Monday, June 06, 2022

The Anti-Slavery Constitution

THE SOUTH has defined American history in the minds of many.  But what the force of circumstances dictated does not make something so, nor sustainable. 

     In an early draft of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson addressed the original sin of the British Empire—slavery.  “He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian king of Great Britain, determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought & sold.”  (Emphasis Jefferson’s)  But acknowledgement of that fact was too much for the South to bear. 

     After the Revolutionary War, the failings of the Articles of Confederation were glaring.  A new system of government was necessary. 

     The South wanted to increase its number of members in the House Representatives by counting each slave as one inhabitant.  The North was opposed, and the disagreement threatened the work of the Convention.  But the difficulty was overcome through the three-fifths compromise, which frustrated the South’s desires. 

     The emphasis on States’ rights, of which the South is still so enamored, was supported under the   previous charter.  Nevertheless, that document’s complete title, the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, reveals the significance of the first phrase in the Preamble to the Constitution—“WE THE PEOPLE of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union…”  (Italics added)  That statement of purpose, written by Gouverneur Morris, who was anti-slavery, is a clue as to the original intention and how to interpret the text. 

     Yet, once the new charter was ratified, the South hampered the transition from the Articles to the   Constitution.  Rather than adapt, by preparing for the day when new shipments of bodies would be banned, the South insisted upon passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793.  (Article I, Section 9, Clause 1 & Article IV, Section 2, Clause 3)  Enforcement required Northern assistance, which was not forthcoming among those States that had abolished human bondage.  And in 1800, when Congress made it a crime to be involved in the international slave trade, the South did not change its ways.  Finally, “An Act Prohibiting the Importation of Slaves” became effective on New Year’s Day 1808. But rather than adapt, the South adopted the gag rule, which did not allow abolition petitions to be debated in the House—an echo of the complaint made against King George III in the Declaration.  “In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms:  Our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury.  A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.” 

     Nullification and interposition were assertions made by the Southern States that they were members of the Union only when it was convenient.  But the Bible Belt was also in defiance of the Scriptures supposedly held as sacred.  “If the foot shall say, Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body?  And if the ear shall say, Because I am not the eye, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body?”  (I Corinthians 12:15-16, KJV)  And the South did so even though Exodus was a clue as to how God viewed the peculiar institution.  Instead, the Bible Belt disrespected the Book on which the oath was taken and rejected what the raising of the right hand required one to acknowledge.  (Article VI, Clause 3)  “This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof…shall be the supreme law of the land…any thing in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.”  (Article VI, Clause 2)  Thus, the South knew the material—and the spiritual—stakes.  For as it is written, “These six things doth the LORD hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto Him”; the last of which is, “A  false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren.”  (Proverbs 6:16 & 19, KJV) 

     Treason—“levying war against” the United States “or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort”—is the only crime defined in the Constitution because it is a threat to the life of the Republic.  (Article III, Section 3, Clause 1)  Yet the South calls the conflict that began when the Confederates attacked Fort Sumter the War of Northern Aggression.  But assertion and repetition do not equal truth. 

     The South’s obstruction and armed opposition ended in defeat, and now the Lost Cause must be put to sleep.  Instead of “the South shall rise again,” the nation must use advances in medicine to act on an old diagnosis and perform the long delayed surgery.  The Civil War Amendments are the implements to complete the operation.  For even under the Articles of Confederation, the Northwest Ordinance prohibited slavery in that territory.  Then, the new charter, the Constitution of 1787, carefully avoided using the word, which was hardly a ringing endorsement of the practice.  Indeed, provision was made to schedule removal of the malignancy. 

     “It is a matter both of wonder and regret, that those who raise so many objections against the new Constitution should never call to mind the defects of that which is to be exchanged for it.  It is not   necessary that the former should be perfect; it is sufficient that the latter is more imperfect.  No man   would refuse to give brass for silver or gold, because the latter had some alloy in it….  Is the importation of slaves permitted by the new Constitution for twenty years?  By the old it is permitted forever.”  (James Madison, The Federalist Papers, No. 38)

(c)2022 Marvin D. Jones.  All rights reserved.

 

https://americainclass.org/sources/makingrevolution/rebellion/text6/jeffersondraftdecind.pdf

[Jefferson’s early draft] 

https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/fugitive-slaves-acts

[Fugitive Slave Act of 1793] 

https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/slave-trade.html

[International slave trade ban in 1800 & “An Act Prohibiting the Importation of Slaves” in 1808] 

https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/treasures_of_congress/text/page10_text.html

[The gag rule] 

https://youtu.be/mTvlDSMQqeQ

[How the South Won the Civil War by Harriet Cox Richardson]