9781422274187

THE FOUNDERS DEBATE The question of how to handle slavery in America reared its head after the American Revolution, when the Founders faced the failures of the Articles of Confederation and set out to write a new constitution. Slavery had not been mentioned in the Declaration of Independence, though Thomas Jefferson condemned participation in the trans-Atlantic slave trade as one of the many grievances against George III in his first draft of the founding document. Jefferson was a contradiction in the matter of slavery. Like many other Founders, he considered the enslavement of Africans to be a terrible crime, but his prosperity and fortune were both inextricably linked to his ownership of black slaves. Despite this, Jefferson attempted to end slavery in Virginia through various acts of legislation, including a ban on the importation of enslaved Africans into the state. He also proposed a ban on slavery in lands that would become the Northwest Territory in 1783 and put forth a plan that would provide for the gradual emancipation of slaves. By 1787, it became clear that the Articles of Confederation were no longer viable if the United States was to stabilize

Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States, believed that slavery was evil—yet he profited from the labor of nearly 200 slaves.

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CAUSES OF THE CIVIL WAR