Throughout the summer of slavery emerged to complicate almost every debate. Most important by far was the way slavery figured in the lengthy debate over representation. Randolph introduced these resolutions in response to the "crisis" of the nation "and the necessity of preventing the fulfillment of the prophecies of the American downfall. Randolph's plan called for a radical restructuring of the American government by making population the basis for representation in the national Congress.
Under the Articles of Confederation, each state had one vote in Congress. By changing the basis of representation to population, Randolph's plan immediately created tensions between the large and small states at the convention.
But the plan also raised the dilemma of whether slaves would be counted for the purposes of determining how many representatives each state would get in the new Congress. This dilemma of how to count slaves, or whether to count them at all, would trouble the delegates throughout the convention. Virginia was the most populous state in the nation, and thus Randolph had a vested interest in basing congressional representation on population. But how that population would be counted greatly affected the potential representation of Virginia and the rest of the South.
Virginia's white population, as the census would reveal, was only slightly larger than Pennsylvania's. If representation were based solely on free persons, the North would overwhelm the South. The Virginians of course realized that the northern states were unlikely to embrace enthusiastically a system of government that counted slaves for purposes of representation.
Thus, Randolph's plan hedged the issue, declaring "that the rights of suffrage in the National Legislature ought to be proportioned to the Quotas of contribution, or to the number of free inhabitants, as the one or the other rule may seem best in different cases. Squabbling over slavery began in earnest the next day, May James Madison moved to delete the term "free inhabitants" from the Randolph Plan because he felt the phrase "might occasion debates which would divert" attention "from the general question whether the principle of representation should be changed" from states to population.
Madison understood that an early debate on the role of slavery in the Union might destroy the convention before it got started. But his proposal would have left representation based solely on "quotas of contribution," and this was also unacceptable to most delegates. Madison himself agreed "that some better rule ought to be found. This proposal was also too volatile, and the delegates quickly tabled it.
Other attempts at compromise failed before the convention adjourned for the day. On June 11 the issue of slavery reemerged when the convention considered for the first time and provisionally approved the three-fifths clause. Over the next three months the convention would, on a number of occasions, redebate and reconsider the three-fifths clause before finally adopting it. The evolution of the three-fifths clause during the convention shows that the clause was not essentially a compromise over taxation and representation, as historians have traditionally claimed, and as the structure of Article I, sec.
On this crucial question the slave states won a critical victory without making any important concessions. By teaming up, the nominally antislavery Pennsylvanian and the rabidly proslavery Carolinian may have hoped to undercut the antislavery sentiments of other northern delegates while also satisfying the demands of the proslavery delegates like Butler and Rutledge.
While most delegates accepted this proposal, Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts did not, sarcastically protesting, "Blacks are property, and are used to the southward as horses and cattle to the northward; and why should their representation be increased to the southward on account of the number of slaves, than horses or oxen to the north? He also argued that this clause would degrade freemen in the North by equating them with slaves.
He wondered "Are we to enter into a Compact with Slaves? The clause, which would give the South enormous political leverage in the nation, was accepted without any quid pro quo from the South. Application of the clause to taxation would not come until later in the convention.
However, the issue would reemerge many times in the next month. On June 30, with the convention stalled over how to allocate representation between the small and large states, Madison offered a new mode of analysis for the delegates.
He argued:. Madison proposed two branches of Congress, one in which slaves would be counted equally with free people to determine how many representatives each state would have, and one in which slaves would not be counted at all.
Under this arrangement, "the Southern Scale would have the advantage in one House, and the Northern in the other. The convention ignored Madison's proposal. But the theme arose again and again. Sectionalism—rooted in slavery—was clearly a major cause of division within the convention and the nation.
Indeed, slavery continued to complicate the convention debates long after the division between large and small states had evaporated. On July 2 Charles Pinckney argued that there was "a solid distinction as to interest between the southern and northern states" and that the Carolinas and Georgia "had a peculiar interest which might be sacrificed" if they did not have sufficient power in any new Congress.
On July 6, after the convention seemed solidly in favor of the three-fifths rule, Charles Pinckney argued that "blacks ought to stand on an equality with whites," but he "w[oul]d. On July 9 William Paterson of New Jersey sparked a four-day debate over slavery and representation when he complained about counting slaves for allocation representation. Paterson declared he regarded. Paterson pointedly asked, "Has a man in Virga. After the convention approved the great compromise, Madison wrote: "It seems now to be pretty well understood that the real difference of interests lies not between the large and small but between the northern and southern states.
The institution of slavery and its consequences form the line of discrimination. Of the 55 delegates to the Constitutional Convention, about 25 owned slaves. Many of the framers harbored moral qualms about slavery.
Some, including Benjamin Franklin a former slaveholder and Alexander Hamilton who was born in a slave colony in the British West Indies became members of anti-slavery societies. On August 21, , a bitter debate broke out over a South Carolina proposal to prohibit the federal government from regulating the Atlantic slave trade.
Luther Martin of Maryland, a slaveholder, said that the slave trade should be subject to federal regulation since the entire nation would be responsible for suppressing slave revolts.
It is — Where a law is susceptible of two meanings, the one making it accomplish an innocent purpose, and the other making it accomplish a wicked purpose, we must in all cases adopt that which makes it accomplish an innocent purpose. Again, the details of a law are to be interpreted in the light of the declared objects sought by the law. I set these rules down against those employed at the City Hall. To me they seem just and rational.
I only ask you to look at the American Constitution in the light of them, and you will see with me that no man is guaranteed a right of property in man, under the provisions of that instrument. The thing must not be left to inference, but must be done in plain English. I know how this view of the subject is treated by the class represented at the City Hall.
They are in the habit of treating the Negro as an exception to general rules. They reserve the common law usage, and presume the Negro a slave unless he can prove himself free. I, on the other hand, presume him free unless he is proved to be otherwise.
Let us look at the objects for which the Constitution was framed and adopted, and see if slavery is one of them. These are all good objects, and slavery, so far from being among them, is a foe of them all. But it has been said that Negroes are not included within the benefits sought under this declaration.
This is said by the slaveholders in America — it is said by the City Hall orator — but it is not said by the Constitution itself. But how dare any man who pretends to be a friend to the Negro thus gratuitously concede away what the Negro has a right to claim under the Constitution? Why should such friends invent new arguments to increase the hopelessness of his bondage?
This, I undertake to say, as the conclusion of the whole matter, that the constitutionality of slavery can be made out only by disregarding the plain and common-sense reading of the Constitution itself; by discrediting and casting away as worthless the most beneficent rules of legal interpretation; by ruling the Negro outside of these beneficent rules; by claiming that the Constitution does not mean what it says, and that it says what it does not mean; by disregarding the written Constitution, and interpreting it in the light of a secret understanding.
It is in this mean, contemptible, and underhand method that the American Constitution is pressed into the service of slavery. They go everywhere else for proof that the Constitution declares that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law; it secures to every man the right of trial by jury, the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus — the great writ that put an end to slavery and slave-hunting in England — and it secures to every State a republican form of government.
Anyone of these provisions in the hands of abolition statesmen, and backed up by a right moral sentiment, would put an end to slavery in America. The Constitution forbids the passing of a bill of attainder: that is, a law entailing upon the child the disabilities and hardships imposed upon the parent. Every slave law in America might be repealed on this very ground. The slave is made a slave because his mother is a slave. But to all this it is said that the practice of the American people is against my view.
I admit it. They have given the Constitution a slaveholding interpretation. Thy have committed innumerable wrongs against the Negro in the name of the Constitution. Yes, I admit it all; and I go with him who goes farthest in denouncing these wrongs. But it does not follow that the Constitution is in favour of these wrongs because the slaveholders have given it that interpretation.
To be consistent in his logic, the City Hall speaker must follow the example of some of his brothers in America — he must not only fling away the Constitution, but the Bible. The Bible must follow the Constitution, for that, too, has been interpreted for slavery by American divines. Nay, more, he must not stop with the Constitution of America, but make war with the British Constitution, for, if I mistake not, the gentleman is opposed to the union of Church and State.
In America he called himself a Republican. Yet he does not go for breaking down the British Constitution, although you have a Queen on the throne, and bishops in the House of Lords. My argument against the dissolution of the American Union is this: It would place the slave system more exclusively under the control of the slaveholding States, and withdraw it from the power in the Northern States which is opposed to slavery.
Slavery is essentially barbarous in its character. It, above all things else, dreads the presence of an advanced civilization. It flourishes best where it meets no reproving frowns, and hears no condemning voices. While in the Union it will meet with both.
Its hope of life, in the last resort, is to get out of the Union. I am, therefore, for drawing the bond of the Union more completely under the power of the Free States. What they most dread, that I most desire. I have much confidence in the instincts of the slaveholders. They see that the Constitution will afford slavery no protection when it shall cease to be administered by slaveholders.
They see, moreover, that if there is once a will in the people of America to abolish slavery, this is no word, no syllable in the Constitution to forbid that result. They see that the Constitution has not saved slavery in Rhode Island, in Connecticut, in New York, or Pennsylvania; that the Free States have only added three to their original number.
There were twelve Slave States at the beginning of the Government: there are fifteen now. They dissolution of the Union would not give the North a single advantage over slavery, but would take from it many. Within the Union we have a firm basis of opposition to slavery. It is opposed to all the great objects of the Constitution. The dissolution of the Union is not only an unwise but a cowardly measure — 15 millions running away from three hundred and fifty thousand slaveholders. Garrison and his friends tell us that while in the Union we are responsible for slavery.
I admit our responsibility for slavery while in the Union but I deny that going out of the Union would free us from that responsibility. There now clearly is no freedom from responsibility for slavery to any American citizen short to the abolition of slavery.
The American people in the Northern States have helped to enslave the black people. Their duty will not have been done till they give them back their plundered rights.
Reference was made at the City Hall to my having once held other opinions, and very different opinions to those I have now expressed. An old speech of mine delivered fourteen years ago was read to show — I know not what. Perhaps it was to show that I am not infallible. If so, I have to say in defence, that I never pretended to be. Although I cannot accuse myself of being remarkably unstable, I do not pretend that I have never altered my opinion both in respect to men and things.
Indeed, I have been very much modified both in feeling and opinion within the last fourteen years. When I escaped from slavery, and was introduced to the Garrisonians, I adopted very many of their opinions, and defended them just as long as I deemed them true. By acknowledging the validity of the Constitution, Douglass inserted himself into a new dialogue and demonstrated he was a participant in American society rather than an agitator.
Under his new thought, Douglass stated that recent presidential administrations had led the government away from its founding ideals. It was therefore the duty of every American citizen to use the Constitution and political processes at their disposal to bring the country in line with its founding intent. By becoming a political abolitionist, Douglass challenged the country to reconsider who was a citizen and entitled to protection under the Constitution.
In , he declared that the proper interpretation of the Constitution should always be construed toward freedom and natural rights despite the ambiguity of a particular situation.
The Constitution would become the lens through which he would advocate for the freedom and natural rights of all people, African Americans and women. The complicated aspect of this legacy came after the Civil War during the controversy over the Fifteenth Amendment to the U. When it became clear that the Fourteenth Amendment would exclude a suffrage component, the focus of the Fifteenth Amendment became suffrage.
The debate about suffrage for Black men severed ties between White suffragists and Black activists including Douglass. For Douglass, there was something greater at stake than simply obtaining the right to vote for Black men. It was about demonstrating that Black people were human.
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