American History Teachers' Collaborative Reflective Paper: Constitutional Convention

Reflection Paper

Mark Sikora

AHTC Summer Institute 2008

Article 1, Section 2 - The House

(Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.

Article 1 Section 9 - Limits on Congress

The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a tax or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person.

Article 4, Section 2

No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, But shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due.

Document: The United States Constitution, ratified July 2, 1788

Author(s): The Constitution Convention, Philadelphia, PA

Purpose: In order to form a more perfect Union (fix the government under the Articles of Confederation.

Definitions: Article 1, Section 2 – The 3/5 Compromise (the Enumeration Clause) in which southern states want their slaves to be counted for more representation in Congress, while non-slave holding states want them to be counted for taxation purposes. This seemed to be passed with little debate (the US Constitution.net)

Article 1, Section 9 – Compromise to end the importation of slaves in 1808.

Article 4, Section 2 – The first Fugitive Slave Law which clearly defines that slaves were not human beings, but property to be bought, sold, and protected by the Constitution. In exchange for the fugitive slave clause, the New England states got concessions on shipping and trade.

Analysis: I selected these three items from the Constitution because they are the only place in the document where slavery was mentioned. The slave issue at the Constitutional Convention is of the utmost importance to me and one that I find incredibly interesting. Slavery, specifically, and race relations, generally, have always captured my attention as an African American male who is trying to make sense of the material for my students but also for myself. The compromises on slavery had serious effects of the nation. The fugitive slave law opened to door to widespread kidnapping of free blacks in non-slave holding states and sold “down the river.” The three-fifths compromise increased the South’s representation in Congress and the Electoral College. In 12 of the first 16 presidential elections, a Southern slave owner won. Extending the slave trade past 1800 brought many more slaves to America. South Carolina alone imported 40,000 slaves between 1803 and 1808.[1] It would take roughly 70 years after the Constitutional Convention to settle once and for all the slave debate, albeit not the issue of race in this country with which we still battle.

One of the most difficult things I grapple with when trying to understand American History is not judging previous generations from a contemporary view. If we are the sum of our experiences (the things we read, watch, and discuss create who we are) it is difficult to keep our current mindset from creeping into our evaluation of past deeds. I have become much more acutely aware this week that our personal lens clouds what we want to see and believe about the “facts” that are laid out for use to consume via the written and spoken work. The U.S. Constitution has been explained this week with great enthusiasm and zeal through dynamic speakers and great works of research and has been dissected in various ways to help us in our ability to teach our own students about the foundation of our government structure. Before this can take place, however, I have to get my mind right first about what the Constitution and the time period surrounding it means to me on a personal level. I can only assume that the Founding Fathers also used this concept of reality when creating the documents and given the speeches that they did. As was said by Dr. Wood, they did not create a new thing in the form of the U.S. Constitution. It was a culmination of their own personal education, both here and many from abroad, and their own provincial lives.

Many concede that the “end justifies the means” in the circumstances surrounding the ratification of the Constitution and the issue of slavery. It seems acceptable to sacrifice the possible ending of the institution for the overall result; the shortest in length and longest in running constitution of the free world – a true triumph of “genius” that ultimately set the country on its way. Certainly Dr. Gordon, Dr. Wood, and Dr. Berkin did a wonderful job of explaining the human side to these “demigods” (as named by Thomas Jefferson some 80 years after the Constitutional Convention) and how they are just men, flaws and all. This should give hope to all people that even flawed individuals can do great things. They had misdeeds, extramarital affairs, bad business deals and yet all of that pales in the worship that we heap at their feet because of the magical document they created. In my limited view of the proceedings, many slaveholders or representatives of their interests were in that hot and stuffy Convention Hall who fought long and hard to save their own wealth and the wealth of their companions. Just as important were the non-slave holders who brokered away their misgivings about slavery in order to get the deal done and have the Constitution signed, sealed, and delivered. To this, I would agree with Gary B. Nash, who explains that even though conventional wisdom says that abolition was impossible in the fragile new republic, “an unusual convergence of factors immediately after the war created a unique opportunity to dismantle slavery.”[2] This did not come to pass; rather the issue was compromised to such a point that would allow the proceedings to continue on to other matters. Unfortunately, it became the basis of the most controversial aspect of the birth of America.

There were two “800 pound gorillas” in that meeting; what to do about the disgruntled poor whites (see Shays’ Rebellion) as well as what should be done concerning the 700,000 slaves that were spread throughout the nation but certainly clustered in the southern states (roughly 18% - 25% of America’s population)? But it is not the sheer numbers in the population that intrigues me. It is the mindset of the men in that room at that time of new beginnings that I find the most interesting. They had an opportunity to deal with one of the most important issue of this country and they chose to dump it in the lap of future generations in order to move the proceedings along. This is unfortunate because it appears that many of the “Founding Fathers” had expressed opinions that condemned slavery. John Jay wrote that “to contend for our own liberty, and to deny that blessing to others, involves an inconsistency not to be excused.” [3] Oliver Ellsworth stated a few months after the Convention that “all good men wish the entire abolition of slavery, as soon as it can take place with safety to the public, and for the lasting good of the present wretched race of slaves.”[4] In 1789, Ben Franklin even had his misgivings when he said, “Slavery is such an atrocious debasement of human nature, that its very extirpation, if not performed with solicitous care, may sometimes open a source of serious evils.”[5] So if leaders such as these, as well as Thomas Jefferson, are out there trumpeting the evils of the institution (Jefferson anti-slavery stance was grounded in the belief that it was a “germ of all education” to children who had to see their fathers treat slaves poorly), and felt so strongly about slavery’s demise, why did they not work harder to end it at the Convention? Certainly, this gave them the best opportunity to truly define a new nation that would live up to the ideals that were laid out as the reason for the war for independence.

Apologists for the time are quick to explain that they were men of their time; we cannot judge them from today’s standards. Yes, they spoke of “all men being created equal,” but African slavery was just the way of things were done (seeing as how Native Americans were not a suitable, long-term laborers due to disease and the white indentured groups lost numbers and were not seen as a steady labor source. Moreover, sexual relations with slave women by owners like Jefferson was just the way the world worked at that time and so we should give them a pass when we point out the debilitation effects of black children with no true fathers to be unleashed in a cruel world of racism and servitude. I choose to believe that these men knew right from wrong, just as we do today, but yet they were more interested in keeping the status quo of maintaining the wealth and stature of the white, male elite. This is a glaring reality for men like Jefferson and his southern brethren who were in the top five percent of America’s wealth structure because of the amount of slaves they owned. But how does this explain the placating done by the Convention members who represented states that did not own slaves? What was in it for them? Maybe Edmund Morgan had it correct when he stated that “the American Revolution (and thus the creation of the new government) was founded upon slavery.[6] It created a solid and dominating wealth structure for the southern planter class, raw materials that enriched the northern merchants, and created a subservient class that would always be at the bottom rung of American society (thus always allowing whites some form of control over another group regardless of their socioeconomic standing). To me, that is not only the basis the southern contingent’s arguments for the maintaining of the system, but also a major reason as to why northern non-slave holding states placated to the demands of the southerners.

So therefore, along with the three guest speakers this week, I feel that it is important to understand that these were trying times in American history and there is no easy solution when it comes to the matters of “men.” But when we look at the Constitution in my class we must attempt to bring those complex layers far beyond the level of just knowing the nuances of the seven Articles in the document. A valuable lesson that I was reminded of this week was the idea that these were trying times without adding the human story. This is a concept that I believe students can and should relate to as their lives are also complex and every decision that we make has ramifications and ultimately has our fingerprint and lens of experience attached. Naturally, we do not know the outcome of our actions, just as the Founding Fathers could not foresee that the introduction of the Cotton Engine at the end of the 18^th century would cause the institution of slavery to explode rather than slowly die out as many of them thought would happen. If my students can see not only the information and structure of our latest permanent government structure but also the debates and issues that came along with it, that will hopefully give me a good idea that my students are thinking historically about the US Constitution. It is my ultimate hope that they will become more connected with primary documents and see true relevance in their own lives. Only time will tell.