Graduate Program
History
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Semester of Degree Completion
2006
Thesis Director
Lynne Curry
Thesis Committee Member
Newton Key
Thesis Committee Member
Michelle LeMaster
Abstract
At the 1787 Philadelphia Convention, abolitionist and anti-slavery delegates were faced with a direct choice: they could either explicitly end the institution, or they could allow for it to continue. If they had decided to push for abolition, the confederation would almost certainly have dissolved into two or three separate sovereign confederacies or countries. If they chose not to endorse abolition within the text of the Constitution, they could still restrain the facilitator of slavery, the slave trade, and continue to endorse the institution's end, while also maintaining the Union.
Because they did not abolish slavery outright, these abolitionist and antislavery delegates effectively brought the slave states into the fold of the Union and internalized the problem, thus making it one of national, and not local, importance. If they had decided to abolish it in 1787, at least two southern states (South Carolina and Georgia) would most likely have followed through on their threats to back out of the convention and form their own confederacy. If this had occurred, abolitionists would therefore be criticizing a separate country, one that would be immune from any such attack. Anti-slavery efforts would have no effect, and slavery would flourish and grow in a separate, sovereign southern union. Thus, by including slavery in the Constitution and internalizing the problem, the delegates made it a national problem. During the First Federal Congress, petitions to end the slave trade could not be ignored; southerners were forced to explain their rationale for continuing the trade, and common citizens were for the first time directly participating in politics. Thus in the nationalistic context of Union, slavery could be debated and argued on the floor of Congress, and throughout society. This was the only way the delegates could both establish a firm union, while also creating the means for ending slavery in the future. The slavery provisions, while an unintended result of the Constitution, opened up slavery to debate.
Recommended Citation
Ervin, Ryan, "The slave trade, the Constitutional Convention, and the compromises that let to union: A reinterpretation" (2006). Masters Theses. 839.
https://thekeep.eiu.edu/theses/839
