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Slavery and the Founders

Slavery and the Founders. John M. Sacher University of Central Florida jsacher@mail.ucf.edu. The Declaration of Independence. The only thing we remember . . .

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Slavery and the Founders

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  1. Slavery and the Founders John M. Sacher University of Central Florida jsacher@mail.ucf.edu

  2. The Declaration of Independence

  3. The only thing we remember . . . • “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

  4. Left out of the final draft… • King had “violat[ed] the most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation . .. he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of when he deprived them, by murdering the people on which he also obtruded them. . .”

  5. Lord Dunmore’s Proclamation

  6. A Pennsylvanian visiting Maryland • “It is astonishing that men who feel the value and importance of liberty . . . Should keep such numbers of the human species in a state of so absolute vassalage. Every argument which can be urged in favor of that of the Negroes; not can we with any propriety contend for the one while we withhold the other.” (1777)

  7. Number of Slaves by State (1790) • Vermont & Massachusetts 0 • New Hampshire 158 • Rhode Island 948 • Connecticut 2,764 • New York 21,234 • New Jersey 11,423 • Pennsylvania 3,737 • Delaware 8,887 • Maryland 103,036 • Virginia 292,627 • North Carolina 100,572 • South Carolina 107,094 • Georgia 29,264 • Kentucky 12,430

  8. Northwest Territory (1787)

  9. Abraham Lincoln • “The word ‘slavery’ was hid away in the Constitution just as an afflicted man hides away a . . . cancer which he dares not cut out at once, lest he bleed to death.”

  10. Hid Away in the Constitution • 3/5 compromise—slaves count as 3/5 of a white man for the purpose of representation in the House • Art I, Sec. 2 adds whole number of free persons including indentured servants plus “three fifths of all other persons” Indians excluded • Return of escaped slaves, • Art IV, Sec. 2, “No person held to service or labour in one state” • International slave trade, Congress could eliminate but not before 1808 • Art I, Sec. 9 “The migration or importation of such persons as any of the states now existing shall think proper to admit . . .”

  11. How the 3/5ths Compromise Worked • Suppose…congressional seats were assigned for every 50,000 people • And, suppose a state had 500,000 whites and 500,000 slaves • It would have 10 representatives based on white population. Based on the 3/5 compromise, it would have 16 reps—Because it would be weighted as if it had 800,000 people (500,000+.6*500,000) • FYI: Slaves did not vote. Individual white southerners did notget extra votes. Instead, they had extra congressmen (i.e. smaller districts)

  12. Electoral Vote (1800) • And extra electoral votes . . .

  13. 13th Amendment • Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

  14. Washington, Runaway Slave Ad 1761

  15. Hercules and William Lee

  16. Another more important one… Oney or Ona Judge

  17. Washington on Slavery • “My people may be at their work as soon as it is light—work ‘till it is dark . . . the presumption being, that, every laborer, male or female, does as much in the 24 hours as their strength, without endangering their health, or constitution, will allow of it.” • “I was never acquainted with a slave who believed that he violated any rule of morality by appropriating to himself any thing that belonged to his master, if it was necessary to his comfort.”

  18. More Washington • “There is nothing which stands in greater need of regulation that the Waggons [sic] and Carts at the Mansion House, which always whilst I was at home appeared to be most wretchedly employed---first in never carrying half a load; --secondly in flying form one thing to another; and thirdly in no person seeming to know really what they did; and often times under the pretence of doing this, that and the other thing, doing nothing at all.”

  19. Washington’s Threshing Barn

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