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A newspaper in education Supplement to THE WASHINGTON TIMES
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WEDNESDAY • AUGUST 28 • 2013
From the transport of the first African slaves
to Jamestown, Virginia in 1619, the contours of
slavery and freedom were linked with race. Over
the course of the next 150 years, racialized slavery
developed into what historian Edmund Morgan
called “the American paradox” in which the con-
tradictions between slavery and freedom became
increasingly stark. Slaves, who were almost en-
tirely of African descent, were treated brutally and
were denied freedom at every level.
While slaves fought against the terms of
slavery and an abolitionist movement started to
percolate in the 17th and 18th centuries, slavery
continued to spread throughout the colonies. Even
as revolutionary sentiment against the injustices
of the British crown percolated, slavery contin-
ued. As revolutionary fervor turned into a war for
independence, the language of liberty and equality
circulated throughout the colonies.
The Declaration of Independence (1776)
proclaims, “all men are created equal.” Yet Thomas
Jefferson was forced by pro-slavery colonies to
remove any text related to the issue of slavery in
his drafts of the Declaration. A great new nation
would not be born free of slavery. Slaves and free
blacks fought on both sides of the Revolution.
Among the most well-known free African Ameri-
cans to fight on the American side was Crispus
Attucks, who was the first casualty in the Bos-
ton Massacre. Attucks and others like him were
among the first in a long line of African Ameri-
cans who fought for American democracy even as
they were denied access to full citizenship rights.
After an enormous debate about the way
slavery would be treated in the Constitution, the
Founding Fathers came to a compromise which
allowed slavery to continue for the time being.
The institution of slavery is alluded to in Article
1, Section 2, which counted those “other Persons,”
who were not “free Persons,” as
three-fifths of a person. Article
1, Section 9, prohibits Congress
from limiting “importation of
Persons [slaves]” before 1808.
Slave importation did end at
that time, but this did not end
the ownership or sale of slaves
within the country.
The Fugitive Slave Clause,
Article 4, Section 2, required all
states to return escaped slaves to
their owners.
By 1804, all Northern
states had ended slavery. But
in the meantime, the numbers
of slaves in the South grew
from about 200,000 in 1750 to
4,000,000 by 1861, driven in
large part by the demand for
cotton.
The seeds of the Civil War
were sown in the compromises
of the Constitution and in the
continued controversy over
the laws concerning slavery
that followed. Throughout this
time period, abolitionists made
powerful arguments against hu-
man bondage, yet slave owners
and their supporters continued
to tighten the grip of slavery in
the South. Slaves themselves
resisted enslavement in the few
ways they could—through work
slowdowns, running away, and
even rebellion, but the power of the institution of
slavery could not be easily overturned.
Rifts over slavery continued to grow until the
nation exploded into Civil War in 1861.During
the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln issued
the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1,
1863 as a war measure that freed slaves in states or
part of states in rebellion against the U.S. Though
the Civil War would rage on for 2 more years, the
Emancipation Proclamation was among the most
important documents of the 19th century and was
a key catalyst in ending the vice-grip of slavery.
After the Union victory, the 13th, 14th and
15th Amendments to the Constitution were
ratified, officially outlawing slavery and spelling
out the voting and citizenship rights of all U.S.
citizens, including African Americans. During the
Reconstruction era (1865-1877), the Federal gov-
ernment implemented new programs and policies
to rebuild the South and help ensure the rights of
former slaves.
These amendments marked a transformative
The Paradox of Slavery
change in the legal rights of African Americans. Former slaves were
eager to vote and run for office. During Reconstruction, over 2,000
African Americans held public office; fourteen African Americans
were elected to the House of Representatives, two to the U.S. Senate,
700 in state legislatures, and hundreds more in local offices.
But African Americans were met with extreme resistance as they
attempted to participate fully in American society. In less than a
decade, reactionary forces— including the Ku Klux Klan— would
reverse the changes wrought by Reconstruction in a violent backlash
that restored white supremacy in the South.
Resource:
The Emancipation Proclamation marked a major turn-
ing point in the Civil War and in the lives of African Americans in the
United States. Visit the California History Blueprint at
-
ryblueprint.dss.ucdavis.edu/site/unit/ for primary-source based activi-
ties related to the Emancipation Proclamation and other documents.
Related App:
The Smithsonian Institution has created an App en-
titled “Changing America” which includes reactions to the Emancipa-
tion Proclamation. The App is a companion to the exhibition entitled
“Changing America, The Emancipation Proclamation, 1863 and the
March on Washington, 1963.” To learn more visit:
bitions/Details/Changing-America-Emancipation-Proclamation-
1863-and-March-on-Washington-1963
