Slavery

Was the Constitution pro-slavery ? The changing view of Frederick Douglass

HYPERLINK "http /findarticles .com /p /articles /mi_hb6541 " Social Education , HYPERLINK "http /findarticles .com /p /articles /mi_hb6541 /is_5_72 " Sept , 2008

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Robert Cohen traces Frederick Douglas ' changing ideas on whether the US Constitution was pro-slavery or anti-slavery . Douglas began favoring the former . Later , he identified principles within the document that , he said , were incompatible with slavery . In a mid-point , his position was that the document fully supported neither

position but was paradoxical or ambiguous . William Lloyd Garrison influenced his early interpretation of the Constitution as pro-slavery . Garrison and others cited several clauses in the Constitution as supporting slavery . These include the clause that was interpreted to require fugitive slaves to be returned to their owners , to whom they owed labor . This certainly seems to endorse slavery , since escaped slaves must be returned to their owners rather as a finder would be expected to return lost or stolen property to the rightful owner . Other clauses cited included those that empower Congress to use militia to suppress revolt . Applied to suppressing slave revolts , this clause was used to defend slavery . In an1850 article , Douglas condemned the founding fathers for cunningly weaving pro-slavery principles into the Constitution

Due to his growing independence as a thinker from those who had influenced him earlier , Douglas revised his position . His end-position was that the framers of the Constitution enshrined within the document values...