How was slavery affected by the constitiution?

Answer 1

Note -- some abolitionists (like Garrison) thought the Constitution was thoroughly pro-slavery and a "covenant with death"; others came to regard it, as on the whole, tending to DIS-courage slavery (e.g., Frederick Douglass), esp. when taken together with the Declaration of Independence (many argued this way, most famously, Lincoln)

Anyway, here are the nuts and bolts --

With regards to slavery the Constitution:

1) allowed it to continue. That is, it did NOT provide for the abolition of slavery at the federal level. This was not simply to gain/keep Southern support. In fact, individual states (in the North) were already passing legislation to ban slavery, and it was expected that eventually EVERY state, individually, would do so.


2) treated it as something UNUSUAL, not positive,
thus reflecting the hope/expectation of most that slavery WOULD die out in the not-to-distant future. We see this in part in the choice of LANGUAGE -- the document carefully avoids every using the words "slave" or "slavery"... not wanting to 'write it into' the frame of government [as the Confederate Constitution later did]. (This may also reflect the fact that the main draftsman of the final wording, Gouvernor Morris, was strongly opposed to slavery.)

This care not to justify the institution was important to the arguments of later abolitionists and free-soilers that the Constitution and its writers were looking to the END of slavery. (In fact, in Lincoln's important "Cooper Union Address" [Feb 1860] --which gained Eastern support for his nomination--he made an extended argument that the founders, whenever they voted on the matter, expressed this desire & expectation.)


3) allowed Congress to outlaw the slave trade in 1808 (and they promptly did).
Text: "The migration or importation of such persons as any of the states now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a tax or duty may be imposed on such importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each person"
(Article I, Section 9)

Of course, due to the sudden increase of demand for slaves via the invention of the cotton gin and the acquiring of new land to grow cotton (Louisiana Purchase), along with the natural growth in the slave population, this was of little help in limiting much less ending slavery.


4) provided, at the request of the South, for support in efforts to retrieve fugitive slaves.
Text: "No person held to service or labor in one state, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due."
(Art. IV, Sec. 2)

This provision, ironically, originated in the Northwest Ordinance, written at the same time as the Constitution. This was a provision the North had made to gain Southern support in assuring that the Northwest Territory would remain FREE. (This became an increasing sore point, as Northern states in the years before the Civil War not only refused to actively assist, but passed "personal liberty laws". This protected free blacks from being kidnapped by bounty hunters, but also made it extremely difficult for a Southern slave owner to recover a slave.)


5) provided for a seat of government over which Congress would exercise direct control (before the exact place of the district, later "Washington D.C." was settled), making it possible for Congress to outlaw slavery there. Actually, in the 1830s Northern abolitionists frequently petitioned Congress to do just that, to no avail... only during the Civil War did Congress finally do so.

Text: "The Congress shall have Power. . . to exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States. . ." (Art. I, Sec. 8)


6) allowed slaves to be partially counted in determining representation in the House
Text: "Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several states which may be included within this union, according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons." (Art. I, Sec. 2)

This provision, the so-called "three-fifths" compromise, has been very much misunderstood.

What happened was this. When it was decided that the lower house of the new legislature (our 'House of Representatives') was to be apportioned by population, the Southern states, where most of the slaves were, wanted to count ALL of them in order to get the increased representation. (This number could also be used to assess the taxes due from the state to the federal government, but they were willing to pay them to get this benefit.) The Northern states did NOT want to count the slaves. The compromise reached was that 3/5 of the number of slaves would be added to the census of free people.

Since the number of electors for President was based on the total number the state had in Congress, the slave states also gained additional say in Presidential elections. (This clause first came into play with the election of Thomas Jefferson in 1800. Without the additional Southern electors the compromise provided for, Adams would have won. Hence Timothy Pickering, a fierce Federalist opponent of slavery from Massachusetts, dubbed Jefferson "the ***** President".)

NOTE: the popular notion that the Constitution regarded slaves as "only 3/5 human" is UTTERLY false. Observe that it was the SLAVE-holding states that wished to include all of them in the census, and those most OPPOSED to slavery who did not want to count them at all. It was an issue of POLITICAL POWER.

In fact, though this provision strengthened the supporters of slavery --that is, provided for the OVER-representation of the slave states-- in another way it could be seen as encouraging the FREEING of slaves, since once they were freed they would count FULLY in determining a state's representation. (As a matter of fact, when slavery was abolished at the end of the Civil War, via the 13th amendment, the South suddenly got an INCREASE in representation, and so an increase it power! though they had LOST the war! This anomaly was part of what prompted the 14th and 15th amendments which including the effort to secure the franchise for the freed slaves.)

Answer 2

Slavery was not affected by the constitution per se; it was the 16th amendment( I believe) to the constituion, during Lincoln's presidency, that abolished the instution of slavery by making it illegal to own another human. Under the Bill of Rights as enacted in 1776, slavery was still permissable.

The economy of the southern state's was dependent on the free labor which is what really precitated the Civil War.

Answer 3

It was recognized as legal by the Constitution.

Answer 4

Ratification Debate on the U.S. Constitution

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

-- Declaration of Independence, 1776

When the American colonies broke from England, the Continental Congress asked Thomas Jefferson to write the Declaration of Independence. In the declaration, Jefferson expressed American grievances and explained why the colonists were breaking away. His words proclaimed America's ideals of freedom and equality, which still resonate throughout the world.

Yet at the time these words were written, more than 500,000 black Americans were slaves. Jefferson himself owned more than 100. Slaves accounted for about one-fifth of the population in the American colonies. Most of them lived in the Southern colonies, where slaves made up 40 percent of the population.

Many colonists, even slave holders, hated slavery. Jefferson called it a "hideous blot" on America. George Washington, who owned hundreds of slaves, denounced it as "repugnant." George Mason, a Virginia slave owner, condemned it as "evil."

But even though many of them decried it, Southern colonists relied on slavery. The Southern colonies were among the richest in America. Their cash crops of tobacco, indigo, and rice depended on slave labor. They weren't going to give it up.

The first U.S. national government began under the Articles of Confederation, adopted in 1781. This document said nothing about slavery. It left the power to regulate slavery, as well as most powers, to the individual states. After their experience with the British, the colonists distrusted a strong central government. The new national government consisted solely of a Congress in which each state had one vote.

With little power to execute its laws or collect taxes, the new government proved ineffective. In May 1787, 55 delegates from 12 states met in Philadelphia. (Rhode Island refused to send a delegation.) Their goal was to revise the Articles of Confederation. Meeting in secret sessions, they quickly changed their goal. They would write a new Constitution. The outline of the new government was soon agreed to. It would have three branches--executive, judiciary, and a two-house legislature.

A dispute arose over the legislative branch. States with large populations wanted representation in both houses of the legislature to be based on population. States with small populations wanted each state to have the same number of representatives, like under the Articles of Confederation. This argument carried on for two months. In the end, the delegates agreed to the "Great Compromise." One branch, the House of Representatives, would be based on population. The other, the Senate, would have two members from each state.

Part of this compromise included an issue that split the convention on North-South lines. The issue was: Should slaves count as part of the population? Under the proposed Constitution, population would ultimately determine three matters:

(1) How many members each state would have in the House of Representatives.

(2) How many electoral votes each state would have in presidential elections.

(3) The amount each state would pay in direct taxes to the federal government.

Only the Southern states had large numbers of slaves. Counting them as part of the population would greatly increase the South's political power, but it would also mean paying higher taxes. This was a price the Southern states were willing to pay. They argued in favor of counting slaves. Northern states disagreed. The delegates compromised. Each slave would count as three-fifths of a person.

Some historians have suggested there was more to the three-fifths compromise. While the Constitutional Convention was debating in Philadelphia, Congress under the Articles of Confederation was meeting in New York, 80 miles away. With many members absent and the South for the moment holding a majority, Congress passed the Northwest Ordinance, which banned slavery in the Northwest Territory. (This land would later be divided into five states: Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and part of Wisconsin.) Some historians believe that the Northwest Ordinance was part of the three-fifths compromise.

Following this compromise, another controversy erupted: What should be done about the slave trade, the importing of new slaves into the United States? Ten states had already outlawed it. Many delegates heatedly denounced it. But the three states that allowed it--Georgia and the two Carolinas--threatened to leave the convention if the trade were banned. A special committee worked out another compromise: Congress would have the power to ban the slave trade, but not until 1800. The convention voted to extend the date to 1808.

A final major issue involving slavery confronted the delegates. Southern states wanted other states to return escaped slaves. The Articles of Confederation had not guaranteed this. But when Congress adopted the Northwest Ordinance, it put in a clause promising that slaves who escaped to the Northwest Territories would be returned to their owners. This was part of the price of making the Northwest Territories free. The delegates placed a similar fugitive slave clause in the Constitution. This was part of a deal with New England states. In exchange for the fugitive slave clause, the New England states got concessions on shipping and trade.

These compromises on slavery had serious effects on the nation. The fugitive slave clause (enforced through legislation passed in 1793 and 1850) allowed escaped slaves to be chased into the North and caught. It also resulted in the illegal kidnaping and return to slavery of thousands of free blacks. The three-fifths compromise increased the South's representation in Congress and the electoral college. In 12 of the first 16 presidential elections, a Southern slave owner won. Extending the slave trade past 1800 brought many more slaves to America. South Carolina alone imported 40,000 slaves between 1803 and 1808 (when Congress overwhelmingly voted to end the trade). So many slaves entered that slavery spilled into the Louisiana territory and took root.

But the Northern states didn't push too hard on slavery issues. Their main goal was to secure a new government. They feared antagonizing the South. Most of them saw slavery as a dying institution with no economic future. They had no way of knowing that in five years the cotton gin would be invented, which would make growing cotton on plantations very profitable. So instead they used slavery as a bargaining chip to win other concessions.

Slaves were not the only group shortchanged in the Constitution. Another group, Indians, are specifically excluded from population counts for taxation or representation. At best, the framers looked on Indians as sovereign nations. At worst, they saw them as savages unworthy of citizenship. For their part, the Indians mostly just wanted to be left alone.

The Declaration of Independence expressed lofty ideals of equality. The framers of the Constitution, intent on making a new government, left important questions of equality and fairness to the future. It would be some time before the great republic that they founded would approach the ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence.

Amendment XIII (the Thirteenth Amendment) of the United States Constitution officially abolished, and continues to prohibit, slavery, and, with limited exceptions such as those convicted of a crime, prohibits involuntary servitude. The Amendment in practice emancipated only the slaves of Delaware and Kentucky, as everywhere else the slaves had been freed by state action and the federal government's Emancipation Proclamation. But supporters such as Abraham Lincoln (who had issued the Emancipation Proclamation and also supported the Corwin Amendment) supported the Amendment as a means to guarantee the permanent abolition of slavery. The amendment was originally co-authored and sponsored by Congressmen James Mitchell Ashley (Republican, Ohio) and James Falconer Wilson (Republican, Iowa) and Senator John B. Henderson (Democrat, Missouri). It was followed by the other Reconstruction Amendments, the Fourteenth (intended to protect the civil rights of former slaves) and Fifteenth (which banned racial restrictions on voting).

Contents [show]
1 Text
2 Proposal and ratification
3 Interpretation and history
3.1 Scope of Legislation
3.2 Free versus Unfree Labor
3.3 Definitions of conditions addressed by 13th Amendment
4 Enforcement of 13th Amendment
4.1 Threat of legal consequences
5 Notes
6 References
7 See also
8 External links



[edit] Text
“ Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
Section 2. Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
”


[edit] Proposal and ratification
The thirteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States was proposed to the legislatures of the several states by the Thirty-eighth United States Congress, on January 31, 1865. The amendment was declared, in a proclamation of Secretary of State William Henry Seward, dated December 18, 1865, to have been ratified by the legislatures of twenty-seven of the then thirty-six states. Although it was ratified by the necessary three-quarters of the states within a year of its proposal, its most recent ratification occurred as recently as 1995, in Mississippi, which was the last of the thirty-six states in existence in 1865 to ratify it. The dates of ratification were:[1]

Illinois (February 1, 1865)
Rhode Island (February 2, 1865)
Michigan (February 3, 1865)
Maryland (February 3, 1865)
New York (February 3, 1865)
Pennsylvania (February 3, 1865)
West Virginia (February 3, 1865)
Missouri (February 6, 1865)
Maine (February 7, 1865)
Kansas (February 7, 1865)
Massachusetts (February 7, 1865)
Virginia (February 9, 1865)
Ohio (February 10, 1865)
Indiana (February 13, 1865)
Nevada (February 16, 1865)
Louisiana (February 17, 1865)
Minnesota (February 23, 1865)
Wisconsin (February 24, 1865)
Vermont (March 8, 1865)
Tennessee (April 7, 1865)
Arkansas (April 14, 1865)
Connecticut (May 4, 1865)
New Hampshire (July 1, 1865)
South Carolina (November 13, 1865)
Alabama (December 2, 1865)
North Carolina (December 4, 1865)
Georgia (December 6, 1865)
Ratification was completed on December 6, 1865. The amendment was subsequently ratified by the following states:

Oregon (December 8, 1865)
California (December 19, 1865)
Florida (December 28, 1865, reaffirmed on June 9, 1869)
Iowa (January 15, 1866)
New Jersey (January 23, 1866, after having rejected it on March 16, 1865)
Texas (February 18, 1870)
Delaware (February 12, 1901, after having rejected it on February 8, 1865)
Kentucky (March 18, 1976, after having rejected it on February 24, 1865)
Mississippi (March 16, 1995, after having rejected it on December 5, 1865) Interpretation and history
Historically, the 13th amendment was unusual. The first twelve amendments had been adopted within fifteen years of the Constitution’s creation and approval. The first ten (the Bill of Rights) were passed in 1791, the 11th Amendment in 1795 and the 12th in 1804. When the 13th was proposed there had been no new amendments adopted in more than sixty years.

The objective of the 13th was also unusual. During the crises of secession and prior to the outbreak of the Civil War, the majority of bills passed by Congress had protected slavery. There had been very little proposed legislation to abolish slavery. Congressman John Quincy Adams had made a proposal in 1839, but there were no new proposals until December 14, 1863, when a bill to support an amendment to abolish slavery throughout the entire United States was introduced by Congressman James Mitchell Ashley (Republican, Ohio). This was soon followed by a similar proposal made by Congressman James Falconer Wilson, (Republican, Iowa).

Eventually the Congress and the public began to take notice and a number of additional legislative proposals were brought forward. Senator John Brooks Henderson of Missouri submitted a joint resolution for a constitutional amendment abolishing slavery, January 11, 1864. The abolition of slavery had, historically, been associated with Republicans, but Henderson was a War Democrat. The Senate Judiciary Committee, chaired by Lyman Trumbull (Republican, Illinois), became involved in merging different proposals for an amendment. Another Republican, Senator Charles Sumner (Radical Republican, Massachusetts), submitted a constitutional amendment to abolish slavery as well as guarantee equality on February 8 the same year. As the number of proposals and the extent of their scope began to grow, the Senate Judiciary Committee presented the Senate with an amendment proposal combining the drafts of Ashley, Wilson, and Henderson.[2]

After debating the amendment, the Senate passed it on April 8, 1864, by a vote of 38 to 6. Although they initially rejected the amendment, the House of Representatives passed it on January 31, 1865, by a vote of 119 to 56. President Abraham Lincoln signed a Joint Resolution, February 1, 1865, and submitted the proposed amendment to the states for ratification. Secretary of State William Seward issued a statement verifying the ratification of the 13th Amendment on December 18, 1865.

The 13th Amendment completed legislation to abolish slavery, which had begun with the Emancipation Proclamation issued by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863. Approximately 40,000 slaves remaining in Kentucky were freed by the 13th Amendment.[3]

Since the 13th amendment was proposed before the Southern states had been restored to the Union after the Civil War, it should have easily passed the Congress. However, while the Senate did pass it in April 1864, the House declined to do so. President Lincoln then took an active role to ensure its passage through the House by ensuring the amendment was added to the Republican Party platform for the upcoming Presidential elections. His efforts came to fruition when the House passed the bill in January 1865.

The 13th, 14th and 15th amendments are collectively the post-Civil War legislative measures that effected a paradigm change in civil rights in the U.S.A.[4]


[edit] Scope of Legislation
The Supreme Court has ruled that the Thirteenth Amendment does not prohibit mandatory military service in the United States (see 240 U.S. 328 (1916)).[5] The Thirteenth Amendment also prohibits specific performance as a judicial remedy for violations of contracts for personal services such as employment contracts.

Offenses against the Thirteenth Amendment were being prosecuted as late as 1947.[6][7]

Prior to 1988, inflicting involuntary servitude through psychologically coercive means was included in the interpretation of the 13th Amendment. In 1988 the 6th District Court of Appeals ruled that compulsion of servitude through psychological coercion is not prohibited by the 13th Amendment.[8][9] Psychological coercion had been the primary means of forcing involuntary servitude in the case of Elizabeth Ingalls in 1947.[10] In 1988, U.S. v. Kozminski, this was circumscribed to mean only physical coercion.[11] However, the 6th District Court of Appeal held that there are exceptions.[12] The court decision circumscribed involuntary servitude to be limited to those situations when the master subjects the servant to

(1) threatened or actual physical force,
(2) threatened or actual state-imposed legal coercion, or
(3) fraud or deceit where the servant is a minor, an immigrant or mentally incompetent.
The federal anti-slavery statutes were updated in the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, P.L. 106-386, which expanded the federal statutes' coverage to cases in which victims are enslaved through psychological, as well as physical, coercion.[13][14]


[edit] Free versus Unfree Labor
Labor is defined as work of economic or financial value. Unfree labor, or labor not willingly given, is obtained in a number of ways:

causing or threatening to cause serious harm to any person;
physically restraining or threatening to physically restrain another person;
abusing or threatening to abuse the law or legal process;
knowingly destroying, concealing, removing, confiscating or possessing any actual or purported passport or other immigration document, or any other actual or purported government identification document, of another person;
blackmail;
causing or threatening to cause financial harm [using financial control over] to any person.

[edit] Definitions of conditions addressed by 13th Amendment
Peonage[15]
Refers to a person in "debt servitude," or involuntary servitude tied to the payment of a debt. Compulsion to servitude includes the use of force, the threat of force, or the threat of legal coercion to compel a person to work against his or her will.

Involuntary Servitude[16]
Refers to a person held by actual force, threats of force, or threats of legal coercion in a condition of slavery-- compulsory service or labor against his or her will. This also includes the condition in which people are compelled to work against their will by a "climate of fear" evoked by the use of force, the threat of force, or the threat of legal coercion (i.e., suffer legal consequences unless compliant with demands made upon them) which is sufficient to compel service against a person's will.

Forced Labor[17]
Labor or service obtained by:

by threats of serious harm or physical restraint;
by means of any scheme, plan, or pattern intended to cause a person to believe they would suffer serious harm or physical restraint if they did not perform such labor or services:
by means of the abuse or threatened abuse of law or the legal process,

[edit] Enforcement of 13th Amendment
“ Section 2. Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. ”

Main article: Congressional power of enforcement

[edit] Threat of legal consequences
Victims of human trafficking and other conditions of forced labour are commonly coerced by threat of legal actions to their detriment. A leading example is deportation of illegal immigrants. "The prospect of being forced to leave the United States, no matter how degrading the current living conditions, sometimes serves as a deterrent to reporting the situation to law enforcement."[18] Victims of forced labor and trafficking are protected by Title 18 of the U.S. Code[19]

Title 18, U.S.C., Section 241 - Conspiracy Against Rights
Conspiracy to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person's rights or privileges secured by the Constitution or the laws of the United States[20]

Title 18, U.S.C., Section 242 - Deprivation of Rights Under Color of Law
It is a crime for any person acting under color of law (federal, state or local officials who enforce statutes, ordinances, regulations, or customs) to willfully deprive or cause to be deprived the rights, privileges, or immunities of any person secured or protected by the Constitution and laws of the U.S. This includes willfully subjecting or causing to be subjected any person to different punishments, pains, or penalties, than those prescribed for punishment of citizens on account of such person being an alien or by reason of his/her color or race.[21]