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Slavery vs constitution
Essay about United States Constitution
Slavery vs constitution
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“While the authors of the United States Constitution are frequently portrayed as noble and idealistic statesmen who drafted a document based upon their conception of good government, reality is that the constitution reflects the politics of the drafting and ratification process. Unfortunately, the result is a document that is designed to produce an ineffective government, rather than a government that can respond to issues in a timely fashion.” In support of this conclusion, the issues of slavery, The 1906 San Francisco Earthquake, and the civil rights struggle keenly demonstrate the ways in which our constitution hinders the expediency and effectiveness of America’s government. The constitution’s provisions towards voting eligibility and separation of powers proved to be the most significant obstacle in the path to emancipation for slaves in the 19th century. The way in which federalism is laid out within the constitution played a monumental role in the communication barriers that arose during the 1906 earthquake, delaying assistance to thousands of Californians. Lastly, a number of constitutional provisions, including voting rights and the 3/5 compromise, impeded the struggle for civil rights in the 20th century, again exemplifying that lack of efficiency that the constitution produces. A number of provisions within the constitution hindered the abolition of slavery until the late 19th century. Beginning with the constitutional convention, it became apparent that the debate over slavery would be ongoing. Southerners, attempting to maximize their representation in the House of Representatives, insisted that slaves be counted as a full person. Northerners responded, however, with the argument that slaves should not be counted at all, seeing as they did not enjoy the rights of full citizens. Arising from this debate was the 3/5 Compromise. This section dealt directly with the issue of representation, elaborating, “Representatives…shall be apportioned among the several states…according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding 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.” Although this compromise was designed to tackle the obstacle of slavery, it would prove to be yet another barrier in the nation... ... middle of paper ... ... be the most monumental obstacle in the battle for equal rights for blacks. The 3/5 compromise demonstrates the tendency toward black inferiority that would not be extinguished for 200 years. The constitution clearly reserves certain authorities for the states. In Section 4, the founders detailed, “The times, places, and manner of holding elections for Senators and Representatives shall be prescribed in each state…” This seemingly small provision, however, had dramatic implications for the avocation of civil rights. This clause allowed states to utilize literacy tests and other methods of determining voter eligibility that were clearly white biased. By denying the national government a veto over state law, segregation continued to thrive in Southern states. The separation of powers that is outlined in each section of the constitution also promoted segregation by preventing a national majority from striking against “tyranny in the states (92)”. These constitutional provisions support Kernell and Jacobson’s argument that “a fragmented constitutional system largely answers the question of why it took so long to eradicate, slavery, segregation, and other forms of discrimination.” (93)
In one house, the Senate, every state is represented equally regardless of population. In the lower house, the House of Representatives each state receives one representative for a set number of people. This satisfied all of the states and helped resolve one of the greatest conflicts while writing the Constitution. Another conflict that arose was with the counting of slaves in the census used to set the number of representatives per state. This was resolved under the Three-Fifths Compromise which stated that every slave would be counted as 3/5 of a person, although these slaves were given no voice or rights.
The first goal was to accumulate the molecular phylogeny data for seahorses using the cytochrome b gene sequence information (S.P. Casey et al, 2004). In this particular study, the cytochrome b gene was used to investigate whether or not the Hippocampus was indeed pre-Tethyan in origin and to illuminate the relationship between Indo-Pacific and Atlantic seahorse species. Molecular markers like the cytochrome b gene were used to survey dispersal of seahorse species and to temporally define the evolutionary processes since much of the seahorse fossil record is deficient (Lourie et al.,
"The American constitution recognized slavery as a local constitution within the legal rights of the individual states. But in the North slavery was not adaptable to the local economy, and to many, it contradicted the vision of the founding fathers for a nation in which all men are to be free. The South considered slavery as a necessary institution for the plantation economy. It was linked to the local culture and society. As the United states expanded, the North worried that the South would introduce slavery into the new territories. Slavery had become both a moral issue and a question of political power." (Kral p61)
Therefore, in 1787, two delegates by the names of Roger Sherman and James Wilson introduced the Three Fifths compromise in the Philadelphia Convention. The Three Fifths compromise states that a slave be counted as three-fifths of a person. Therefore, the population of the southern states equaled the population of the northern states. Now that the populations were balanced, the south and the north sent the same amount of representatives to The House of Representatives. Pro-slavery southerners felt as if the north still had an advantage, but it was actually the south that had the advantage in the Senate and The House of Rep...
Scientists had some idea to the evolutionary process of whales. “It has always been clear that aquatic cetaceans must have evolved from terrestrial mammals and returned to the water, and the forelimbs of recent cetaceans still have the same general pattern as that of land mammals.” (Walking with Whales) It was known fact that land mammals and whales were related. However, the change from ancient whales to modern whales is drastic.
This is where the Three-Fifths Compromise comes in. The Three-Fifths Compromise was not between small and bigger states, but more to do with Northern and Southern states. Slavery was still in place and, unsurprisingly, there were many slaves in southern states. Slaves, if counted as people, accounted for a large portion of a state’s population. Still, slaves were not treated as people. They could not vote or hold a place in office. The question was, how were they to be accounted for when considering population in order to select the right amount of representatives that were to go in the House? The answer was the Three-Fifths
Toward the end of the Progressive Era American social inequality had stripped African Americans of their rights on a local and national level. In the 1896 Supreme Court case of Plessey vs. Ferguson, the Supreme Court sided with a Louisiana state law declaring segregation constitutional as long as facilities remain separate but equal. Segregation increased as legal discriminatory laws became enacted by each state but segregated facilities for whites were far superior to those provided for blacks; especially prevalent in the South were discriminatory laws known as Jim Crow laws which surged after the ruling. Such laws allowed for segregation in places such as restaurants, hospitals, parks, recreational areas, bathrooms, schools, transportation, housing, hotels, etc. Measures were taken to disenfranchise African Americans by using intimidation, violence, putting poll taxes, and literacy tests. This nearly eliminated the black vote and its political interests as 90% of the nine million blacks in America lived in the South and 1/3 were illiterate as shown in Ray Stannard Baker’s Following the Color Line (Bailey 667). For example, in Louisiana 130,334 black voters registered in 1896 but that number drastically decreased to a mere 1,342 in 1904—a 99 percent decline (Newman ). Other laws prevented black...
Perrin, William, Bernd Wursig, and J. Thewissen. Encyclopedia of Marine Mammals. Academic Press, 2008. 787. Print.
Marino L, Connor RC, Fordyce RE, Herman LM, Hof PR, et al. (2007) Cetaceans have complex
Since the beginning of their new nation, the United States had many differences between the Northern and Southern states. During the Constitutional Convention they disagreed on how to determine their representation in the house based on population; the Southerners wanted to count their slaves and the Northerners did not, which lead to the three-fifths compromise. Later in the Convention there were concessions given to the South, which left the Northerners feeling uneasy, such as: a guarantee that the slave trade would not be interfered with by Congress until 1808 and slave owners were given the right to recover refugee slaves from anywhere in the United States. While many Northern delegates were disappointed with the rights given to the South, they felt it was necessary for the good of the Nation. This was necessary to form a strong central government and union between the states.
Raven, P.H, G. B. Johnson, K. A. Mason, J. B. Losos, S. R. Singer. 2011. Biology 9th edition. McGraw-Hill, New York. Pp. 778-779.
Through this they were able to find, as is seen in figure 1.A of the report, that one gene in particular, the Pitx1 gene was highly correlated to the pelvic spine, pelvic girdle, ascending branch and asymmetry in the Stickleback species. Thus, in other words showing that there was a tight linkage between Pitx1 and the pelvic reduction phenotype. The next step for the scientists was then to determine whether or not there were any changes in the coding region of the Pitx1 gene between the marine and benthic stickleback species. In order to do this the entire coding region and exon-intron junctions in both marine and benthic individuals were sequenced. The results, which can be seen in figure 2 of the report, showed that the coding regions of Pitx1 were the same for both stickleback species. Thus, implying that the absence or presence of the pelvic region must be controlled through regulation of the Pitx1 gene. In order to test this the scientists examined the spatial patterns of expression of Pitx1 during normal development of both marine and benthic
During the month of September in 1998 an amazing and unique discovery was found by a group of scientists when they went out to the Sea of Japan. There, they collected the carcass of a medium sized baleen whale. This was the ninth specimen needed to complete the research on discovering this new species. This species of the baleen whale did resemble the fin whale, another species of the baleen whale. However, this carcass was much smaller in size. After comparing DNA data of the external morphology, osteology, and mitochondrial, scientists were able to classify all they found into a new and different species. This new species, which was named after a Japanese cetologist, H. Omura, has a unique cranial morphology and a small number of baleen plates. Another wonderful discovery was made while doing this research as well, that was that one of the species of baleen whale could actually be classified into two unique species, Eden’s whale and Bryde’s whale. There were thought to be only five species of the baleen whale. But after the new discovery was made the number had risen to eight.
Turtles are one of the most unique animals that roam the Earth today. They have the most unique body plans any animal has ever had. Being one of the oldest reptiles, from the order Testudines, they have gone through millions of years of adaption and evolution. Their evolution have left biologist puzzled and has demanded the attention of zoologist to study and discover the adaptation of these fascinating creatures. With the recent discoveries of Eunotosaurus africanus and Pappochelys Rosinae, biologist can finally piece together the missing links to help finally solve how turtles became the wqay they are today. The discovery of their evolution and the altercation of the Turtle and their Bauplan is astounding.
Whales are believed to have come from land ancestors. The traditional theory of Cetacean evolution was that whales were related to Mesonychids, and extinct order of carnivorous animals (hoofed animals), which resembled wolves with hooves and sister group of the artiodactyls (even-toed animals). These animals had unusual triangular teeth similar to those of whales. This is why scientists long believed that whales evolved from a form of Mesonychid. More recent molecular phylogeny data suggest that whales are more closely related to the artiodactyls, specifically the hippopotamus. The strong evidence for a clade combining cetaceans and artiodactyls is further discussed in the article “Cetartiodactyla”. However, the anthracothere ancestors of hippos do not appear in the fossil record until millions of years after Pakicetus, the first known whale ancestor(Strauss, no date).