became apparent that the willingness of South Carolina and Georgia to accept proportional representation in Congress was dependent on 3/5's of all black slaves in the South being counted. The 3/5

Category: History - S