Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.
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, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person.
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 due.
https://tenthamendmentcenter.com/2015/09/23/constitutionally-slavery-was-not-a-national-institution Sep 23, 2015 "A major criticism of the Constitution in recent years is that prior to the passage of the 13th Amendment it had maintained slavery as a national institution. Yet this claim does not match what took place at the Philadelphia Convention in 1787 nor is it reflected in what the document actually says about slavery itself...the United States was not “founded on slavery,” calling this “one of the most destructive falsehoods in all of American history.” Although many proslavery elements were present at the Constitutional Convention and strove to make slavery a permanent part of the Constitution, their efforts failed despite securing compromises that merely tolerated the existence of slavery rather than endorse it." Tenth Amendment Center
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VF3KYENf-fo Aug 30, 2024 One of the most troublesome questions at the Constitutional Convention was what to do about slavery. Not whether it should be abolished by the new Constitution, but whether slaves would be counted in the census and if the states or the central government would control the institution and what that control would look like. All delegates recognized the terrible inconsistency between slavery and the words expressed in our Declaration of Independence. But they understood the task at hand was to create a new form of national government that could prosper under the conditions that existed. Most importantly, the fact remained that the southern states were not ready to completely let it go and, as John Rutledge from South Carolina stated, the true question was “whether the southern states shall or shall not be part of the Union.” Tom Hand, creator and publisher of Americana Corner, discusses how delegates at the Constitutional Convention approached the question of slavery, and why it still matters today. Americana Corner
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrMs94Ywy3A Apr 5, 2022 Official Website: https://www.pbs.org/kenburns/benjamin-franklin As impasse threatened to derail the Constitutional Convention, Franklin worked to find common ground. In order to pass the proposed Constitution of the United States, the delegates agreed to several compromises—some tragic. On September 17, 1787, Franklin, who saw the new federal government as an experiment to be improved by successive generations, delivered a speech endorsing the Constitution. About the Production Ken Burns’s four-hour documentary, “Benjamin Franklin,” explores the revolutionary life of one of the 18th Century’s most consequential figures, whose work and words unlocked the mystery of electricity and helped create the United States. PBS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajsTPXA7eSM Jun 20, 2019 How did the Founders think about slavery? How did it affect the construction of the Constitutional system? Professor Randy Barnett notes that many of the Founders were opposed to slavery but they believed that the states ought to be allowed to govern themselves on this and other issues. Professor Barnett explains that the Constitution barely addresses the slavery question, leading to what was known as the “freedom national, slavery local” position. Congress could discourage or abolish slavery in territories and other federal jurisdictions but each state was free to decide the local slavery issue. The Reconstruction Amendments, passed after the Civil War, changed the Constitution to mandate both freedom national and freedom local. Professor Randy E. Barnett is the Carmack Waterhouse Professor of Legal Theory at the Georgetown University Law Center, where he teaches constitutional law and contracts, and is Director of the Georgetown Center for the Constitution. The Federalist Society
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRJtG572JJI&t May 2, 2019 Was federalism set up to promote slavery in the US Constitution? Professor Michael McConnell discusses the deep ideological divergences on slavery at the time of the Founding, and argues that the federalism adopted by the Constitution was the first step toward abolition. The Constitution created a nation with the potential of eventually abolishing slavery, which it did via the amendment process. The Fourteenth Amendment made the national government principally responsible for civil liberties, but the state governments still have a role to play. These competing power centers together work to promote liberty. Michael William McConnell is a constitutional law scholar who served as a United States Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit from 2002 until 2009. Since 2009, McConnell has served as Director of the Stanford Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School. The Federalist Society
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKn_0TUg_Mo Dec 10, 2021 In 2019, researchers were able to properly authenticate the last known slave ship to enter the United States illegally. That ship, The Clotida, was found in the Mobile River in Southern Alabama. A slave trader named Timothy Meaher arranged with a king in an African nation to purchase one hundred slaves and transport them to Alabama. With treacherous conditions and little food, those who survived would be enslaved until the formal emancipation efforts commenced. While emancipation meant freedom on paper, freed slaves quickly learned that their efforts were best served creating their own community called Africatown. In this episode of Black History In Two Minutes or So hosted by Henry Louis Gates Jr., with additional commentary from Imani Perry of Princeton University, we take a look at an important piece of history that tells the story of the last known slave ship to enter the United States. Black History in Two Minutes or so