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Part 1: 1450-1750
<---Part 2: 1750-1805
Part 3: 1791-1831
Part 4: 1831-1865

Narrative | Resource Bank | Teacher's Guide

The Constitution and the New Nation


- Article IV, Section 2 of the Constitution

After the American Revolution, the movement to abolish slavery gained momentum in the North. In the South, though, where the black majority lived, slave owners re-asserted their rights. At the Constitutional Convention of 1787, southerners forced several compromises that laid the foundation for a new nation: a nation which espoused liberty, but practiced bondage.
Pro-slavery petitions in Virginia
Am I Not a Man and Brother?
The Constitution
The Fugitive Slave Act of 1793

Although the word "slavery" does not appear in the Constitution, Georgia and South Carolina delegates insisted that a proportion of their slave population be factored in to determine representation in Congress. The Fugitive Slave Clause affirmed the rights of slaveholders to reclaim runaways. And southerners won a constitutional guarantee that the slave trade, which had resumed after the war, could continue unabated for the next 20 years.

In 1780, Massachusetts approved a new constitution, which borrowed from the Declaration of Independence and the Virginia Bill of Rights, stating that "all men are born free and equal." Relying upon this language, Elizabeth Freeman and Quock Walker successfully sued for emancipation.

...we can imagine this woman, this slave woman, reading a constitution and saying, "Well, if everybody is created equal, then that includes me, too," and challenging the state government on this issue

-- Margaret Washington, historian

  Mum Bett
Elizabeth Freeman (Mum Bett)
The Quock Walker case

That same year, Paul Cuffe, a free black businessman in Boston, pushed for voting rights by requesting that he and his brother be excused from paying taxes, because they had "no voice or influence in the election of those who tax us."

By 1790, more than 59,000 African Americans lived free. Venture Smith and his family had settled into modest prosperity in Haddam, Connecticut, where he helped build the church where he was later buried. Benjamin Banneker distinguished himself as a scientist, almanac writer, and surveyor of the nation's new capital.

Banneker's letter to Jefferson
Jefferson's reply to Banneker
The Boston Plan
A Memorial to the South Carolina Senate

Free blacks' status and social standing varied by region. Most everywhere, though, they were from excluded from public schools, denied the right to vote, and faced racism and legal discrimination. Their hold on freedom was so vulnerable that some considered emigrating to Africa.


-- Benjamin Banneker,
writing to Thomas Jefferson

In spite of inequality and hardship, free African Americans were in most cases far better off than their 800,000 brethren who lived in bondage. By 1810 the free black population had swelled to 186.446, but slavery too, continued to flourish and spread westward with the growing new nation.

Part 2 Narrative:
Map: The Revolutionary Era
Freedom and Bondage in the Colonial Era
Slavery and Religion
Declarations of Independence
The Revolutionary War
• The Constitution and The New Nation

Part 2: Narrative | Resource Bank Contents | Teacher's Guide


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