Four hurdles stood in the way of eliminating slavery in the United States: social, economic, political and technological.
Since the Fifteenth Century, when Africans first were imported to the United States, society never really offered an option to or an escape from slavery. Instead, Africans were treated and seen as a commodity. Their values, individuality and opinions were stripped away in order to create an object or a commercial product. Africans were owned by others, thereby making them property. Their value came from their ability to perform work and act accordingly. Additionally, slave owners attempted to silence any thought by their slaves. In particular, slave owners generally refused to educate their slaves and thereby eliminated all potential for slaves to discover their own true worth and value.
In economic terms, an end to slavery was not realistic or plausible. The slave trade in the United States was a thriving business. Many men made their living buying and selling slaves. They perfected the entire process—capturing or purchasing slaves from Africa, stripping the slaves of their family relationships and other personal attributes, choosing where and to whom the slaves were sold and ultimately setting the price for the slaves. While the Northwest Ordinance in 1781 outlawed slavery in the Northwest territories, these men continued to sell and profit from the sale of slaves in other parts of the United States, especially the South. Indeed, the free labor force created by the slaves in the South left many businesses in the North unable to compete economically with their Southern competitors. The cost of production was just too low in the South. Furthermore, owning slaves was seen as a status symbol in the South. The more slaves one owned, the better his status looked in society.
Under the United States Constitution, slavery was protected as well. In Section 9 of Article I of the Constitution, there was a sunset clause for the importation of slavery making it illegal after 1808. However, this interpretation of the section was widely debated and actually created a reverse impact on the slave trade. By appearing to eliminate the slave trade in 1808, the Constitution actually guaranteed the right to trade slaves for twenty years and thereby increased their relative value during those years. Basic economics teaches that by decreasing the supply of a commodity in demand, its cost will increase. In addition, it was common for slaves to be imported illegally. Furthermore, property laws throughout the United States required that runaway slaves to be returned to their rightful owners. So while a slave may have been lucky enough to escape to freedom, he or she would often be captured and returned to his or her owner and then punished for his or her escape. Most importantly, even under Section 2 of Article I of the Constitution, slaves were only to be counted as three-fifths of a free person. That ratio was the result of the fact that the Northern states wanted the Southern states to pay more in taxes while the Southern states wanted more representation in Congress. Notwithstanding the reasoning, the three-fifths compromise reaffirmed that slaves were not truly equal to free persons under the law.
Finally, technological changes during the Eighteenth Century also did not help with the elimination of slavery. In 1793, Eli Whitney created the cotton gin. His new machine allowed farmers to harvest their crops quicker and at a lower cost. With the development of the cotton gin, there was a mass movement of people to the South. New land was put into production to meet the increased demand for cotton. This required more labor from the slaves to tend those fields and farmers dramatically increased the daily production required from each slave in order to keep profits high.
Overall, the elimination of slavery in the South seemed almost impossible. In all areas of society there were forces working against its elimination.
As part as the political aspect of slavery goes, I agree, but I think that there is more to it. Many Northern states wanted slavery to be eliminated in the South, but if there was a provision in the Constitution that banned slavery, the Constitution never would have been approved by the Southern states. Thus, for the sake of unity, the Founding Fathers agreed to not ban slavery just yet.
ReplyDeleteOne thing that your post made me think about is the irony of how the North in a weird way kind of supported and opposed slavery at the same. The North needed the cotton from slaves in order to keep their own factories running. But at the same time, the North's fear of being passed up economically by the South (and their free labor) added fuel to the abolitionists in the North. As I note in my post, the North was kind of hypocritical on the subject of slavery, because even though they seemed to oppose slavery, they benefited from it.