As a Canadian who is unfamiliar with US political history, let me ask a very basic question that must occur to most American school-children.
How did the “founding fathers” reconcile the existence of the odious practice of slavery with the grand phrasings contained in the Declaration of Independence (“all men are created equal”, “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”), or with the freedoms avered in the first set of Constitutional amendments?
Is there a consensus (or, better yet, evidence) as to what the authors of those remarkable documents called the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the “Bill of Rights”, felt should happen to the institution of slavery?
I would imagine that many, if not most, of them considered slaves to be “property” rather than “men”. In fact, in the founding documents of this nation, “men” typically means “land owning whites” as opposed to slaves, free blacks, women or the poor. This isn’t to say that no founding father felt slavery was unfair, but it wasn’t much of a concern to them during the Revolutionary period.
As far as reconciling the Constitution and slavery, I’m afraid it was rather easy. You might want to look at the original meaning of the first part of paragraph 3, section 2, Article I; paragraph 3, section 2, Article IV; and the first restrictive clause of Article V (the language in those sections is rather coy).
Note also that the pre-Civil War Bill of Rights was a rather limited document which placed certain restrictions on Congress. That doesn’t directly address the question of why no rights of free speech and trial by jury and so forth for black slaves vis-à-vis the federal government, but bear in mind that the Bill of Rights wasn’t yet seen as the sweeping guarantee of personal freedoms which we see it as today. The Fourteenth Amendment–passed in the aftermath of the Civil War–was instrumental in beginning the change in the Bill of Rights’ status.
As for the Declaration of Independence and slavery–one can assume that a fair amount of cognitive dissonance was required. Jefferson had a famously tortured relationship with the whole issue; and I seem to recall reading or hearing that many pre-war abolitionists were rather disdainful of the Constitution, but considered the Declaration to be the true embodiment of the American ideal.
The slaveholders who were involved in writing the Constitution were well aware of the apparent hypocracy (it was gleefully pointed out by them by the British when the independence was declared, if they hadn’t noticed before). There were various rationalizations, most commonly, that the slaves wouldn’t survive on their own.
Others, like Jefferson and Washington, were too much a part of the economic system to be able to abolish slavery. If there weren’t slaves, there wouldn’t be any labor for their farms, and the economic impact of freeing slaves – which were a considerable investmnet – could put them out of business. It’d be like a webmaster giving up his computer – he couldn’t survive without it under the economic conditions of the time (yes, I know there’s a difference, but the economic impact was similar).
It is known that Washington treated his slaves relatively well, and gave them their freedom (sometimes by surreptitious means – he took one to Philadelphia for a year, knowing full well that any slave living in Pennsylvania at the time was freed after a year) when he could.
Thanks for your insights, all.
MEBuckner: What is the status of the Declaration with respect to the Constitution itself and first 13 amendents? Does the Declaration, and the statements and philosophy therein, have any standing as legal document for things such as the rights of the individual? (For example, would it be ‘unconstitutional’ to prevent a citizen from pursuing life, liberty, and happiness?)
Generally, the sections you cite seem to be a fine example of double-think. Terms like “free persons” and “escape from service and labor” recognize implicitly that some people are not free. I suppose, though, that this only a problem if the principles embodied in the Declaration are not binding.
The Declaration of Independence does not have any legal standing.
In addition to the previous posts, I believe that some of the founders wrote that they disapproved slavery, but that they realized that society as a whole wasn’t ready for the change. IOW, they fought the political fights that they could win.
And I believe that some were also worried about rebellion by a large population of just-freed blacks who would be thrust into society relatively poor. This fear was fueled by more than one revolt in the Carribean around that time.