Slavery and its influence on writing the Constitution

DARK BARGAIN: SLAVERY, PROFITS AND THE STRUGGLE FOR THE CONSTITUTION

By Lawrence Goldstone

Walker & Company, $24.00, 240 pages, illus.

REVIEWED BY ROBERT SEIDENBERG

Iconoclasm is such a popular pastime among the left, that one shudders at the thought of the sound bites that might emanate from this book if the usual gang of dead-white-man bashers (Katie Couric, Michael Moore, et al) takes a liking to it. But this realpolitik reassessment of the 1787 Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia — far from demonizing the framers — infuses them with a fullness of character that would tend to support a face-value reading (that is, a conservative interpretation) of the Constitution.

In the legendary view of the Convention — the one we receive in school, on television and in most works of scholarship — the debates surrounding our founding document constitute nothing less (or more) than a four-month colloquium on political philosophy conducted by the greatest minds since the golden age of Athens.

The issue of slavery could be but a footnote to such lofty proceedings. But in this week-by-week, sometimes day-by-day, chronicle of the Convention, Constitutional scholar Lawrence Goldstone brings forth a much different picture. To be sure, the grand philosophical colloquium did take place. However, this phase of the Convention, marked by an abundance of civility and graciousness, occupied only the first four weeks. The following 14 weeks — marked more by sniping and sarcasm — is where the real work was done, and the issue of slavery was central to it.

The first and largest conflict to be engaged was how the two legislative houses would be apportioned. Either or both houses might allocate seats by population, by wealth, by property-ownership or by state. Small (in population) states favored the status quo vote-per-state formula of the Articles of Confederation. Larger states wanted more equitable representation for their more numerous citizens.

Southern states, which were large if slaves were counted but small if they were not, opposed any arrangement that would give the North overwhelming numbers in the legislature. The civility of the early weeks gave way to bitter contention with charges and countercharges of power-mongering, and threats from all sides to walk out. It seemed on a number of occasions that the Convention would collapse.

The great compromises over apportionment gave us the population-based House and state-based Senate, but it also left the Constitution with its most shameful legacy — the three-fifths clause, which, parse it as you might, defined a slave as 60 percent of a human being. The ramifications of slavery did not end there. They spilled over into the debates on taxes, imports and exports, the census, the electoral college, the definition of treason, admissions of new states and even the question of future amendments. As a result, the impact of slavery can be seen in four of the seven articles of the Constitution.

What makes Mr. Goldstone’s book engaging is that he does not marshal these facts to disparage the framers, but to restore the Convention — and hence, the Constitution — to human proportions. In doing so, he creates a riveting drama, where the outcome of the Convention is never certain.

Mr. Goldstone’s stated purpose is to “clear away the gods and heroes” so that we can get a sense of what it would be like to “walk in the door” of Independence Hall with the delegates. He accomplishes this task with economy and verve by weaving together biography, historic context, salient passages from the debates and stories of the alliances forged among the delegates during after-hours meetings in Philadelphia’s inns and taverns.

Fifty-five delegates from 12 states participated in the 1787 Convention, yet only four — Madison, Hamilton, Franklin and Washington — are names that are popularly recognized; and these four are much more than names to us, they are the marbleized icons of our national consciousness. Yet, as Mr. Goldstone shows, Franklin and Washington were present mostly to lend their venerability to the effort and had little impact on the actual proceedings. Madison and Hamilton, though the chief engineers of the conclave, waned in influence after the initial ‘philosophical’ phase.

Refreshingly, Mr. Goldstone does not dwell on the marbleized founders. Instead, by shifting the focus to the key players among the other 51 delegates, he puts a more human face on the Convention. While it is difficult for us to overcome our heroic images of a Washington or Franklin, it is easy enough for us to believe that men whose names we don’t recognize — men like Elbridge Gerry, Rufus King, Luther Martin, Gen. Pinckney — are ordinary mortals with virtues, vices, ambitions and economic interests, that just might have affected their decisions.

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