Constitution And Slavery

559 Words3 Pages
Way back then when our constitution wasn’t written or the declaration of independence wasn’t established there was something that was a big part of America which was slavery. It affected many people and was a big debate/issue with a lot of people. The framers had a big role in slavery from making laws for it, abolishing it and etc. In my opinion I think slavery was a bad thing in America, so in this essay I will tell you important facts of slavery. First off the first slaves came from Africa in 1619 which was brought to Virginia. Slavery was system in America that made it legal for whites to buy and own blacks and use them for labor. Slavery was a state to state thing there were many slave owners and famous slave owners were the Framers also known as the founding fathers. Something interesting about the founding fathers were they were hypocrites because most of them were against slavery when they owned slaves, for example George Washington had many slaves but he was against slavery. Another thing to know is that that in the south slaves were considered as three fifths of a person. The south did this to gain political power by raising their population but by doing this they had to pay a higher tax, that’s why they only considered them as three fifths of a person. A third important fact is that the slave trade was terminated in 1808 after the constitutional convention that was from May 25 to September 17, 1787. People may think the constitution was a good thing, it is but towards slavery it was a bad thing because it supported slavery. Another document that supported slavery was the Bill Of Rights. An example of how the constitution supported slavery was the fifth amendment which was written by James Madison stated “no person could be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law “ (Article 5, Amendment 5, Constitution) which meant that
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