Question

How was the issue of slavery addressed in the U.S. Constitution?

Answer 1

Answer:

Answering the question "How was the issue of slavery addressed in the U.S Constitution" is a little tricky because the words "slave" or "slavery" were not used in the original Constitution, and the word "slavery" is very hard to find even in the current Constitution. However, the issues of the rights of enslaved people, its related trade and practice, in general, have been addressed in several places of the Constitution; namely, Article I, Articles IV and V and the 13th Amendment, which was added to the Constitution nearly 80 years after the signing of the original document. However, slavery had been tacitly protected in the original Constitution through clauses such as the Three-Fifths Compromise, in which three-fifths of the slave population was counted for representation in the United States House of Representatives.

Explanation:

When the Constitution was made in 1787, slavery was a powerful institution and such a heated topic at the Constitutional Convention. The majority of disagreements came when the representatives from slave-holding states felt their "peculiar" institution was being threatened. James Madison, the Father of the Constitution and a slave owner, opposed the pro-slavery delegates and went on to say it would be, "wrong to admit in the Constitution the idea that there could be property in men." He didn't believe that slavery should be justified by federal law. Once the Constitution was ratified, slavery was never mentioned by name. Shouldn't this be obvious support that the Constitution did not support slavery? Not exactly.