I found this short YouTube clip to show very succinctly why there may be confusion over slavery and the Constitution. We are informed that the word slavery does not even appear anywhere in the document, slaves were simply refered to as three-fifths of a person.Taylor wrote:LanDroid wrote:perhaps a better way of stating it is the original Constitution required slavery to be permittedLanDroid wrote: it unequivocally COULD NOT be banned!I'm just finishing reading the Ellis book, In it Ellis makes the case for LanDroid's points quite clearly and based on this reading I am prepared to think that Landroid (Ellis) are right.LanDroid wrote:Chapter 3 titled "The Silence" in Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation by Joseph Ellis.
Slavery was written into the Constitution.
The Supremacy clause of article six still leaves me with some doubt, but in the case of slavery it appears to have been toothless.
Ellis here explains why the Constitution may have been deliberately vague on the subject of slavery, "The Constitution was an artfully, ambiguous document that was specifically designed to permit the Northern delegates to go back to their constituents claiming that slavery was going to be ending and the Southern delegates to go back to their constituents claiming that slavery was now safe and protected".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNnXj5NSR64