Slavery and the Constitution

I don't consider the U.S. Constitution to be a dated document. It was designed to be the framework for a government that would change with the times. While some of the language used may sound a trifle unusual to modern readers, there's little about the content that is firmly rooted in the century in which it was written. In my opinion, reading the Constitution remains the best way for anyone to learn about the American system of government as it was and as it still is. Still, although you won't find mention of pantaloons, powdered wigs, and muskets there, the body of the Constitution nonetheless was a product of a time and a place. Although the 13th Amendment which abolished slavery provides the definitive word on slavery's present legal status, there remain within the Constitution references to slavery which seem to acknowledge that the "peculiar institution" was an acceptable aspect of life in a supposedly free country.

Unfortunately, slavery is a black mark on many of mankind's early forays into representative government. Slaves could be found in the Athenian Democracy, the Roman Republic, and the Venetian Republic. It is as if it was relatively easy for people to take that first step and say, "Some people deserve rights and representation." To take the next logical step and extend equal rights and representation to all people, however, was extremely difficult, particularly when economic interests were involved. I can easily imagine some slavery defender of the past declaring, "But the slaves do the jobs that we don't want to do! Abolition will destroy the economy!" Americans can find some solace in the fact that slavery as an institution has been fiercely opposed from the very beginning of the United States. Even the writers of the Constitution disagreed vehemently on this issue. Still, it's impossible to call the pre-13th Amendment Constitution an anti-slavery document; you can at best say that slavery is inconsistent with the spirit of the Constitution, but, considering that Section II of Article IV cavalierly affirms the rights of slave owners to have their "property" restored to them if an escaped slave moves past state lines, that argument can be taken only so far.

I suppose the Constitution must be considered a historical document as well as a political one. Just as slavery is an inextricable part of American history, so too it must be an inextricable part of the U.S. Constitution. Still, the most important thing to me is that slavery, though enshrined within the Constitution, was ultimately abolished by the Constitution as well. Although the battle for civil rights is an ongoing on, continuing to the present day, at least legal slavery was put to an end once and for all. The United States moved further along than Athens, Rome, and Venice did; it did take a while, but it's still something Americans can feel proud about.