Slavery's Constitution: From Revolution to Ratification [Hardcover]

David Waldstreicher (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 23, 2009 | ISBN-10: 0809094533 | ISBN-13: 978-0809094530 | Edition: First Edition

Taking on decades of received wisdom, David Waldstreicher has written the first book to recognize slavery’s place at the heart of the U.S. Constitution. Famously, the Constitution never mentions slavery. And yet, of its eighty-four clauses, six were directly concerned with slaves and the interests of their owners. Five other clauses had implications for slavery that were considered and debated by the delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Convention and the citizens of the states during ratification. This “peculiar institution” was not a moral blind spot for America’s otherwise enlightened framers, nor was it the expression of a mere economic interest. Slavery was as important to the making of the Constitution as the Constitution was to the survival of slavery.

 

By tracing slavery from before the revolution, through the Constitution’s framing, and into the public debate that followed, Waldstreicher rigorously shows that slavery was not only actively discussed behind the closed and locked doors of the Constitutional Convention, but that it was also deftly woven into the Constitution itself. For one thing, slavery was central to the American economy, and since the document set the stage for a national economy, the Constitution could not avoid having implications for slavery. Even more, since the government defined sovereignty over individuals, as well as property in them, discussion of sovereignty led directly to debate over slavery’s place in the new republic.

 

Finding meaning in silences that have long been ignored, Slavery’s Constitution is a vital and sorely needed contribution to the conversation about the origins, impact, and meaning of our nation’s founding document.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Was the American Constitution as originally ratified a proslavery document? In this unflinching, deeply intelligent, and persuasive work, David Waldstreicher answers yes. Sure to spark interest and debate, Slavery’s Constitution is an immensely engaging and valuable contribution to the literature on the founding of the American nation.” —Annette Gordon-Reed

 

“Succinct and shrewd, David Waldstreicher’s Slavery’s Constitution enables us to understand a central element of American political practice that the founders sought to obscure.” —Linda K. Kerber

 

“David Waldstreicher’s intriguing new book brilliantly shows the founding fathers’ republican constitution to be, in important part, central to their many evasions of slavery’s antirepublican nature.” —William W. Freehling

 

“With as light a touch as its hard truths permit, Slavery’s Constitution explains the deep, complex, and pervasive entanglement that ultimately doomed the United States to civil war.” —Robin L. Einhorn

 

“David Waldstreicher’s brilliant little book sets the terms of debate for all further discussion of slavery and the Constitution.” —James Oakes

 

“Highly readable and provocative in conception.” —Thomas J. Davis, Library Journal

 

“A closely argued critique that exposes the deadly implications of the Constitution’s careful euphemisms about slavery.” —Kirkus Reviews

 

After they won the revolution, how did the framers of our government deal with slavery without becoming hypocrites? They didn’t—and instead wove slavery into their Constitution to ensure its perpetuation, historian David Waldstreicher persuasively argues in his slender, provocative book.” —Cameron McWhirter, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

 

“Waldstreicher’s interpretation is likely to be controversial, but then, he is no stranger to examining the tarnish on American icons. In Runaway America, he questioned the anti-slavery credentials of Benjamin Franklin. Little wonder that he concludes here that ‘Slavery’s Constitution,’ not slavery itself,caused the Civil War.” —Roger K. Miller, Chicago Sun-Times

 

“An important contribution.” —Claude R. Marx, The Boston Globe

 

“In this important new book, [Waldstreicher] writes that while the U.S. Constitution never mentions slavery, ‘slavery is all over the document.’ ” —Steve Goddard, Historywire.com“An interesting exploration of the influence of slavery on early American politics and life.” —Curled Up with a Good Book

 

“In a succinct but carefully reasoned study, Temple University history professor David Waldstreicher shows how slave state delegates to the Constitutional Convention leveraged the issue to their advantage, and how ardent federalists from the North, many of them opposed to slavery, came to a consensus of silence over the Constitution’s role in countenancing slavery.” —David Luhrssen, Shepherd Express

 

“Slavery’s Constitution will certainly set the terms of the debate over the institution of human bondage and the 1787 Constitution for years to come.” —Erik J. Chaput, The Providence Journal

 

About the Author

David Waldstreicher is a professor of history at Temple University and is the author of Runaway America (H&W, 2004) and In the Midst of Perpetual Fetes.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Hill and Wang; First Edition edition (June 23, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0809094533
• ISBN-13: 978-0809094530
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #537,875 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A minor contribution to a major topic, April 20, 2011

By 

Aldo Matteucci (hikurangi) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Slavery's Constitution: From Revolution to Ratification (Paperback)

The impact of slavery on the US Constitution is a fact insufficiently explored. An analysis would have been welcome. Five questions (and more) need answering:

(a) Which clauses were inserted to "protect" the peculiar institution? The 3/5 rule changing the representation key (both in the House and in the Electoral College) springs to mind. There are other rules.

(b) Which clauses were "altered" so as favorably to affect the peculiar institution? The prohibition of export taxes or the cap on duties for the importation of persons may not be the only ones.

(c) Which collateral arrangements were struck (e.g. Northwest Ordinance) and implied?

(d) What did the 2nd Amendment mean in the context of slavery?

(e) Which issues were left unresolved so as to prevent conflicts? This is a difficult silent/counterfactual question, but the federal/state split in responsibility for citizenship/suffrage clearly gives the state leeway in excluding "unwanted" votes. So is the absurdity that slaves born in the US were denied citizenship despite the jus soli established by statute in 1790.

All of this is critical for understanding the role on the Constitution in maintaining slavery - and eventually precluding a constitutional ending to it. How we got to the compromise text or how it was sold to the "people" (1.5 % of "we the people" voted on it) is a subsidiary matter.

In writing this short book the author chose a "narrative" approach that privileges timelines and tactics over substance and analysis. Some of the answers are there, but drowned in the din of day to day politicking by personalities. This is regrettable. The issue of whether the Constitution is "silent" on slavery is a key issue when assessing whether it is a meta-historical framework, or very much a "child of the times".

Sometimes one gets the feeling that a text was written as an obligation to be dispensed with hurriedly, or to meet a deadline, or a career goal. Meandering, superficial at crucial points, and garrulous at others, the text does not engage. The final chapter - the rehash of the ratification debates - tastes like filler.

12 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Essential Guide to "Original Intent.", April 2, 2010

By 

Mark E. Smith "The 13th Amendment ESTABLISHED... (San Diego) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Slavery's Constitution: From Revolution to Ratification (Hardcover)

This book is a welcome addition to my bookshelves, as it help document the reasons the framers gave us a Constitutional oligarchy rather than a democracy or a republic, and why they lied about it.

Two of the many people you can't trust in this world are slaveholders and politicians, and many of the framers were both.

Recently, a democratic candidate for Congress asked me why I seem (in his opinion) to make a religion of democracy. He, of course, like the framers, believes that there are more important things, such as property rights, business interests, and power. So what if Americans don't have a real voice in government, as long as their betters have the power to make their decisions for them?

Although this country's founders used the right and duty to establish a democratic form of government as justification for their revolution from England, the first thing the framers did was betray that right and trample on that duty.

So here we are in 2010, having "exported democracy" by totally destroying one of the oldest civilizations on earth (Iraq), and continuing our wars of aggression (crimes against humanity) and crony bailouts in the name of and with the consent of citizens of whom a majority oppose both policies, but who do not yet realize that their vote is NOT a voice in government, but just the consent of the governed to allow unaccountable representatives to do whatever they wish.

A recent Rasmussen Report [...] poll showed that only 21% of Americans believe that the U.S. government has the consent of the governed. But they don't need your consent, your vote is sufficient, and most people will ignore war crimes and fiscal treachery in order to vote for or against the selfish hot-button issues that political operatives use to draw people to the polls.

Slavery, of course, remains intact in the U.S. to this very day. Rather than being abolished by the 13th Amendment, it was established as legal punishment for a crime, and it was the oligarchy who would decide what was and wasn't a crime and who would and wouldn't be charged with and punished for it.

David Waldstreicher's research takes the ordinary citizen inside the secret meetings where the Constitution was drawn up and makes the intent of the framers visible. Their intent was never to establish a democracy or a republic, but to consolidate power and to perpetuate inequality. In this they succeeded.