Slavery may have been made illegal in 1808, but our Constitution played a role in supporting the institution until 1862, when President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation.
Kelly M. Kennington addressed this claim Thursday, Sept. 17, in her presentation, "We the People?: Slavery and the Constitution."
Kennington is a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Wisconsin Law School's Institute for Legal Studies and will be an assistant professor of history at Auburn in spring 2010.
"I didn't know (the slave trade) had been made illegal," said LaKeisha Lee, a sophomore in psychology.
Lee and Camellia Bradford, a sophomore in nursing, both attend Tuskegee University and came to the presentation as part of world history class assignment.
"I learned a lot," Bradford said. "The constitution aspect really stuck in my head."
Kennington said the Constitution never mentions slavery directly, but addresses it indirectly in three places.
The "slave-trade clause," Article I, Section 9 said slavery could not be made illegal until 1808. Congress banned the slave trade as soon as it could, in January 1808.
The "fugitive slave clause," Article IV, Section 2 allowed slaveholders to reclaim slaves who ran away to other states.
The "three-fifths clause," Article I, Section 2 is a compromise that set up the bicameral legislature we have today.
This piece of the constitution states that every five "other persons," clearly referring to slaves, count as three people when determining the population of a state and thereby its representation in Congress.
The extra representation that slave-holding states received from this clause helped slavery continue.
"Slaveholders viewed this as a victory in an increasingly anti-slavery nation," Kennington said.
Kennington said many framers of the Constitution were decidedly against slavery, but didn't address it in the document so it would pass.
Kennington also asserted that the preservation of slavery extended outside the word boundaries of the Constitution and into action with decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Kennington noted that in the case of Dred Scott v. Samford, the parties raised important questions about how free slaves should be incorporated into the nation and what role the government has in regulating the slave trade.
"Although the Supreme Court members might consider slavery morally repugnant, they allowed it to continue," Kennington said.
The Constitution influenced slavery through the written word, the Supreme Court interpreted the document, and Abraham Lincoln acted to end slavery.
While campaigning for the presidency, Lincoln promised not to try to abolish slavery where it already existed, but viewed it as a moral wrong and opposed its spread to other areas.
In 1862, Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, "starting an important trend in amending the Constitution to outlaw slavery," Kennington said.
The 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments ended slavery, guaranteed citizens equal rights and gave voting rights to all men regardless of race, later dismantling segregation and extending voting rights to women.
Courtney Gray, a freshman in business, attended the presentation for her Auburn Experience class.
"She was very informative and upbeat," Gray said. "I learned a lot from her presentation."
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