Analyzing the U.S. Constitution
a lesson created by Grant R. Miller, Ph. D.
Constitution Critics
It is inconsistent with the principles of the Revolution and dishonorable to the American character to have such a feature in the Constitution.
Luther Martin, Maryland slaveowner, 1787
It was "conceived in sin, and shapen in iniquity ."
Frederick Douglass, minister and abolitionist, 1849
The government they devised was defective from the start.
Thurgood Marshall, U.S. Supreme Court Justice, 1987
All of these Americans valued freedom and liberty. Why would they have criticized the Constitution?
On the next page, you will read an excerpt from Russell Freedman's book In Defense of Liberty and use six key terms to complete the concept map pictured here. These terms are defined on the next page.
Click on the coaches below to hear their thoughts about this task. For example, BOT makes a prediction about where one of these terms will go.
Excerpt from Freedman, R. (2003). In Defense of Liberty: The Story of America's Bill of Rights. New York: Holiday House.
The Constitution, as it took shape, was not to everyone’s liking. One troublesome controversy concerned the presence in America of an enslaved African population. At least twenty-five of the fifty-five delegates to the Constitutional Convention were slave owners.
How could political leaders creating a new government seek liberty for themselves while they denied it to others? Many of the delegates were opposed to slavery as an affront to the ideals of liberty that the Constitution claimed to protect. George Mason of Virginia, himself a slave owner, condemned “the infernal traffic ” of enslaved Africans and warned that slavery would bring “the judgment of heaven” down on the nation. And yet condemning slavery was one thing; ending it was quite another.
The delegates from the South, whose plantations and way of life depended on slave labor, threatened to walk out of the convention if the proposed Constitution prohibited slavery. They warned that if slavery were outlawed, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina would “not be parties to the Union.” And so the delegates gave in to what they saw as political reality. Convinced that they could not abolish slavery and still form a strong union , they agreed to a compromise. The slave trade would be permitted for another twenty years, until 1808, when finally it would be banned. But slavery itself would be tolerated under the Constitution; it would continue until America’s Civil War of 1861 to 1865.
Allowing the Slave Trade to Continue
U.S. Constitution Article 1, Section 9
The Constitution states, "The migration or importation of any such persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by Congress prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight; but a tax or duty may be imposed, not exceeding ten dollars each person."
Frederick Douglass argued, "The first article and ninth section is a full, complete and broad sanction of the slavetrade for twenty years. In this compromise of the Constitution, the parties to it pledged the national arm to protect that infernal trade for twenty years."
He concluded, "the North were permitted to impose a tax of ten dollars for each person imported, with which to swell the coffers of the national treasury, thus baptizing the infant Republic with the blood-stained gold"
Fugitive Slaves
U.S. Constitution Article 4, Section 2
The Constitution states, "No person held to service or labor in one State, escaping into another, shall in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due."
Douglass stated, "This article was adopted with a view to restoring fugitive slaves to their masters....The whole nation that adopted it, consented to become kidnappers, and the whole land converted into slave-hunting ground."
Slave Rebellions
U.S. Constitution, Article 4, Section 4
The Constitution states, "The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican form of Government; and shall protect each of them against invasion; and on application of the Legislature, or of the Executive, (when the Legislature cannot be convened,) against Domestic violence."
Douglass argued, "Pledges the national arm to protect the slaveholder from domestic violence, and is the safeguard of the Southern tyrant against the vengeance of the outraged and plundered slave...to prevent them from rising to gain their freedom."
