Is the Constitution a pro-slavery or anti-slavery document?

0:03That was one of the most volatile debates. Is the constitution a document which favors and protects slavery, or is the constitution a document which hopes to point us away to a future where there will be no slavery in America? If you look strictly at what goes on in the Constitutional Convention in 1787, I think you have to say that what the delegates in the convention believed was that slavery was a dying institution, that it was on its way out, but as it was going on its way out, don't kick it because it might bite. Compromises were made, but the compromises were made with the assumption that this is not going to be an institution which has a permanent future in America, a provision is made that as early as 1808 the slave trade is going to end, the Transatlantic Slave Trade, at least, and all the expectations seem to point in that direction. Even on the floor of the convention,

0:59people like Roger Sherman and Oliver Ellsworth are saying, slavery is not going to last. There's going to be a few years hence, and no one will even remember that there was such a thing as slavery. Therefore, we don't want to talk about it in the constitution. James Madison himself says, we don't want to talk about property in men in the constitution. There's something inappropriate about that.

1:20The assumption simply is that slavery is going to disappear on its own. Well, of course, it doesn't, and this gets picked up by the people who end up defending slavery, because as slavery becomes more and more profitable as a labor institution, then you have more and more people who go back to the constitution and say, they didn't say anything that criticized slavery, therefore, they're protecting it. In fact, you could go back and interpret certain clauses, which really didn't have any application to slavery. For instance, there's a clause on the Constitution about suppressing domestic insurrection. Well, pro slavery voices would jump up and say, well, that was intended to guarantee that the federal government would participate actively in preventing and suppressing slave insurrections. No, there's no evidence that the constitution had that in mind. If they were thinking of any kind of insurrection,

2:15they were thinking of Shay's Rebellion, not slave rebellion, but by the time we move into the 1820s and the 1830s, people are taking the text of the Constitution. If they're defenders of slavery and trying to turn it in that way, they'll say, well, look, there's a provision in the Constitution for the rendition of fugitive slaves. There are ways in which you can look at the Constitution and say, well, this has a meaning that's friendly to slavery. There becomes this great division of interpretation. Southerners will insist this is a pro slavery document that, even if it doesn't come right out and say slavery is a good thing, nevertheless, gives us protections for slavery. That means that people who oppose slavery have no business meddling with the institution of slavery in the Southern states. Now, turn the sheet of paper over,

3:05and in the North, you have a significant division of opinion. There are people like William Lloyd Garrison who are fervent proponents of the abolition of slavery. They're very frustrated that the Constitution doesn't come out forthrightly and condemn slavery. Therefore, they will say, the Southerners are right, the constitution is, as William Lloyd Garrison himself said.

3:29It's a bargain with slavery, it's a covenant with hell, but that's very much a splinter group opinion. By and large, more people in the North are looking at the Constitution and say, no, the Constitution is what Frederick Douglass called a glorious liberty document. The constitution assumes that nationally, freedom is the rule that will prevail. The only reason that slavery is tolerated in the Southern states is because it's a local ordinance, like school board elections or electing a state legislature. Otherwise, the assumption is that the nation as a whole is committed by the constitution to freedom, and therefore, the development of new territories in the West beyond the Mississippi River should also be organized and then admitted as states under the rule of freedom. Abraham Lincoln is an example of someone who subscribes to this,

4:26and it has some very fervent proponents in people like William Henry Seward of New York and Salmon Chase of Ohio. There is significant division, and the arguments which come to play in this is like sometimes watching a medieval joust. But there's one more footnote to put into this. That is, what did Southerners say about the Constitution and slavery? Not when they were arguing with Northerners, but when they were talking to themselves.

4:55It is significant that when you look closely, when you listen to what Southerners write to each other, what pro slavery people are saying to each other, they are saying, constitution is not going to protect us. The Constitution is a bruised reed, we can't lean on it, we're going to have to do something different. Of course, ultimately, the proof was in the pudding.

5:16What did the pro slavery people do? What did the Southern states do? They secede from the Union, and they write their own constitution. That itself is simply a way of saying, the Old Constitution is not friendly to slavery. They had to write their own, and the proof is right there in the text of the Confederate Constitution.

5:36That is definitely a pro slavery document, but that is not the Constitution of 1787 or the one that we live under.