Recently, it has become quite popular to say that the American Constitution is founded on racism, and therefore, so is our country.
I believe this is incorrect and will attempt to show you why.
I have a great interest in the American Constitution and took a month to study the history around it and the document itself intensely. My goal was to memorize every rule put forward in the Constitution, all seven articles, and twenty-seven amendments. In this process, I discovered the story that America was founded on racism is incorrect.
Now, a disclaimer, every single person who founded America or was involved in the Constitution was by today's standards - racist. Because this was 1789, that was the common consensus. Just like it was the common consensus that bloodletting was a good idea. Just because Charles Darwin believed in bloodletting and doesn't know about black holes, that doesn't mean evolution isn't true and he was a bad scientist. We all truly stand on the shoulders of giants, and we stand on the shoulders of the giants of the founding fathers, but inherent on standing on their shoulders, they are below us in some senses of morality. They had wrong and immoral views on race.
But I think it is hubris and hypocrisy to say that just because you were lucky enough to be born in a time when we have advanced in some senses of morality to say you are wiser, better, and more moral than the founding fathers.
The founding fathers were more forward-thinking than the men around them, less racist, sexists, classists, and greedy than the general population. They were founding a country on the idea of freedom, individual worth, and that everyone is created equal, which is a revolutionary idea. They were willing to stake their wealth, renown, and very lives on these ideas and the rights of their fellow men. We should all hope that if we lived in a time where those ideas were so new and the ideas of racism so normal, that we would have had the wisdom and moral strength to be as principled and forward-thinking as the founding fathers.
Many of them admitted the ideas of individual liberty and inherent human rights, contradicted slavery. Many of the same who owned slaves admitted that. For example, George Washington said after the war in a letter that he "never mean[s] . . . to possess another slave by purchase; it being among my first wishes to see some plan adopted by which slavery in this country may be abolished."
James Madison, one of the driving forces behind the Constitution, said "If slavery, as a national evil, is to be abolished, and it be just that it be done at the national expense, the amount of the expense is not a paramount consideration." The other founding fathers shared similar views, but to go through each of their opinions and thoughts on the matter would take too much time and is not the purpose of this document. But I would encourage you to do research for yourself, and make sure to read actual quotes from the founding fathers and be wary of modern historians claiming they know what was going on inside the heads of people who have now been dead for hundreds of years. But if the founding fathers did understand slavery went against the freedom they fought so hard for, why didn't they use the Constitution to make slavery illegal?
There are three primary reasons they didn't.
- Ending slavery would be a massive economic overturn.
Ending slavery is not as easy as letting all the enslaved people go. In a perfect world, that would be the answer, and maybe morally, it is, but when you're building a country, there are some complexities. If a major part of your economy comes from free labor, ending that, with nothing to replace it, would not just cause major poverty and economic downturn, but possibly even starvation and chaos. When we eventually did actually end slavery, we could do it because it was economically viable to do so, because machinery had been invented to replace the cheap labor. But if you did it in the founding of the country, countless farmers would lose their income. More importantly, huge amounts of previously enslaved people would be in need of jobs, places to live, and education, all of which would be hard to grant if your country was in a recession caused by this very overturn. A much smaller version of this did in fact, happen after the civil war, but obviously, in the end, it was the greater good to give these people their freedom than to preserve a good economy. But the founding fathers hoped and believed they could do this proccess slowly to avoid such economic downturns.
2: They needed the support of the southern states
I think we sometimes pretend that the writing of the Constitution was when a bunch of peaceful gentlemen sat down and in complete agreement and ease, decided to write the beautiful document. This is a myth. The Constitution was not ratified until a decade after the independence of the united states, and unsurprisingly was a political endeavor. It was up in the air whether we'd even adopt it, let alone what should go in it. Many of these men had different views on what this beautiful new government should look like, and even more, many of them wanted to protect the sovereignty and power of their individual states. But they all had to admit - after a decade of the country barely functioning on their original plan of almost complete state sovereignty - something had to change. So the constitutional convention began, and the arguing inseud. The making of the Constitution was a game of persuasion, rewriting, and compromise. They needed 9 of the 13 states to ratify the document, so they had to please the majority.
This is actually one of the beautiful parts of the document. Since many of them were so different in their views, and all wanted to protect their states, they created a document filled with checks and balances, which was not skewed toward any particular ideology. But because of this, the founding fathers were sometimes forced to compromise in less than ideal ways. They needed the support of the southern states to ratify it. Since the southern states were also the rich states, they had a great amount of influence on the other. To get them to sign on to this idea of a well built government based in freedom, they weren't able to completely abolish slavery. Most of them justifying that this was the only way to preserve America and freedom, so in the long run, the ability to free the enslaved peoples.
3: Fear
We must acknowledge that some of the founding fathers didn't know what would happen if they let go of a huge part of the country in one fail swoop. They were afraid of creating a mass of people who they had, by their own immortality, made unemployed, uneducated, and they thought, unreligious. After watching the bloody slave revolutions of South America, they were afraid that might happen to them if they freed such a large group of people they had bought.
Thomas Jefferson said on the subject, "But as it is, we have the wolf by the ear, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go."
Many of the founding fathers believed the way to combat these problems was to end slavery slowly. This plan was in practice but interrupted by the rebellion of the south, causing the process to actually be speeded along.
But I am not here to define the racism or lack thereof in the founding fathers, So but whether the document they wrote, the Constitution, is.
First off, the Constitution was building a government based on freedom, small government, individual rights, and all men being created equal, therefore the philosophy behind it is inherently opposed to slavery and racism.
But, there are three sections of the Constitution that people point to say the document is racist. I will unpack those sections today, going in the order of how they appear in the Constitution.
First off, the three-fifths compromise, which goes:
"Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three-fifths of all other Persons."
This point has been levied to say that the constitution values black lives at 3/5s of white. This can't be completely accurate because 59 thousand free black people in America would have been counted as full people, and theoretically, would have had the right to vote. So it was not a point of race, but a point of taxes and ability to vote, and slaves did or had neither.
And secondly, the historical context of this can clear up a lot of confusion:
When the Constitution was being written, there was a lot of debate over how we would count how to count the power of each State. Therefore, how much they should be taxed and how many representatives they should have in the house of Representatives.
One of the original proposals was to count the value of the property from each State, which would have meant that slaves would have been counted by their value as a commodity, not as people. This idea was scrapped for various reasons, the main two being that a state's value in representation does not come from wealth, and the fact it would have been too hard to count and manage. So they decided instead to count the people from each State.
But, how were they supposed to count the people who weren't voting - like slaves? In fact, the states with the most slaves wanted the slaves to be counted as full people, since that would have meant that they had more power, and their votes as slave owners would have counted for more than the votes of their brothers in states with few slaves. So, the three-fifths compromise was reached.
Obivlsy, not allowing slaves to vote and thinking of them as commodities is wrong, but the Constitution itself is not promoting this activity, merely dealing with it. It obviously was not a value judgment on those people since native Americans were not being counted at all, but that was just because they weren't being taxed, and nor were the enslaved people.
Next was one of the major compromises that were made for the southern states. It goes as follows:
"The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a Tax or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person."
This is in the section of the powers denied Congress. Basically, the southern states had it written into the Constitution that the government could not majorly tax or make the importation of slaves, illegal. This is one of the sadder stains in the Constitution, but I think it is a happy note that it was written with an end in sight. It had an expiration date because the founding fathers knew that slavery couldn't last in good conscious.
And it didn't. As soon as the date was reached, the importation of enslaved people was made illegal under the Jefferson administration. In his address to Congress, he said, "I congratulate you, fellow-citizens, on the approach of the period at which you may interpose your authority constitutionally to withdraw the citizens of the United States from all further participation in those violations of human rights which have been so long continued on the unoffending inhabitants of Africa, and which the morality, the reputation, and the best interests of our country have long been eager to proscribe."
So obviously, the president was happy and eager to end this terrible practice of buying enslaved people from Africa and saw them as just as valuable as anyone else.
This last one is found in a section about how states need to respect the laws of other states, so though sad, it makes sense considering the need for order and consistency.
"No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due."
I think reading the sections around it can clear up some of the problems with it.
"Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State. And the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof."
Basically, if I get married in Tennessee, I'm still legally married if I'm in Alabama. Or if I'm found guilty of murder in New York, I also am in Main. This section is just trying to say that even though the states may handle those things differently if it's been done in one State, it counts in all.
"Section 2
The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States."
Your fundamental rights apply no matter where you are.
"A Person charged in any State with Treason, Felony, or other Crime, who shall flee from Justice, and be found in another State, shall on Demand of the executive Authority of the State from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the State having Jurisdiction of the Crime."
Basically, you have to be held for the crime for the State in which that crime was committed, or it could get confusing. If I used aerial fireworks in North Carolina, where they are illegal, but then ran from the law to South Carolina where they weren't, a court case to arrest me for a law that doesn't exist in that State would be strange, and go against the basic sovereignty of the states.
So though it is sad and wrong that people were enslaved in America, if all of the past things are true, and if people are enslaved, it would only make sense also to hold true that:
"No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due."
What if I was enslaved in one State, ran to a state where there was no slavery, I should be returned to my original place of enslavement.
In the end, the document was ahead of its time, and in a way, even ahead of the men who wrote it. Many of the founding fathers were pro-slavery prevolution, but after fighting sweat and blood, and aguing day by day for freedom, many of them realized the inheritance paradox of human rights and liberty and slavery, so they became anti-slavery. The ideas in the Constitution and its system of government are amazing and were and are still revolutionary.
And though I will admittedly argue that the Constitution is not a racist document, I also believe with as much vigor that it does defend your right to be racist. Primary in the first amendment.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
The Constitution defends your right to believe whatever you want, say whatever you want. Because if I can't say something because the majority of people find it offensive and immoral, they might eventually find something that is good, offensive, and immoral. They might say LGTBQ+ rights are or religious beliefs or any number of things are offensive and immoral. This country was founded on the idea that you could believe and say whatever you wanted to say, regardless of skin color, class, or creed. It is your right to believe immoral things because if it isn't, then you also lose your right to believe moral things.
And that's the beauty of the Constitution. It defends your right to be whoever you want to be and believe whatever you want, without persecution. As long as you don't hurt anyone or restrict anyone else's freedom, the American Constitution protects us from the government using the justification of morality, kindness and stopping offense to take away our rights. It was the first document to put into law the idea that all men are created equal and as a consequence, it has helped found the most accessible country in the world.
"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear."
― George Orwell
Post Script:
In England, the average black British person makes 32 thousand pounds, which is equal to 44 thousand dollars, and in America, the average black person makes 58 thousand, so, you'd think that if the Constitution is the basis of racism, that in the country without it black people would be richer, but they simply aren't.
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Sources:
https://www.amazon.com/Plain-Honest-Men-American-C...
https://constitutioncenter.org/
https://www.monticello.org/
https://www.mountvernon.org/library/digitalhistory...
https://www.gilderlehrman.org/sites/default/files/...
https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-resources/sp...
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1010169/black-and-slave-population-us-1790-1880/
https://www.azquotes.com/author/9277-James_Madison...
https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2020/jun/23/white-household-income-in-uk-is-63-higher-than-black-households-ons-finds
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States
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