Pro-Slavery Argumentative Analysis

In a seemingly grand contradiction, the United States Constitution – a document lauded for its eloquent promises of justice and liberty – did not explicitly address the legality of slavery in its original form. This ambivalence toward the issue would prove to be a point of great legal contention in the years leading up to the American Civil War; while some Americans interpreted the document as being pro-slavery, others believed the opposite. Though both positions on the Constitution’s original approach toward slavery have their merits, thorough analysis of the document proves that the Founders sought for a nation in which slavery was permitted. A few morsels of evidence that the United States Constitution was initially pro-slavery is found within the Preamble. The Preamble states that one of the purposes of the Constitution was to “form a more perfect Union” – a Union which included steadfast advocates for slavery. Considering that the pro-slavery delegates would have likely refused to participate in the Constitutional Convention were their institutions not upheld, it is clear that a cohesive unit of states was preferred to the ultimate abolishment of

While intentionally avoiding the word “slave”, the clause dictated that “all other Persons”, would count as three-fifths of one free person in determining how many members each state would have in the House of Representatives. The inclusion of “all other Persons” into the Constitution’s original form suggests that the Framers accepted that slavery was a large component of the United States’ economic and legal fabric, and that its promulgation would continue for years to come. Thus, the euphemistic acknowledgement of slaves in the Constitution proves it initially recognized the United States as a nation of both free citizens and