In this learning activity, you will learn about the creation of the Constitution of the United States at the Constitutional Convention held in Philadelphia in 1789. The material presented focuses on the issues of representation Congress and slavery. One of the major disputes at the Constitutional Convention focused on representation in Congress. Should there be one or two chambers of Congress? Should each state have equal representation in Congress, regardless of population? Should representation in Congress be proportional based on a state’s population? This issue divided the states with large populations and the states with small populations. The issue of slavery was also extremely contentious. Should slaves be included in the count of a state’s population for the purpose of representation? Slaves could not vote and were legally defined as property. This issue divided the northern and southern states. Northern states, which had relatively few slaves, did not want slaves counted towards a state’s population. Southern states, which had many slaves, did want slaves included in the population census. Finally, the issue of the transatlantic slave trade was quite contentious. Should the transatlantic slave trade be allowed to continue? If so, for how long? Should Congress have the ability to ban the transatlantic slave trade?
The Constitution of the United States
The Virginia Plan, introduced on May 29 [by James Madison], was “wholly national.” Of particular importance is the absence of any structural representation for the states . . .
On June 11, the delegates overwhelmingly agreed that the lower house should be based on population and elected by the people. By a 6-5 vote, the delegates rejected a proposal by Roger Sherman that supported popular representation in the lower house and equal representation for the states in the upper branch. Thus on June 15, William Paterson submitted the New Jersey Plan, one that scrapped all the popular representation provisions of the Virginia Plan.
On 19 June, the New Jersey Plan was defeated 7-3-1. For the remainder of June, however, the delegates returned repeatedly to the compromise proposal of June 11. And on June 29, Ellsworth reintroduced the motion of June 11: equal representation for the states in the upper house with proportional representation in the lower house.
For the first time, the case for the representation of the states was elevated from one of convenience to one of principle. Ellsworth declared, “We were partly national; partly federal. He trusted that on this middle ground a compromise would take place.” On June 30, the youngest delegate, Jonathan Dayton of New Jersey—until then a pretty staunch nationalist—spoke for the first time: “We were partly federal, partly national in our Union,” he declared. “And he did not see why the Govt. might (not) in some respects operate on the States, in others on the people.”
On July 2, the Ellsworth proposal was defeated on a tie vote: 5-5-1. Nevertheless, a Committee of 11—one delegate from each state—was created to seek a compromise on the representation question . . .
From July 5 to July 7, the [Great] Committee defended equal representation for the states in the Senate and popular representation in the House. We need to put theoretical niceties to one side, [Delegate] Gerry said, and think about “accommodation.” “We were… in a peculiar situation. We were neither the same Nation nor different Nations. If no compromise should take place what will be the consequence.”? Mason concurred: “There must be some accommodation.” Paterson, also on the committee, urged adoption of the report for “there was no other ground of accommodation.”
The key to the Compromise was winning over such former wholly national supporters like Gerry and Mason. An often-overlooked component of the Compromise was the agreement that money bills would originate in the House and could not be amended in the Senate. This feature was vital in winning over Mason and Gerry, as well as Randolph who introduced the wholly national Virginia Plan. These three delegates were willing to buy into the partly national (popular representation in the House), partly federal (equal representation for the states in the Senate) arrangement if the principle of no taxation without popular representation was adhered to.
On July 16, the delegates agreed (5-4-1) to the [Great] Committee Report, also known as the [Great] Compromise. The losing delegates, Madison, Wilson, G. Morris, Pinckney, and King, decided not to challenge the outcome.
Source: Lloyd, Gordon. Documents: The American Founding: The Constitutional Convention. TeachingAmericanHistory.org. Accessed on 25 November 2017 through OER Search.
Slavery and the Constitution
To modern eyes, the most stunning and disturbing constitutional compromise by the delegates was over the issue of slavery. Some delegates considered slavery an evil institution and George Mason of Virginia even suggested that the trans-Atlantic slave trade be made illegal by the new national rules. Delegates from South Carolina and Georgia where slavery was expanding rapidly in the late-18th century angrily opposed this limitation. If any limitations to slavery were proposed in the national framework, then they would leave the convention and oppose its proposed new plan for a stronger central government. Their fierce opposition allowed no room for compromise and as a result the issue of slavery was treated as a narrowly political, rather than a moral, question.
The delegates agreed that a strengthened union of the states was more important than the Revolutionary ideal of equality. This was a pragmatic, as well as a tragic, constitutional compromise, since it may have been possible (as suggested by George Mason’s comments) for the slave state of Virginia to accept some limitations on slavery at this point.
The slave trade was always a controversial issue in the history of the United States.
The proposed constitution actually strengthened the power of slave states in several important respects. Through the “Fugitive Clause,” for example, governments of free states were required to help recapture runaway slaves who had escaped their masters’ states. Equally disturbing was the “Three-Fifths formula” established for determining representation in the lower house of the legislature. Slave states wanted to have additional political power based on the number of human beings that they held as slaves. Delegates from free states wouldn’t allow such a blatant manipulation of political principles, but the inhumane compromise that resulted meant counting enslaved persons as three-fifths of a free person for the sake of calculating the number of people a state could elect to the House of Representatives.
Ushistory.org. Constitution through Compromise. U.S. History Online Textbook. http://www.ushistory.org/us/15d.asp. Accessed on 25 November 2017.
The Slave Trade and the Constitution
No issue is more in need of careful consideration than the slavery question, because no issue is more likely to impeach the entire Founding enterprise than the slavery issue. Unfortunately, historians have a way of reading history backwards rather than forwards and when we read the slavery issue backwards it looks like in the most critical area—Article I, Section 9 on the Slave Trade—the delegates are unequivocally and perpetually endorsing the institution of slavery . . .
We need to ask a prior question: how did Article I, Section 9 get to be the way it is? Was there unanimity among the delegates, was there even a discussion, and if, so, was there anybody who put up the slightest resistance to the continuation of slavery?
On August 6, the Committee of Detail Report was presented to the delegates. Article VII, Section 1 itemized the powers of Congress and sections two through seven placed limitations on the powers of Congress. Section 4 stated that:
No tax or duty shall be laid by the Legislature… on the migration or importation of such persons as the several States shall think proper to admit; nor shall such migration or importation be prohibited.
This is clearly a slaveholder’s document: Congress is forbidden forever from prohibiting the slave trade and any incentive through taxation is also prohibited. This section is the result of a demand from the North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia delegations to think practically rather than in terms of humanity and religion.
On September 17, the delegates signed the Constitution, Article I, Section 9 of which states the following:
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.
Note that the final version permits Congress to eliminate the slave trade in 1808—which it did effective January 1, 1808—and permits Congress in the meantime to discourage the trade by taxation. Also the final version limits the Congressional prohibition to the existing States thus inviting the future restriction of slavery in the territories. In this regard, it is important to note that the Confederation Congress restricted slavery in the Northwest Territories in exchange for the return of fugitive slaves. The delegates adopt this Ordinance solution as part of Article IV.
What took place between August 6 and September 17? Rutledge of South Carolina argued on August 21, “Interest alone is the governing principle with Nations. The true question at present is whether the Southern States shall or not be parties of the Union.” Sherman and Ellsworth, moreover, recommended not making the slave trade a divisive issue: “Slavery in time will not be a speck in our Country.” Luther Martin disagreed: slavery “was inconsistent with the principles of the revolution.” On August 22, Mason supported Martin’s position: “Every master of slaves is born a petty tyrant. They bring the judgment of heaven on a Country.” Dickinson, from Delaware, considered slavery “as inadmissible on every principle of honor & safety.” And Randolph stated, “he could never agree to the clause as it stands.”
On August 25, the delegates received a Committee compromise recommendation to permit Congress to prohibit the slave trade in 1800. Pinckney moved to alter this to 1808. Madison’s response was prophetic: “twenty years will produce all the mischief that can be apprehended from the liberty to import slaves.” The first time the slavery issue was raised in the convention is by Madison on June 6. There in his itemization of the causes of faction, or the unjust use of power, he says “that we have seen the mere distinction of colour made in the most enlightened period of time, a ground of the most oppressive dominion ever exercised by man over man.” G. Morris from Pennsylvania, on August 25, was rather blunt: why not say that this part of the Constitution was a compliance with… North Carolina, South Carolina & Georgia.”
The delegates agreed to [permit Congress to prohibit the slave trade beginning in 1808] by a vote of Ayes 7, Noes 4. The 4 noes were New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Virginia and they voted “no” because they thought that 1808 was too compromising . . .
Source: Lloyd, Gordon. Documents: The American Founding: The Constitutional Convention. TeachingAmericanHistory.org. Accessed on 25 November 2017 through OER Search.
The Constitution of the United States – VIDEOs
The Constitutional Convention
PBS. Constitutional Compromises: Crash Course Government and Politics #5. (2015, February 20). [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCCmuftyj8A
Slavery and the Constitutional Convention
Foner, E. Slavery and the Constitution: The Civil War and Reconstruction, 1850-1861. [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1rYq3KW0ZI
Summary
In the end, the Constitution was established on the basis of compromise. There were serious divisions in perspective between northern and southern states and large and small states. Without compromise, the Constitution could not have been created. Tragically, one of the areas of compromise was on the issue of slavery. The Constitution legally recognized the existence of slavery through both the three-fifths compromise and the compromise on the transatlantic slave trade. The other major issue of compromise related to representation in Congress. The drafters of the Constitution agreed to establish a bicameral legislature. In the House of Representatives, representation would be proportional, based on each state’s population. In the Senate, each state would have equal representation, regardless of differences in population. The states that made-up the United States were very diverse and had competing interests. Compromise was critical to uniting these disparate states into a single nation. The Grand Compromise and the three-fifths compromise were established in an effort to unite diverse state into a single nation. The issue of slavery would continue to be contentious in the United States for many decades to come. You will learn more about this in future learning nodules. Thank you for completing this activity.
