From the late 1660s until about 1763, slavery grew dramatically in the American colonies, but especially in the southern colonies. Then, between 1763 and 1793, the institution declined precipitously. Why?
As an institution, slavery has one of the strangest of all histories. Though Africans were sold on American soil as early as 1619, chattel slavery did not really become the norm until the late 1660s, and why it became the norm still baffles historians. The first significant slave code came from the Carolinas:
Since charity obliges us to wish well to the souls of all men, and religion ought to alter nothing in any man’s civil estate or right, it shall be lawful for slaves, as well as others, to enter themselves, and be of what church or profession any of them shall think best, and, therefore, be as fully members as any freeman. But yet no slave shall hereby be exempted from that civil dominion his master hath over him, but be in all things in the same state and condition he was in before.
And,
“Every freeman of Carolina shall have absolute power and authority over his negro slaves, of what opinion or religion soever.”
Somehow, forced indentured servitude transformed into permanent enslavement. From the late 1660s until about 1763, it grew dramatically in the American colonies, but especially in the southern colonies. Then, between 1763 and 1793, slavery declined precipitously. Why? As several excellent scholars have argued, slavery declined simply because it was incompatible with the emerging theory of natural rights. “Slavery could not be tolerated as a necessary and permanent evil” after the American Revolution, David Brion Davis wrote, “because it deprived human beings of the responsibilities of free choice and of the recompense for labor, including private property, on which freedom depended.” In his own writings on the time period, Gordon Wood made a similar point:
It was no accident that Americans living in Philadelphia in 1775 formed the first anti-slavery society in the world…. Labor was… a source of increased wealth and prosperity for ordinary workers…. Americans now recognized that slavery in a republic of workers was an aberration…. The Revolution in effect set in motion and ideological and social forces that doomed the institution of slavery in the North and led… to the Civil War.
And, yet, the institution of slavery did not disappear, and the American founders wrestled mightily with the question. In his original draft of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson had written:
He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the christian king of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where men should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce. And that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people on whom he also obtruded them: thus paying off former crimes committed against the liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another.
Eleven years later, the Constitution referred to slavery (though never by that word or any of its variants) three times. First, it stated that slaves would regarded as 3/5 of a person in matters of voting. Second, it stated that Congress could abolish participation in the international slave trade as early as January 1, 1808. Third, it offered a clause requiring the return of escaped slaves.
The debate over slavery during the Constitutional Convention, as described by James Madison, was simply brutal. On August 8, 1787, Rufus King: “The admission of slaves was a most grating circumstance to his mind and he believed would be so to a great part of the people of America.” On that same day, Roger Sherman declared that he “regarded the slave trade as iniquitous.” Again, on that same day: Govr. Morris proclaimed that he
would never concur in upholding domestic slavery. It was a nefarious institution—it was the curse of heaven on the States where it prevailed. Compare the free region of the Middle States, where a rich and noble cultivation marks the prosperity and happiness of the people, with the misery and poverty which overspread the barren wastes of Va., Maryland, and other States having slaves…. Upon what principle is it that the slaves shall be computed in the representation? Are they men? Then make them Citizens and let them vote. Are they property?
On August 13, 1787, during the middle of the debate on slavery, residency, and citizenship, John Dickinson said, brilliantly:
Experience must be our only guide. Reason may mislead us. It was not Reason that discovered the singular and admirable mechanism of the English Constitution. It was not Reason that discovered or ever could have discovered the odd and in the eye of those who are governed by reason, the absurd mode of trial by Jury. Accidents probably produced these discoveries and experience has give[n] a sanction to them. This is then our guide.
On the issue of slavery, Rutledge of South Carolina, on August 21, 1787 made a Machiavellian claim:
“Religion and humanity had nothing to do with this question—Interest alone is the governing principle with Nations—The true question at present is whether the Southn. States shall or shall not be parties to the Union. If the Northern States consult their interest, they will not oppose the increase of Slaves which will increase the commodities of which they will become the carriers.”
Some, such as Oliver Ellsworth believed that slavery was a matter for the states. On August 21, 1787, he asserted that he “was for leaving the clause as it stands. Let every State import that it pleases. The morality or wisdom of slavery are considerations belonging to the States themselves—What enriches a part enriches the whole, and the States are the best judges of their particular interest. The old confederation had not meddled with this point, and he did not see any greater necessity for bringing it within the policy of the new one.”
Charles Pinckney, on that same day, August 21, 1787, threw down the gauntlet. “South Carolina can never receive the plan it if prohibits the slave trade. In every proposed extension of the powers of Congress, that State has expressly and watchfully excepted that of middling with the importation of negroes. If the States be all left at liberty on this subject, S. Carolina may perhaps by degrees do of herself what is wished, as Virginia and Maryland have already done.”
The following day, Roger Sherman stated that “he disapproved of the slave trade…. He observed that the abolition of slavery seemed to be going on in the U.S. and that the good sense of the several States would probably by degrees complete it. He urged on the Convention the necessity of dispatch(ing its business).”
George Mason, who would vote against the Constitution because of its three compromises on slavery, said, on August 22, 1787:
This infernal traffic originated in the avarice of British Merchants. The British Govt. constantly checked the attempts of Virginia to put a stop to it. The present question concerns not the importing States alone but the whole Union. The evil of having slaves was experienced during the late war. Had slaves been treated as they might have been by the Enemy, they would have proved dangerous instruments in their hands. But their folly dealt by the slaves, as it did by the Tories. He mentioned the dangerous insurrections given by Cromwell to the Commissioners sent to Virginia, to arm the servants and slaves, in case other means of obtaining its submission should fail. Maryland and Virginia he said had already prohibited the importation of slaves expressly. N. Carolina had done the same in substance. All this would be in vain if S. Carolina and Georgia be at liberty to import. The Western people are already calling out for slaves for their new lands; and will fill that Country with slaves if they can be got through South Carolina and Georgia. Slavery discourages arts and manufacturers. The poor despise labor when performed by slaves. They prevent the immigration of Whites, who really enrich and strengthen a Country. They produce the most pernicious effect on manners. Every master of slaves is born a petty tyrant. They bring the judgment of heaven on a Country. As nations can not be rewarded or punished in the next world they must be in this. By an inevitable chain of causes and effects providence punishes national sins, by national calamities…. He held it essential in every point of view, that the Genl. Government should have power to prevent the increase of slavery.
John Dickinson, August 22, 1787, also reminded the Convention of history: “Greece and Rome were made unhappy by their slaves.”
In the end, though, the Constitutional Convention decided to allow slavery rather than lose South Carolina and Georgia. As Charles Pinckney, August 22, 1787, put it: “If slavery be wrong it is justified by the example of all the world…. South Carolina and Georgia cannot do without slaves. As to Virginia she will gain by stopping the importations. Her slaves will rise in value, and she has more than she wants.” Roger Sherman of Connecticut concurred, on August 22, 1787, and “said it was better to let the S. States import slaves than to part with them, if they made that a sine qua non.”
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The featured image is “Mrs. Schuyler Burning Her Wheat Fields on the Approach of the British” (1852) by Emanuel Leutze, and is in the public domain, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.