The Constitution of the United States is the foundation on which America has built its democracy, and it has remained a constant part of legal life since its drafting in 1789. It has also inspired the writing of many other Constitutions for other countries around the globe. The framers of the United States Constitution lived in a world that accepted slavery as a part of life and many of the men owned slaves themselves. Along with issues concerning slavery, several provisions of the original Constitution are negated today because of amendments brought about by changing attitudes and the general progression of America. Prior to the addition of the Civil War Amendments, the Constitution was a pro-slavery document.
Many political, legal, and economic …show more content…
The issue of slavery was also a hotly debated topic for the framers of the Constitution. While the word ‘slave’ or ‘slavery’ is not directly mentioned in the Constitution, there are provisions in it such as the Enumeration Clause and Article IV, Section 2, Clause 3 known as the Fugitive Slave Clause that relate to slavery. When the Constitution was drafted and made effective in 1789, it was a document that supported the industry of slavery. The Enumeration Clause, more commonly known as the three-fifths compromise, in the Constitution came about as a result of arguments about how the framers were going to decide how many seats each state got in the House of Representatives. It was decided that seats would be granted based on population size. As would obviously benefit them, the south wanted their slaves counted as people in the population count. Those who opposed slavery only wanted free persons to be counted. The compromise reached counted slaves as three-fifths of a free, white person for all states where this would be an issue. By allowing this clause to be a part of the constitution, the framers were making the Constitution a document that supported slavery. Valuing a slave as less than a man gave support to the industry of slavery by making the dehumanization of them a legal provision. Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution lists specific limits on the power of Congress. Among them, …show more content…
Although the courts settled many cases concerning slavery, two of the most important and prominent ones were Prigg v. Pennsylvania and Dred Scott v. Sandford. Prigg v. Pennsylvania came before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and was ruled on in 1842. In this case, an African American woman named Margaret Morgan had been granted freedom by her owner but was never formally emancipated. A man named Edward Prigg was sent to capture her and return her to her owner’s heirs. When Prigg did this, he was convicted of violating Pennsylvania laws from 1788 and 1826 that “prohibited the removal of Negroes out of the state for the purpose of enslaving them” (Oyez). Prigg was arguing that both the 1788 and 1826 laws “violated the constitutional guarantee of extradition among states and the federal government's Fugitive Slave Law of 1793” (Oyez). Justice Story delivered the opinion of the court and ruled that the Pennsylvania laws were contradictory to Article IV, Section 2 of the Constitution and the Fugitive Slave Law. This was an instance where federal law was taken as priority over a state law. Years later, in 1857, the Dred Scott v. Sandford case was decided. In Scott v. Sandford, Dred Scott was a slave who argued that he was a free man after living in the free state of Illinois for ten years before being brought back to the slave state of
Many political, legal, and economic …show more content…
The issue of slavery was also a hotly debated topic for the framers of the Constitution. While the word ‘slave’ or ‘slavery’ is not directly mentioned in the Constitution, there are provisions in it such as the Enumeration Clause and Article IV, Section 2, Clause 3 known as the Fugitive Slave Clause that relate to slavery. When the Constitution was drafted and made effective in 1789, it was a document that supported the industry of slavery. The Enumeration Clause, more commonly known as the three-fifths compromise, in the Constitution came about as a result of arguments about how the framers were going to decide how many seats each state got in the House of Representatives. It was decided that seats would be granted based on population size. As would obviously benefit them, the south wanted their slaves counted as people in the population count. Those who opposed slavery only wanted free persons to be counted. The compromise reached counted slaves as three-fifths of a free, white person for all states where this would be an issue. By allowing this clause to be a part of the constitution, the framers were making the Constitution a document that supported slavery. Valuing a slave as less than a man gave support to the industry of slavery by making the dehumanization of them a legal provision. Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution lists specific limits on the power of Congress. Among them, …show more content…
Although the courts settled many cases concerning slavery, two of the most important and prominent ones were Prigg v. Pennsylvania and Dred Scott v. Sandford. Prigg v. Pennsylvania came before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and was ruled on in 1842. In this case, an African American woman named Margaret Morgan had been granted freedom by her owner but was never formally emancipated. A man named Edward Prigg was sent to capture her and return her to her owner’s heirs. When Prigg did this, he was convicted of violating Pennsylvania laws from 1788 and 1826 that “prohibited the removal of Negroes out of the state for the purpose of enslaving them” (Oyez). Prigg was arguing that both the 1788 and 1826 laws “violated the constitutional guarantee of extradition among states and the federal government's Fugitive Slave Law of 1793” (Oyez). Justice Story delivered the opinion of the court and ruled that the Pennsylvania laws were contradictory to Article IV, Section 2 of the Constitution and the Fugitive Slave Law. This was an instance where federal law was taken as priority over a state law. Years later, in 1857, the Dred Scott v. Sandford case was decided. In Scott v. Sandford, Dred Scott was a slave who argued that he was a free man after living in the free state of Illinois for ten years before being brought back to the slave state of