Module 10
The Civil War was caused by a myriad of conflicting pressures, principles, and prejudices, fueled by sectional differences and pride, and set into motion by a most unlikely set of political events. The Three-Fifths Compromise allowed a state to count three-fifths of each Black person in determining political representation in the House. The three-fifths ratio, had a major effect on pre-Civil War political affairs due to the disproportionate representation of slave-holding states. As a result, southerners dominated the Presidency, the Speakership of the House, and the Supreme Court in the period prior to the Civil War. Southern colonists relied on slavery and were among the richest in America. Their cash crops of tobacco, indigo, and rice depended on slave labor, which they were not willing to give up.
The three-fifths figure was the outgrowth of a debate that had taken place within the Continental Congress in 1783. The Articles of Confederation had apportioned taxes not according to population but according to land values. The states consistently undervalued their land in order to reduce their tax burden. To rectify this situation, a special committee recommended apportioning taxes by population. At the Constitutional Convention, the North wanted to count slaves as people verses property seeing as taxes were determined by population. On the other hand, the South wanted slaves to be counted as people for apportioning Representatives. The compromise clearly reflected the strength of the pro-slavery forces at the convention. For example, in 1793 slave states would have been apportioned 33 seats in the House of Representatives had the seats been assigned based on the free population; instead they were apportioned 47. In 1812, slaveholding states had 76 instead of the 59 they would have had; in 1833, 98 instead of 73.
The first U.S. National government began under the Articles of Confederation, adopted in 1781. This document said nothing about slavery. It left the power to legalize slavery, as well as most powers to the individual states. After their experience with the British, the colonists doubted a strong central government. The new national government consisted solely of a Congress in which each state had one vote. States with large populations wanted representation in both houses of the legislature to be based on population. States with small populations wanted each state to have the same number of representatives, like under the Articles of Confederation.
At the time the Declaration of Independence was written by Thomas Jefferson in 1776, there were more than 500,000 black American slaves. Jefferson had expressed American injustice and explained why the colonists were breaking away and were no longer under any obligations of civil obedience with the British. His words stated America’s beliefs of freedom and equality. Many colonists, even slave holders, hated slavery. Thomas Jefferson called it a “hideous blot” on America. However, in spite of his beliefs, Thomas Jefferson himself was a slave owner that had owned more than 100 slaves. Slaves accounted for about one-fifth of the population in the American colonies. Most of them lived in the Southern colonies, where slaves made up 40 percent of the population.
The fugitive slave clause allowed escaped slaves to be chased into the North and caught. It also resulted in the illegal kidnapping and return to slavery for thousands of free blacks. The Three-Fifths Compromise increased the South’s representation in Congress and the Electoral College. Another compromise found in section 9 of Article I, stipulates that Congress would not be able to prohibit the importation of slaves before 1808, although they may tax them $10 per slave. This helped to offset the Southern fears that Congress’ power to regulate commerce would be used to abolish slavery. This provision could not be changed by amendment, therefore, giving the slave trade a 20 year reprieve.
While the Constitutional Convention was debating in Philadelphia, there was a second compromise that was taking place in New York. With many members absent and the South for the time being holding a majority, Congress had passed the Northwest Ordinance, which banned slavery in the Northwest Territory. This land would be divided into five states: Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and parts of Wisconsin. The Northwest Ordinance had a clause promising that slaves who escaped to the Northwest Territories would be returned to their owners. This was part of the price of making the Northwest Territories free.
Primary source
http://webct.dvc.edu/SCRIPT/HIST120_5180_FA11/scripts/student/serve_page.pl?1219012956+readings120_onlinea.htm+OFF+readings120_onlinea.htm
secondary sources
Zinn, Howard. A People’s History of the United States Volume 1: American
Beginnings to Reconstruction. The New Press, New York, 2003.
Foner, Eric. Give Me Liberty. New York, New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2009. 