Book Review: A Slaveholder's Union
A Slaveholders' Union, written by legal scholar George William Van Cleve, presents an historical account of the forming of the Constitution and the early days of the United States of America through the context of slave policy and its subsequent politics. Van Cleve's book is an incredibly detailed and well-researched document that sheds new light on the motivations and true intentions of the founding fathers during the creation of the Constitution.
Van Cleve attempts to examine the politics of slavery throughout the Constitution and elsewhere in various forms. However, his broad thesis is that slavery was, despite many accounts and public opinion, a very concerning and prevalent issue among the Founding Fathers when they drew up the Constitution of the United States. In fact, slavery was often the deciding factor in a lot of important events surrounding the founding of our country. Van Cleve believes the "was pro-slavery in its politics, its economics, and its law" (p. 270); in order to become the strong nation that America wanted to be, the North knew that the South was needed. The South wanted slavery, and so the Constitution accommodated that desire for the sake of their allegiance.
In the South and elsewhere in the colonies that comprised America pre-Revolution, slavery was one of the most prominent economic institutions (p. 22). Thirty percent of the wealth found in the South came from slaves, which was almost equal to the Southern land value at the time (p. 23). This was contrasted with the nearly one percent of wealth in the Northern colonies that came from slaves. This substantial wealth that came from the South held substantial sway over the creation of the Articles of Confederation - “slave states insisted that the Confederation
should have no power to control slavery or slave property, even to support the war effort” (p. 45). When the North attempted to tax slaves or limit the importation of slaves, the Southern delegates threatened to end the constitution; their slave-earned wealth and their steadfast commitment to hold onto it by any means necessary established slavery's influence over early American politics.
Van Cleve moves on to talk about how the North and South fought about abolition right before the Constitutional Convention. Because the economy of New England had a very small focus on slavery, a lot of Northern states were politically controlled by those who did not own slaves. As a result, many of these Northern politicians would turn a blind eye to slavery's costs as long as they did not have to bear them. "Many whites who were antislavery also believed that any responsibility that their states had toward blacks ended at the state boundaries" (p. 60). The North had a general opposition to slavery, but they wanted the wealth from the South to bolster their political power and strengthen the country as a whole. As a result, they were willing to make proslavery concessions in the creation of the Constitution.
Major pro slavery provisions included the Three-Fifths Compromise, the commerce clause, the Fugitive Slave Clause, and others. According to Van Cleve, the three-fifths compromise was created as a means to give Southern states more representation, and thus protect their interests in the House of Representatives. This made political challenges by the North more difficult, as the South was subsequently given more power in Congress. The North was not ignorant of this; “in adopting the three-fifths clause, the delegates understood that they were agreeing to a compromise based on sectional wealth representation intended to protect slave property” (p. 124). While this idea was incoherent from a conceptual point of view for many, Northerners adopted it due to the pragmatic political and economic power it would bring America as a whole. Leaving the South and its stance on slavery alone ensured their help in securing political power (p. 133).
Other proslavery provisions found in the Constitution came about as a result of many sectional bargains that occurred between Southern and Northern states. The limitation on slave imports occurred because of New England's desire to expand its shipping and trading economy and keep foreign trade booming. A compromise was made: The Constitution would state that the slave trade would not be limited until 1808; this left twenty one years in which Southern states could import as many slaves as they needed before the cutoff point. Furthermore, the South could reserve the right to oppose any future legislation to limit imports (p. 151). The North sold this compromise as the end of slavery, but the South sold the same deal to their people as a way to prevent further federal meddling into the slave trade as the country expanded west (p. 178).
Van Cleve's arguments about the Fugitive Slave Clause are equally as compelling, arguing that the lack of controversy found in its enactment was merely a smokescreen for appeasement of pro slave states. The clause was “a consensus means of controlling fugitive slavery that served the congruent sociopolitical interests of various states” (p. 168). The North benefited from the clause due to the stoppage in runaway slaves who would have to be tax supported in the North, while the Southern slave states had Constitutional guardianship of their own property (p. 172).
Once the Constitution was enacted, slavery underwent incredible expansion - and the federal government explicitly and implicitly supported these actions through the aforementioned clauses. According to a Congressional debate on the subject of slavery in 1790, “both the Constitution’s text and the sectionally balanced political structure it created effectively constrained the contest over slavery” (p. 202). The Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 supported the expansion of slavery, and further measures were taken on both Northern and Southern sides of the country to ensure that slave retrieval was clearly legal and streamlined (p. 205). When the Louisiana Territory opened up after its purchase by Jefferson, it “opened the floodgates to southwestern slavery” (p. 222).
Van Cleve uses substantial evidence and research in the argument of his thesis. The texts from debates and accounts surrounding the creation of the Constitution (and its subsequent legislation) are all described and cited in detail, given appropriate context through Van Cleve's expert prose. Looking at this legislation through a cynical and discerning eye, Van Cleve investigates the motives and reasons behind the proslavery bend to the Constitution. Van Cleve concludes that the Constitution was framed as a means to support slavery in the interests of gaining the political and financial power of the proslavery South. "Slavery emerged from the Convention not only intact, but with a constitutionally protected political and legal path for its growth, a path widened by critically important sectional economic-development bargains. The result was a slaveholders’ union. The Constitution’s formal and informal protection for slavery resembled a broad and well-built canal through which a growing river of slave labor could flow unimpeded" (p. 179).
Van Cleve's exhaustive research grants his arguments greater weight and credence; the political motivations behind many of the founding fathers' and early Congress' pro-slavery actions sheds light on what made the issue such a problem by the time the Civil War came about. Bringing the economic factors of the proslavery South into the equation, as well as its profound influence on the North's legislation, offers compelling evidence to a perspective that is not often considered in American history. The inherent proslavery nature of the Constitution is very well drawn out in Van Cleve's book, and the perspectives that led to its continued use as a safety net for slavery in the South are thoroughly explained in racism, free white labor and the desire to expand the markets of the North. In essence, the Constitution lobbied for freedom - however, this freedom only extended to the rich white landowners that penned it, and not the slaves whose continued work would ensure the economic future and prosperity of both the North and the South alike.
References
Van Cleve, W. (2010). A Slaveholders' Union: Slavery, Politics, and the Constitution in the
Early American Republic. University of Chicago Press.
