Debates About Slavery

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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 that would give Americans the right to hold people against their will and force them to work for free. This seems like a large contradiction to everything the US stands for, especially since they had just earned their own freedom a few years ago. Luther Martin of Maryland brought up this point at the Convention by saying, "…it is inconsistent with the principles of the revolution and dishonorable to the American character to have such a feature in the Constitution" (Peters 164).
Many people viewed slavery as an economic issue, and not a moral issue at all. John Rutledge of South Carolina said, "Religion and humanity have nothing to do with this question. Interest alone is the governing principle with nations. The true question at present is whether the Southern states shall or shall not be parties to the Union" (Peters 164). Many people agreed with Rutledge, because the entire southern economy depended on slavery at that time. They believed each individual state should be able to decide for themselves how they feel about slavery. A northern man may oppose slavery because of its moral effects, but he wouldn't know what it wa...

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...h the slaves was that many people saw the Union as an entity made up of large and small states. Others believed the Union was divided into slave-owning states and non-slave-owning states. This caused a lot of confusion between larger states up north who sympathized with larger states down south, and vice versa. Other issues such as suffrage and representation in Congress became interrelated with the slavery issue (Edel 24-5). 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. This caused many disputes among the states and prolonged the process of finishing the Constitution, as well as coming up with a conclusion about the slavery issue.
At the completion of the Convention, the delegates had voted to let slavery remain legal until they discussed it again in 1808. 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. Many other issues became entangled in this argument, but those were the major causes of the Convention's decision.

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