homework

Who were the men who wrote the U.S. Constitution? What were their occupations? What was their economic status? Where did they live?

What social groups were not represented among the delegates? Why was this important?

How did the Great Compromise resolve conflicts?

Article 4, section 2

Explain how the 3/5th Compromise was not a compromise.

What would have happened if the 3/5 compromise had not passed?

If the compromise had not passed, they still would not have been free. Instead, the Union would either not have existed at all, or two nations – one slave-holding, one not – would have been formed. The South — the “Confederacy”, if you will — would have likely have kept people enslaved well beyond the years of the Civil War and would not have had the limits of the Constitutional clause preventing slaves from being imported after 1809 imposed on them.

How do textbook publishers indoctrinate students with a message “compliance is good, rebellion is bad.”?

Nearly 40 percent of the Framers—including, of course, George Washington and James Madison—enslaved other human beings. Many were wealthy lawyers, others successful merchants. Not a single “famous and important” leader was a common farmer or worker. All were white; all were male.

There were no African-Americans (free or enslaved) at the convention, there were no women, there were no Native Americans, there were no poor farmers (Gentleman Farmers like Washington and Jefferson are not the same). These are facts, and these are marginalized people who were left out of the drafting process, and who are marginalized and exploited to this day.

Slaveholders among prominent Founding Fathers

Slaveholders

Founding Father	State
Charles Carroll	Maryland
Samuel Chase	Maryland
Benjamin Franklin	Pennsylvania
Button Gwinnett	Georgia
John Hancock	Massachusetts
Patrick Henry	Virginia
John Jay	New York
Thomas Jefferson	Virginia
Richard Henry Lee	Virginia
James Madison	Virginia
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney	South Carolina
Benjamin Rush	Pennsylvania
Edward Rutledge	South Carolina
George Washington	Virginia

Non-Slaveholders

Founding Father	State
John Adams	Massachusetts
Samuel Adams	Massachusetts
Oliver Ellsworth	Connecticut
Alexander Hamilton	New York
Robert Treat Paine	Massachusetts
Thomas Paine	Pennsylvania
Roger Sherman	Connecticut