Hot Topics (College Board AP® US History)

Timeline

Summary

Some of the biggest compromises delegates had to make during the Constitutional Convention were about the institution of slavery. Delegates from northern states wanted to abolish it; Southerners did not. Northerners did not think enslaved people should be counted in a state’s total population; Southerners did. The two sides worked together to come up with the Three-Fifths Compromise and an agreement that the importation of enslaved people would continue in the United States for the next 20 years.

Ratification of the Constitution also required compromise. Federalists supported the Constitution as it was written. Anti-Federalists did not. Their biggest concern was that the Constitution did not include any language that protected individual rights from government actions. The Federalists finally won over the Anti-Federalists by promising to draft a Bill of Rights as soon as the Constitution was ratified.

Changing Attitudes about Slavery

• Attitudes about the institution of slavery were changing nationwide

  • By 1786, all states except Georgia and South Carolina had either banned or started taxing the importation of enslaved people

  • Some states in the North passed laws that gradually freed enslaved people

    • Others passed laws that gradually ended slavery

  • Yet the practice of using enslaved labor continued in the South

    • Farming profits were high because plantation owners didn’t pay their workers

• Slavery and enslaved people were a key topic of conversation during the Constitutional Convention

The Three-Fifths Compromise

• The Great Compromise proposed that the number of seats given to a state in the lower legislative house (House of Representatives) would be based on that state’s population

  • States that allowed slavery wanted to count enslaved people in their population because:

    • this would give them more seats in Congress

    • they would also have more electoral college votes

• Because taxes were based on a state’s population, states that counted enslaved people would also have to pay more taxes

  • Southerners liked the idea of having more seats in Congress, but they did not want to pay more taxes

  • Northerners did not like the idea of Southerners having more seats in Congress

  • The solution was the Three-Fifths Compromise

    • Every five enslaved people would be counted as three members of a state’s population

• Northern states wanted to ban slavery across the country, but they knew Southern states would not allow that

  • Southerners argued that they needed slavery for the survival of their economy

  • Northerners were afraid some Southern delegates would not support a strong central government if Northern states did not make compromises on slavery

    • The delegates agreed Congress would not make any laws that stopped the importation of enslaved people for at least 20 years (1808)

    • The Constitution also included a clause that said enslaved people who ran away from their enslavers had to return if they were caught

      • This was nullified by the 13th Amendment, which made slavery illegal

      • The 13th Amendment was ratified in 1865 after the Civil War ended

Debate Over Ratification

• Each state held a ratifying convention to get the public’s approval of the new Constitution

  • Citizens chose members of the conventions to act as representatives of the people

  • Representatives from nine of the 13 states had to ratify the Constitution for it to go into effect

• Those who supported the Constitution were called Federalists

Anti-Federalists

• Those who did not support the Constitution were called Anti-Federalists

• Anti-Federalists were upset:

  • that an entirely new constitution had been written because they just wanted a revision of the Articles of Confederation

  • the federal government had a lot of power

  • and claimed the president was a “monarch in disguise”

  • and many feared that federal powers came at the expense of state powers

  • that the Constitution did not include a Bill of Rights that protected individual freedoms

    • Many state constitutions included a list of rights that were protected by law

    • Anti-Federalists thought a national constitution should include the same thing

• These fears and others were detailed in The Anti-Federalist Papers

Federalist papers

• Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay wrote 85 newspaper articles supporting the Federalist position

  • The Federalist Papers explained how the new government would work and why each section of the Constitution was important

  • They also explained why the Articles of Confederation could not simply be revised

• To win the Anti-Federalists’ support, the Federalists promised to add a Bill of Rights as soon as the Constitution was ratified

  • The first ten amendments to the Constitution, known as the Bill of Rights, were ratified by the states and added to the Constitution in 1791

  • These laws explicitly restrict the government from denying individuals basic rights, like the freedom to speak against the government and the freedom to practice a religion of one’s choice