Joseph Ellis takes us on a journey through a series of defining moments and challenges our Founding Fathers faced that truly shaped the beginning of our history as a newly formed country. In chapter 3, The Silence, Joseph Ellis describes to us the long-standing silence that the government conduced over the question of slavery in the United States. Joseph Ellis gives us a brief history into how slavery was being addressed during this time of our country being formed. Most of the conversations about this subject were conducted in private and when coming up with the Constitution, the sounders did not mention slavery in order to please the Southern states until 1808.
After Thomas Jefferson held his dinner party on February 11, 1790 several Quakers from Philadelphia and New York handed over petitions to the House of Representatives. These petitions contained a cry for the end of the African slave trading system. The Southern members of the House of Representatives did not think that this should even be a question because so much of the economy in the South depended on slaves. The Pennsylvania Abolition Society wrote a petition …show more content…
This argument with pro and anti- slavery delegates would only grow more heated and both sides believed that history would prove each other wrong. Both sides made it so hard for the House of Representatives to read the final reports publicly. Southern representatives offered up every pro-slavery argument they could think of. They used the census from 1790 that showed how many more slaves lived in the South and that this would not simple just go away and die out and that this was an established part of their society. They argued that the Northern delegates had absolutely no right to decide the needs of the South when their slavery situation was far different. Georgia and South Carolina threatened to secede because of how heated the conversations
After Thomas Jefferson held his dinner party on February 11, 1790 several Quakers from Philadelphia and New York handed over petitions to the House of Representatives. These petitions contained a cry for the end of the African slave trading system. The Southern members of the House of Representatives did not think that this should even be a question because so much of the economy in the South depended on slaves. The Pennsylvania Abolition Society wrote a petition …show more content…
This argument with pro and anti- slavery delegates would only grow more heated and both sides believed that history would prove each other wrong. Both sides made it so hard for the House of Representatives to read the final reports publicly. Southern representatives offered up every pro-slavery argument they could think of. They used the census from 1790 that showed how many more slaves lived in the South and that this would not simple just go away and die out and that this was an established part of their society. They argued that the Northern delegates had absolutely no right to decide the needs of the South when their slavery situation was far different. Georgia and South Carolina threatened to secede because of how heated the conversations