Term Paper on "Slavery the Founding Fathers"

Term Paper 3 pages (1145 words) Sources: 5 Style: APA

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Slavery

The Founding Fathers of the United States were passionate proponents of "equality and liberty" of "all men" as they so famously declared in the U.S. Declaration of Independence in 1776. While framing the Constitution for the country, however, they carefully avoided the issue and even included specific compromises to slavery in the document. This essay discusses why the Founding Fathers did not write provisions to end slavery into the Constitution and outlines the provisions relating to slavery that were included in it.

The Economic Reasons: When the American colonies decided to break away from the British in 1776, the economy of the South was heavily dependant on slave labor who worked in large numbers on cotton and tobacco plantations. A majority of white people in the South were, therefore, supporters of slavery. On the other hand, the economy of the Northern states was more industrialized and did not depend on slave labor as much as in the South. In fact, as the North employed 'free labor' slavery was considered 'unfair competition' and most people in the Northern states were against slavery (Spicer 2004). However, as the Southern states made the continuance of slavery a pre-condition for joining the Union, the Northern states and the founding fathers agreed to sweep the issue of slavery under the carpet. As a result, the Articles of Confederation (1781) under which the first U.S. national government was formed said nothing about slavery and left the power to regulate slavery to the individual states.

Drafting the Constitution. The government under the Articles failed to function effectively as it had little power to execute its laws or collect taxes and the need for a stronger federal government was acutely felt. Delegates from the 12 states of the Union, thus, met in the famous Philadelphia Convention of 1787 to draft a Constitution. The delegates soon agreed that the new government would have three branches -- an executive, a judiciary and a two-part legislature. Dispute, however, rose over the formation of the legislature. States with large populations wanted representation in the two Houses to be based on the population while smaller states wanted each state to have the same number of delegates as was the case in the Articles of Confederation. It was finally agreed through a compromise that the House of Representatives would be based on population while the Senate would have the same number of seats from each state ("Ratification Debate..." n.d.).

The Three-Fifths Compromise: A related dispute between the Northern and Southern states arose about the question of whether to count the slaves in the population. At the time, most slaves lived in the Southern states where they made up about 40% of the population. Thus, if slaves were considered as part of the population, it would increase the members of the Southern states in the House of Representatives and the number of votes they would have in the Electoral College, which elected the President. At the same time, it would also increase the share of taxes payable to the federal government. The Southern states were willing to pay higher taxes in exchange for increased political power and wanted the slaves to be counted among the population. The Northern states were opposed as it would reduce their political powers in the federal government (Boyd, 1995).

After hectic debate, a compromise was reached among the delegates that each slave would count as three-fifths of a person for the… READ MORE

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