The Fifth Amendment and Dred Scott
In 1791, when and Congress approved James Madison’s Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the Constitution, American citizens were secure in their rights and privileges. The Bill says nothing about slaves. The Fifth Amendment protects citizens from being tried twice for same offense and from being compelled to testify against himself or herself (“taking the fifth”). It also explicitly guarantees that the Federal […]
Continue readingSlave Revolts and the Constitution
New York City,1741. Slaves being burned at the stakes The first recorded slave revolt in the British colonies occurred in September 1663. The property-owning citizens of Gloucester County, Virginia were terrified when they learned that a large number black slaves and white indentured servants had planned a revolt against their masters. The plan was discovered, and several rebels were beheaded. In 1739, some eighty armed slaves attempted to march from Stono, South Carolina to Spanish-occupied Florida. […]
Continue readingProtecting The Slave Trade
In the decade before the Constitutional Convention, some Virginia plantation owners inventoried their human property and, discovering a surplus, began to sell slaves to other colonies. This internal slave trade was so profitable that slave-breeding and selling became a popular business. These Virginia entrepreneurs recognized that stopping the influx of foreign-born slaves would increase the value of those born on American soil. But for the nation […]
Continue readingThe Fugitive Slave Clause
The Constitution made sure that slaves could not find freedom by escaping to a state in which slavery was not practiced. Article IV, Section states: 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 […]
Continue readingThe Three-Fifths Compromise
“The Signing of the Constitution” There was a little rain on May 25, 1787, when the Constitutional Convention opened in burgeoning port city of Philadelphia. The sessions convened in elegant Independence Hall, and though George Washington chaired, James Madison became known as the “Father of the Constitution.” Madison presented the fundamental blueprint for the new nation, took copious notes on every discussion, and, of the fifty-five delegates, was the only one to attend every […]
Continue readingThomas Jefferson “All Men Are [Not] Created Equal…”
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” This, the second sentence of the Declaration of Independence, is one of the most far-reaching and best-known sentences in the English language, and it expresses who we are supposed to be as a nation. Though these words appear to […]
Continue readingSlave Nation
“Yankee Doodle” (1776) While I was doing research for my book, The Other Madisons: An American Griotte’s Quest, I came across Slave Nation: How Slavery United the Colonies & Sparked the American Revolution by Alfred and Ruth Blumrosen. Unlike other books about the causes of the Revolution, their book does not attribute “taxation without representation” as the primary cause. Instead, they present evidence that the United States, “the land of the free,” was founded […]
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