Debates Over Slavery
In 1787, delegates arrived in Philadelphia to begin work on revising the Articles of Confederation. Most states agreed that the Articles had not provided the country with the type of guidelines that it needed to run smoothly. There were many things missing, and many issues that needed further consideration. One of the most controversial topics at the Constitutional Convention was figuring out the country's policy towards slavery. When all was said and done, slavery was still legal after the Convention because the southern economy depended on it and because most people decided that this was an issue that should be decided by each individual state, rather than the country as a whole.The issue of slavery was taken very seriously at the Convention, and there were many different sides to the issue that were debated. Although the southern state's economies depended on slaves immensely, the northern states believed that the US could not in good will allow slavery because of the moral repercussions that go along with it. The US was founded in the first place because they felt that they were their own country, a separate entity from England. Now, nearly seven years later they were going to sign a document th
Many supporters of slavery, such as Charles Pinckney even argued that "In all ages, one-half of mankind have been slaves" (Peters 167). This is exactly what the Convention finally agreed on. The true question at present is whether the Southern states shall or shall not be parties to the Union" (Peters 164). Without cotton, the northern factories would have nothing to produce their textiles from. They believed each individual state should be able to decide for themselves how they feel about slavery. Many people opposed this idea, because if two or three states oppose the importation of slavery, but two or three allow it, then the law of the other two states is useless. This caused a lot of confusion between larger states up north who sympathized with larger states down south, and vice versa. By immediately taking away their work force, there would be no one left to pick the cotton, their main crop at the time. People such as Roger Sherman pointed out that abolition of slavery was slowly happening in the United States any ways, so there was no need for the national government to intercede. Due to the South's dependence on slaves and the popular belief that slavery is an issue that should be dealt with by each state individually, the slaves were not freed in 1787. Before his death in 1790, Benjamin Franklin wrote a memorial to Congress asking for the abolition of slavery. Small states wanted equal representation in Congress, so they would agree with other smaller states on representation issues, but then disagree with the northern states about slavery. They made laws preventing the import of more slaves into their states, and North Carolina was in the process of discussing the same thing. This seeming contradiction caused many people to reaffirm the idea that this was a national issue. The next reason why slavery was not abolished during the Constitutional Convention was because many people saw slavery as an issue that should be decided by individual states, rather than the national government.
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