This is the first episode in an occasional series that will focus on slavery, the Constitution and the current debate over the meaning of America’s founding. Each new episode will feature an interview with a different historian whose expertise covers the early republic.
It may seem odd that Americans continue to argue over what the Constitution says about slavery. After all, the South’s “peculiar institution” was abolished in 1865.
But we know this is not merely an academic issue or legal debate.
The racism that underpinned human slavery in the antebellum United States persisted in new forms after the Civil War. New interpretations, from the 1619 Project on the left to 1776 Unites on the right, have emerged amid a tumultuous reckoning with the nation’s past, forcing Americans to revisit the morally unresolvable contradictions of the founding generation.
With the 13th Amendment far from settling the issue, Americans find themselves entangled in an endless debate over the extent to which the institution of slavery influences present-day society.
SEE ALSO: History As It Happens: Misunderstanding slavery
In this episode of History As It Happens, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Joseph Ellis discusses the deliberately ambiguous manner in which the Constitution was written, so it would reflect a series of compromises over, not a solution to, slavery.
“If we take a more panoramic view, there is an argument going on for who controls the American narrative. The extreme views on this narrative strike me as cartoons, and I don’t agree with either side,” Mr. Ellis said.
To listen to the full interview with Mr. Ellis, download this episode of History As It Happens.
