LIBERTY UNIVERSITY
HELMS SCHOOL OF GOVERNMENT
“The Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787”
Primary Source Analysis
Submitted to Dr. Michael Robinson
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the completion of
PLCY702-D04
Foundation Era and the Constitution
by
Reagan Brackett
April 10, 2022
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Introduction
From the start of the New World slavery has played an important role. Enslaved people
have been brought over North America since the 1500s, however, the importation of enslaved
people to Jamestown in 1619 seems to be recognized as when slavery began in America. And
though there were certain religious sects and people who disagreed with the institution of
slavery, it became a popular political topic while trying to gain independence from Great Britain.
The concept of enslaving people from another country, who had caused no harm to the crown,
was brought up in Thomas Jefferson’s original draft of the Declaration of Independence. This
section was removed during the Continental Congress because of the important role slavery
played the Southern states and as argued, to the nation as a whole. Similarly, years later, the
Articles of Confederation were called into question and the Constitutional Convention was held.
During this convention of trying to create a constitution which could be agreed upon by the
delegates, the issue of slavery was brought up multiple times. This analysis of the Debates in the
Federal Convention of 1787 by James Madison will explore the role of slavery in the
Constitutional Convention. It will consider and seek to answer a couple of questions: Under what
contexts did debate about slavery arise in the Convention? Were there anti-slavery arguments
made during the Convention, or anti-slavery provisions established in the Constitution? Was
slavery the central issue at the Convention? How should we evaluate the work of the Convention
today? By seeking to answer these questions in this analysis one will be able to have a better idea
of how controversial the topic of slavery and the importation of enslaved people was during the
creation of the Constitution and what principles and arguments won out over the other principles
and arguments presented. Which can help in discussions today concerning systemic racism in the
foundation of this country.
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The Institution of Slavery during the Constitutional Convention
First this analysis will explore in what context slavery was brought up during the debates
at the Convention. It is arguable that in all of the instances in which slavery or enslaved people
are brought up in the debates revolved around the concept of “worth” (Hendricks 2018). In
discussing the differences in interest between states, James Madison suggests that perhaps the
biggest difference in interest would not come from their size, but from partly climate; however,
mainly the difference of interests stems from whether or not the state had slaves (Madison 2014).
Madison contended that this great divide in the interests of the United States would be between
the Northern and Southern states. One of the first instances enslaved people are brought up is in
the context of trying to establish if and how enslaved people should be counted in representation.
Southern state delegates held that for them to have an adequate representation in this new
General Government it was necessary to include the enslaved people in the population count for
determining the numbers of representatives (Madison 2014). Their argument was that because
the Northern states had more inhabitants – who were not enslaved people – they would have
more representatives even though the Southern states had the most wealth, which helped sustain
the nation as a whole (Madison 2014). The North thought enslaved people should not be counted
in population size for representation but that they should count – each enslaved individual as one
– for taxation purposes; however, the South thought it should be reversed (Madison 2014). This
brings in the second way in which slavery and enslaved people were discussed in the debates,
taxation. With the exception of Virginia, the Southern states still imported enslaved individuals
from different countries into the Georgia, South Carolina, etc. As mentioned, some Northern
delegates thought taxing the importation of enslaved people was necessary since there was
taxation on other imports. While other Northern delegates felt that was admitting that these
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people were in fact property. Southern delegates felt the taxation on imported enslaved people
was type of punishment on the states who continued the institution of slavery in a way to
encourage the end of the institution and emancipation. There was also talk about prohibiting the
importation of enslaved people all together – though this was quickly shut down and agreed that
it could not be prohibited for at least the next twenty years (Madison 2014). Also, taxing exports
was discussed because the thought was if the exports which slave labor produced was taxed, it
would be indirectly taxing the concept of slavery. Because of the worth enslaved people held in
the Southern states, the subject of fugitives was brought up. Which ended in agreement that if an
enslaved person was to escape to a different state, that state could not emancipate them and had
to return them from the place they escaped (Madison 2014). There were two different sections in
which the delegates felt it necessary to state should the enslaved people create uprising or
insurrections the federal government would protect the states which it occurred in and call upon
their state militias for help (Madison 2014). The thing that all of these instances where the
institution of slavery was brought up during the Constitutional Convention debates have in
common is how they revolve around the concept of “worth” and that slavery and enslaved people
were the reason for the wealth in the Southern states which the whole confederation needed to
succeed. Therefore, the institution of slavery and upholding the slave trade was worth so much
the delegates concluded it was “more in favor of humanity, from a view of all circumstances, to
let in South Carolina and Georgia on those terms, than to exclude them from the Union,”
(Madison 2014, 436).
Many scholars over the years claim that the Constitution was intended to be pro-slavery.
In that light, this section will consider if there were any anti-slavery arguments made during the
Convention, or anti-slavery provisions established in the Constitution. Each time a discussion in
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which slavery or the enslaved were brought into the subject there was typically those who spoke
up against the institution and those who did support the institution. However, there seems to be a
lot of compromising which gives in more to the South which ended up codifying slavery into law
(Hendricks 2018). For instance, Mr. Butler and General Pinckney – from the South – argued for
the enslaved to be included in their population for representation as the white free inhabitants
would. However, others such as Mr. Patterson and Mr. Madison argued that if the enslaved
people were considered equal to freemen, then they should also be able to vote and have the
same rights and if they wanted to hold that the enslaved people were inferior to freemen, then
they could not hold the same representation as freemen. Would this necessarily be considered an
anti-slavery argument, maybe not. But it does show that there were those delegates who did not
allow delegates from the South to get away with picking and choosing how they viewed the
enslaved for it to benefit them. Though, when the report of the Committee created to examine
more the importation and taxation of enslaved people came back it was suggested that it be stated
the Federal government cannot prohibit the importation of enslaved people until at least the year
1800, however, General Pinckney countered with 1808 which carried. Mr. Madison’s response
was, “Twenty years will produce the mischief that can be apprehended from the liberty to import
slaves. So long a term will be more dishonorable to the American character than to say nothing
about it in the Constitution,” (Madison 2014, 435). After this was agreed upon, Mr. Gouverneur
states that if this is going to be allowed within the Constitution, the names of the states in which
want this should be named and applied to only them because “he wished it to be known, also,
that this part of the Constitution was a compliance with those states,” (Madison 2014, 436).
These instances do show that there were arguments proposed that stated they were against
continuing the slave trade and that if certain persons were persistent upon keeping it, then those
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states should be named outright, and the law should pertain only to those states. However, there
does not seem to be anti-slavery arguments only anti-slave-trade arguments. When it came to
slavery as an institution, it was argued it should be left up to the states to decide the “morality or
wisdom of slavery” (Madison 2014, 411), this is not to say that certain individuals, like James
Madison, were not against the institution of slavery and thought the institution did not align with
what was fought for during the Revolution. In this sense, it is not necessarily clear as to whether
it is appropriate to state the Constitution was intended to be pro-slavery, yet it is clearly not anti-
slavery as an institution – which it can then be stated that if something is silent matters of
oppression and concedes to those who are the oppressors, it only helps the oppressors and not the
oppressed, meaning it could be considered pro-slavery. Especially since the main arguments or
provisions against the South were concerned with the slave trade and limiting/prohibiting that
and not the institution of slavery.
The Articles of Confederation did not establish a government over the states but instead a
nation of pre-existing states. The way in which the Articles of Confederation were created, the
State Legislatures were able to pass laws unchecked, which some felt were detrimental to the
religious, economic, and political rights of the citizens. James Madison addressed this in his
Vices of the Political System of the United States, stating that the union government could not
address these violations because the Articles of Confederation left these matters up to the states.
And that the only solution, according to Madison, was to create an extended republic which a
multitude of opinions, passions, and interests “check each other” (Madison 1787). Though
Madison’s reasons for re-evaluating the Articles of Confederation and its inadequacies were to
prevent injustices, the Constitutional Convention provided an opportunity for those who
represented slave-states to establish slavery more securely under the Federal law (Wiecek 1977).
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Was slavery the central issue at the Constitutional Convention, though? The way in which
Madison details the debates that occurred at the Constitutional Convention of 1787 would imply
the delegates from the Southern states came solely concerned with what would help their states –
the institution of slavery and the slave-trade being of great importance (Madison 2014). Out of
the seven Articles created, three of those concerned enslaved people and nine different topics
within the Articles subsequent 24 Sections had to do with enslaved people. These numbers
indicate that a little less than half of the Articles and Sections within the Constitution concerned
enslaved people or the slave trade. As mentioned before, slavery as an institution is not discussed
at the Convention – it is mainly concerned with enslaved people being counted as representation,
taxation of imports and exports of enslaved people and the product they produce, the slave trade,
fugitive slaves, and uprisings/insurrections of slaves; not whether slavery is permitted. With this
being clarified, maintaining the ability to import slaves, have more representation, and contain
their property through the Federal Government seems to be the goal of the Southern delegates –
which made a significant portion of the Convention in turn about those subjects. The slave trade
and the enslaved were at the least one of the main issues discussed.
Analyzing sources, such as James Madison’s Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787,
is extremely important when trying to determine the intentions the framers of the Constitution
had when writing it. Also, examining a primary source in its entirety helps determine how we
should evaluate the work of that source, specifically here the Constitutional Convention. How we
evaluate the work and determining the intentions are linked. The way in which we evaluate the
work of the Convention today can translate into how we see and determine the framer’s
intentions of the Constitution. In analyzing this source, there are certain things which stick out
when trying to determine how we should evaluate this source. Do we take this source as it is, at
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face value, and use it to draw conclusions presented as hard facts? Is it really that simple? Or do
we take into an account that this source and event has a lot more than what initially meets the eye
going on and that the evaluations and conclusions are a lot more complicated? Examining this
source along with other articles, it is clear this event is much more complicated than simply
suggesting the Constitution is pro-slavery or anti-slavery or what that the framers supported or
did not support slavery. One thing that stuck out quite quickly was the fact that not every
delegate was present in general who was invited, and even the ones who did attend did not attend
every day. This means that there was not full participation each day for every subject. In fact,
Gelman (2018) discovers that “ideology affected delegate participation” and that “claims made
about the intent of the writers of the Constitution based on the Convention records are biases in
favor of ideologically extreme Convention delegates” (Gelman 2018, 1) – since extreme
delegates were more likely to participate. According to this study, one cannot simply conclude
the intention of the framers was to create a constitution which was pro-slavery. However, you
can state that the delegates from the South intended to create the Constitution to be pro-slavery
and pro-slave-trade. There are arguments presented during the Convention which demonstrate
that not all of the framers felt the same way about slave trade and slavery, but those who had the
biggest stake in the slave trade and in their enslaved people had the most extreme ideologies and
were louder and more present. Therefore, that is the ideology which is prevalent throughout and
strongly supported. When evaluating primary sources like this, we cannot take the outcome and
thrust the opinion stated onto each individual person who participated or even claim it was the
majority’s opinion. In this instance, it seems as though the Articles concerning slave trade and
the enslaved were the opinions of the minority but the worth of the Southern states being a part
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of the union was a more pressing issue than the slave trade and enslaved people – which could be
re-evaluated later.
Conclusion
By answering the questions that were presented in the introduction, one can have a better
idea of how controversial the topic of slavery and the importation of enslaved people was during
the creation of the Constitution and what principles and arguments won out over the other
principles and arguments presented. It is also shown that though the principle which seems to be
supported throughout the Constitution in fact was the opinion of the minority. These answers can
help in discussions today concerning systemic racism in the foundation of this country. Whereas
some people would conclude, matter-of-factly, that the framers of the Constitution must have
been racist and created a pro-slavery Constitution the answers to these questions show quite
obviously that this is not the case.
This really solidifies the idea that events such as founding gatherings were very
complicated and had to wade through a multitude of varying opinions. There are so many minute
aspects that can be lost in the chaos of the debates that played an extremely important role in
how things ended up the way they did. And it is the job of analysts to catch these details and
make our conclusions and assumptions with all of those details in mind. Otherwise, we are
potentially promoting a biases conclusion that does not accurately depict what really happened or
the intent of the people we are examining.
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Bibliography
Gelman, David A. “Ideology and Participation: Examining the Constitutional Convention of
1787.”IPolitical Research QuarterlyI71, no. 3 (2018): 546–59.
Henricks, Kasey. “‘I’m Principled against Slavery, But …’: Colorblindness and the Three-Fifths
Debate.”ISocial ProblemsI65, no. 3 (2018): 285–304.
Madison, James. “Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787.” Edited by Gordon Lloyd.
Ashland, OH.: Ashbrook Center at Ashland University, 2014.
Madison, James. “Vices of the Political System of the United States.” Edited by Gordon Lloyd,
1787.
Wiecek, William M. “Slavery in the Making of the Constitution.” InIThe Sources of Antislavery
Constitutionalism in America, 1760-1848, 62–83. Cornell University Press, 1977.
