First, it will begin with making the argument in a manner that would be well-known to lawyers today, and then, second, it will make the argument in a way that would be most persuasive to people in the 18th and 19th centuries.Īrgument One: Constitutional Text. This section will articulate two arguments. The subsequent sections will then detail why this point of view is erroneous. It will argue that the Constitution protected the right of slave-holding states to create that peculiar and evil institution through law. To help frame the discussion, this section will play the devil’s advocate. A large number of Americans have objected to it on the grounds that it was leftist political agitprop. Numerous historians have objected to the project on the grounds that it contains an erroneous view of history. While the 1619 Project was correct to condemn slavery, particularly on one of its anniversaries (slavery is a despicable institution, and no one is sorry that the Thirteenth Amendment ended it after the Civil War), the 1619 Project is not a work of historical scholarship. The project also claimed that whatever enduring benefits the nation has seen and has granted to the world are attributable to the nation’s slave-owning past.
The thesis of the 1619 Project was that the true beginning of American history was not 1776, when America declared its independence from England, but was in 1619, when the first African slaves arrived in America at Jamestown.
What made those questions a contemporary subject was that, from the day that the New York Times published the 1619 Project in August 2019, the opinions expressed in that work touched nerves in American historical and political scholarship, as well as in American life. What did the Constitution say about slavery before the 13th Amendment became law? Did the Constitution protect the rights of slaveholders? Did the Constitution forbid slavery? Or did the Constitution avoid taking either of those positions and leave the matter entirely to the political process? Feulner, Jr., Institute at The Heritage Foundation.
We will learn how to answer that question today.Īngela Sailor is Vice President of the Edwin J.
As Americans who believe in the motto “ E pluribus unum,” how do we move forward and bolster the present-day opportunity to live as free men? Slaveholders took part in the framing of the Constitution, and they say slaveholders, in their hearts, intended to secure certain advantages in that instrument for slavery. Some who challenge the integrity of the Constitution say it is weakened by the existence of slavery in the United States at the time the Constitution was adopted. Douglass asked, “If the Constitution were intended to be by its framers and adopters a slave-holding instrument, then why would neither ‘slavery,’ ‘slave-holding,’ nor ‘slave’ be anywhere found in it?” That is not the focus of those who challenge the integrity of the Constitution. Some declare it was what the Framers had hoped would preserve a legacy of freedom for generations to come: silence. History has shown us that great leaders and reasonable men and women have changed their viewpoints on this question.įrederick Douglass, the foremost black abolitionist in the 1840s, called the Constitution a radically and essentially pro-slavery document, but by the 1850s, Douglass changed his mind, concluding, the Constitution, when construed in light of well-established rules of legal interpretation, “is a glorious liberty document.”Īs we war over America’s heart and soul, many are asking what convinced Douglass to change his viewpoint. The question of the hour is whether the Constitution is pro-slavery or anti-slavery.