Category Archives: Slavery and The Constitution
Am I A Descendant of President James Madison?
President James Madison did not have children with his wife, Dolley. This widely accepted fact has led scholars to believe that this great historical figure was either impotent, infertile, or both. The oral history of my family says that the scholars are wrong. Madison loved his fledgling country and embraced its ideals. He was gifted with prodigious intellect and, as one of the Founding Fathers, brought that love and those ideals together to help […]
Continue readingThe Fifteenth Amendment
Following the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment, emancipating all slaves in the United States, and the Fourteenth Amendment, granting them citizenship, Republican congressmen worried that the Democrat-dominated South would gain control over the legislature. The Three-Fifths Compromise was now null and void. Most of the four million former slaves remained in the South, and each would be counted for representation in the House. Lincoln’s party, the Republicans, […]
Continue readingThe Fourteenth Amendment’s “Citizenship Clause”
Senator Jacob M. Howard Author of the “Citizenship Clause” The Thirteenth, Fourteen, and Fifteenth Amendments are called the “Reconstruction Amendments” because they were the first enacted after the Civil War and because they addressed the legal and political status of African Americans. The five sections on the Fourteenth Amendment dealt with citizenship and equal protection of the laws, and with the power of Congress to enact those laws. […]
Continue readingThe Thirteenth Amendment
Lincoln by George H. Story c. 1915 President Abraham Lincoln was concerned that the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation would be nullified after the war. He resolved to abolish slavery, nationally and permanently, by a constitutional amendment, the thirteenth. On February 10, 1864, the Senate Judiciary Committee presented a proposed amendment to the Senate, and on April 8, 1864, it received a favorable vote by a margin of 38 to 6. But in the House, the vote […]
Continue readingThe 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 […]
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