Was the Constitution Proslavery?

[MobileBoy]

Sorry man.Now with my name being Ashley I should've known names can be deceiving.

[elektratig]

Mobileboy,

You'd have no way of knowing! It's funny, it had never occured to me that the name could be taken as female, but in retrospect it's obvious.

[mobile_96]

Originally Posted by matthew mckeon

.... then the mere election of a president hostile to slavery, with the majority of Congress hostile to slavery,

IIRC, the House had a few more votes to give against slavery, but....the Senate was more pro-Slavery. Even though the states were still even between slave-nonslave, dough faces (Northerners with Southern leanings) helped keep the necessary votes to protect slavery. The failure of the Morrill tarriff to pass before any states seceded, shows this.
A few southerners even protested against secession because they figured the South could override Lincoln, until the next presidental election, if they could reunit the Democratic party and get in another Southern President.
Chuck in IL.

[MobileBoy]

Mobile 96,
The Morrill tarrif passed through the House of Representatives even though 39 out of 40 members from states who would've seceded within a year voted against it.The tarrif wasn't defeated in the Senate either though prior to secession your correct it hadn't passed either.I don't think there was a vote on it in the Senate prior to secession that I'm aware of.

[elektratig]

It's impossible to know, of course, how things would have played out if some version of a "declining fifths" rule had been adopted. Conceivably, it could have brought about a secession crisis earlier, as the southern states realized they had painted themselves into a corner. Would the Union under President Monroe have fought if the lower south had seceded in, say, 1820? I doubt it.

More optimistically, perhaps such a rule would have served to put everyone on notice that slavery was a temporary exception to the general rule of freedom. Early in the Republic, before attitudes hardened, there were men of good will in the South, such as Thomas Jefferson and Henry Clay, who conceded that slavery was damaging and evil. Such a rule might have given them greater moral authority and an incentive to focus on and deal with the problem.

[JohnTaylor]

Originally Posted by samgrant

I think they wanted to leave that issue to the future, so as to get the thing done, as that issue was holding things up. Tho the did address it somewhat by the 3/5ths stuff.

What do you think? Was this failure to reach a true concensus on this issue the ultimate cause of the later civil war? Had there been no "compromise" in which there was a tacit agreement to 'put it off', would there have ever been a Constitution established at all among the states (in other words, no United States, or perhaps 2 seperatate United States?

Sam, interesting approach. There was true concensus. The concensus was to allow States that allowed slavery to be represented in the House counting "other persons" as 3/5 of a citizen, to leave the slave trade open until 1808. The Founders did not "put it off." With the above-mentioned caveats, the Constitution leaves to each State to decide for itself whether to allow negro slavery or not.
If the Constitution had delegated that power to the Federal government (to decide either way), it is doubtful the document would have been ratified. The States of Georgia and South Carolina would not have joined a Union in which slavery was outlawed, and Massachusetts and Connecticut would not have joined a Union in which slavery was universal and mandatory. Wisely, the left the question to the States, each State to decide for itself. There is absolutely nothing in the Constitution that says that every issue must be decided at the Federal level. Quite the contrary.

That said, all of the States agreed to repatriate escaped slaves from the States which did tolerate the institution.

The Founders did not "put it off." They made a decision. Of course, some folks in subsequent decades did not like the agreement their forebears made, but that does not change that fact that an agreement was in fact made in 1787-1790.
Respectfully,
John Taylor

[JohnTaylor]

Originally Posted by matthew mckeon

One guy quoted Patrick Henry during the debate on whether to ratify the Constitution in Virginia. Henry says the Constitution gives the federal government the power to destroy slavery by a simple majority in Congress. Henry argued that either Congress could tax slave property so severely to make slave holding economically impossible, or conscript slaves into the army, then free them as a condition of military service, as had been done in the Revolution.

If Henry's statements have any validity, or any currency in the 1850s? If so it could explain some of the urge to secede was due to Lincoln's election and a Republican majority in the Congress.

I will confess I have never heard of Henry's particular argument before or read about it being used in the 1850s or 60s. Anyone else have any thoughts?

Matthew, there is one critical distinction about Henry. Henry was opposing ratification of the Constitution, and his statement must be seen in that light. He was trying to put forth reasons why the ratification should be denied, or at least delayed.
Advocates of the Constitution insisted that all the Federal powers delegated to the Federal government were specifically enumerated in the Constitution. No implied Federal powers existed, according to advocates of ratification in the State Conventions empowered to pass judgement on the compact. Now, as far as using the tax code to support or destroy one industry or another, that would seem to have been a Federalist post-ratification invention.
Certainly by 1832 (and thereafter), there were people who felt that Federal taxes were intended to be sufficient "to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States." Any Federal taxation beyond these purposes would be unconstitutional. I'm sure that if a member of Congress had proposed a Federal tax of, say, $1 million per slave per year, in 1789, there would have been an immediate constituitional crisis.
Respectfully,
John Taylor

[matthew mckeon]

Dear JohnTaylor,
Great post. I realize that Patrick Henry was raising objections to ratification, but did his objections have any "traction" with either side in the 1850s. Your considered opinion, if I understand you correctly, is that Henry was incorrect, and that use of the tax code to punish specific institutions would be unconstitutional.
Therefore, the federal government's role in slavery was limited to:
a. extinction of the slavetrade b. fugitive slave laws

If I am understanding you right, then Stephen Douglas's idea of Popular Sovereignty, having the people of each territory decide whether or not their potential state would be slave or free, comes closest to the Constitutional ideal, closer than either Taney's decision that slavery could not be barred from the territories or the Compromises of 1820, 1850 and other federal attempts to determine where or where not slavery would be permitted.

[JohnTaylor]

Matthew, good questions.

Originally Posted by matthew mckeon

Your considered opinion, if I understand you correctly, is that Henry was incorrect, and that use of the tax code to punish specific institutions would be unconstitutional.
Therefore, the federal government's role in slavery was limited to:
a. extinction of the slavetrade b. fugitive slave laws

It is not so much my opinion, as the considered opinion of advocates of the Constitution in 1787-1790, but, yes, the actions of the Federal level were limited to those you listed. The Constitution did also allow representation of 3/5 of each slave. This was a passive recognition of the institution.

Originally Posted by matthew mckeon

If I am understanding you right, then Stephen Douglas's idea of Popular Sovereignty, having the people of each territory decide whether or not their potential state would be slave or free, comes closest to the Constitutional ideal, closer than either Taney's decision that slavery could not be barred from the territories or the Compromises of 1820, 1850 and other federal attempts to determine where or where not slavery would be permitted.

With one important caveat. Territories were not States. They did not have the same rights and powers that States had. In fact, Congress had the power "to make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States." But, as Taney pointed out, this power was not unlimited. According to Taney, Congress, for example, did not possess power to restrict free speech or to establish a religion in a territory. I believe that Taney was correct in this. I also believe that Douglas was arguing for a form of lawlessness (the people can simply not enforce otherwise constitutional laws that they find repugnant). This was his answer to being caught on the horns of the slavery dilemma (he wanted to be seen as pro-slavery enough to gain Southern votes for President, but not so pro-slavery that he lost the Illinois voters).
So, no, I would not endorse the Little Giant's views on that subject. I believe that, at the time that a Territory had enough population to become a State, and drafted a State Constitution, it had the power to exclude or allow slavery (or gun control, or prohibition of alcohol, or whatever), depending on whether the people of that Territory wanted to allow it or not.
Respectfully,
John Taylor

[matthew mckeon]

Dear John T.
Happy Easter!
In your last post you mentioned Taney's opinion that Congress didn't possess power to restrict free speech or other Constitutional rights. Is this in "Dred Scot," where Taney goes on to declare that possessing slaves is a Constitutionally protected right, which can not be restricted(from new territories) by the Congress or the territorial population? (I actually don't know, is it part of Scot, or part of other decisions?)

So Douglas's "Freeport Doctrine" which calls for the local sabotaging of the Scot decision by not enacting "police regulations"(whatever that means) is a reaction to Scot, an attempt by Douglas, to have his cake and eat it too(politically). His earlier "Popular Sovereignty" seems more in line with your last paragraph, "at the time that a Territory...drafted a State Constitution, it had the pwoer to exclude or allow slavery..."