Table of Contents
Constitutional Convention: Debates on Slavery
Overview
Context
About the Author
Explanation and Analysis of the Document
Audience
Impact
Document Text
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Abstract
The Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia began on May 12, 1787, and ended four months later, on September 17, 1787, when thirty-nine of the total fifty-five delegates from twelve of the thirteen existing states signed the new United States Constitution. Rhode Island, with its small population, feared a stronger central government and worried that its influence would be limited at the Convention, so it chose not to participate.
Book contents
- John Rolfe’s Letter to Sir Edwin Sandys about Enslaved Africans
- Virginia’s Act XII: Negro Women’s Children to Serve according to the Condition of the Mother
- Virginia’s Act III: Baptism Does Not Exempt Slaves from Bondage
- “A Minute against Slavery, Addressed to Germantown Monthly Meeting”
- Samuel Sewall: The Selling of Joseph: A Memorial
- James Oglethorpe: “An Account of the Negroe Insurrection in South Carolina”
- Daniel Horsmanden: The New-York Conspiracy
- Dockside At Virginia Tobacco Warehouse Illustration
- John Woolman: Some Considerations on the Keeping of Negroes
- Slaves for Sale Advertisement
- Thomas Jefferson: Advertisement for a Runaway Slave
- Lord Dunmore’s Proclamation
- Petition of Prince Hall and Other African Americans to the Massachusetts General Court
- Pennsylvania: An Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery
- Commonwealth v. Nathaniel Jennison
- Thomas Jefferson: Notes on the State of Virginia
- The Old Plantation Painting
- Constitutional Convention: Debates on Slavery
- Slavery Clauses in the U.S. Constitution
- Drawing of the Slave Ship Brookes
- Alexander Falconbridge: An Account of the Slave Trade on the Coast of Africa
- Fugitive Slave Act of 1793
- Richard Allen: “An Address to Those Who Keep Slaves, and Approve the Practice”
- Prince Hall: A Charge Delivered to the African Lodge
- Venture Smith: A Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Venture, a Native of Africa
- Act to Prohibit the Importation of Slaves
- Peter Williams, Jr.: “Oration on the Abolition of the Slave Trade”
- Missouri Compromise
- Samuel Cornish and John Russwurm: First Freedom’s Journal Editorial
- David Walker: Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World
- State v. Mann
- William Lloyd Garrison: First Liberator Editorial
- The Confessions of Nat Turner
- “Jump Jim Crow” Song-and-Dance Routine
- Joseph Story: “Privileges of Citizens—Fugitives—Slaves”
- Lydia Maria Child: Thoughts on Slavery and Emancipation
- James Buchanan: Remarks to Congress on Slavery
- William Drayton: The South Vindicated from the Treason . . . of the Northern Abolitionists
- Wendell Phillips: “The Murder of Lovejoy”
- John C. Calhoun: “Slavery a Positive Good”
- United States v. Amistad
- Prigg v. Pennsylvania
- Henry Highland Garnet: “An Address to the Slaves of the United States of America”
- William Lloyd Garrison: “Address to the Friends of Freedom and Emancipation in the United States”
- Frederick Douglass: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
- Richard Doyle: “The Land of Liberty” Cartoon
- Salmon P. Chase: Reclamation of Fugitives from Service
- William Wells Brown: “Slavery as It Is”
- Frederick Douglass: “Letter to My Old Master”
- Currier & Ives: “Congressional Scales” Cartoon
- Compromise of 1850
- Fugitive Slave Act of 1850
- John C. Calhoun: “On the Slavery Question”
- Henry “Box” Brown: Narrative of the Life of Henry Box Brown, Written by Himself
- Samuel A. Cartwright: “Diseases and Peculiarities of the Negro Race”
- Souther v. Commonwealth
- Charles Sumner: “Freedom National; Slavery Sectional” Speech
- Frederick Douglass: “Fourth of July” Speech
- Martin Delany: The Condition, Elevation, ... and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States
- Solomon Northup: Twelve Years a Slave
- Wendell Phillips: “The Philosophy of the Abolition Movement”
- Kansas-Nebraska Act
- William J. Grayson: “The Hireling and the Slave”
- John L. Magee: “Forcing Slavery Down the Throat of a Freesoiler” Cartoon
- P.C. Weston: Rules on the Rice Estate
- Hinton Rowan Helper: The Impending Crisis of the South: How to Meet It
- James Stirling: Letters from the Slave States
- Dred Scott v. Sandford
- “Picking Cotton, Georgia, 1858” Illustration
- James Henry Hammond: “Cotton Is King” Speech
- Abraham Lincoln: “House Divided” Speech
- Thomas R.R. Cobb: An Inquiry into the Law of Negro Slavery in the United States of America
- John Brown: Provisional Constitution and Ordinances for the People of the United States
- Ableman v. Booth
- Wendell Phillips: “The Puritan Principle and John Brown”
- Brigham Young: Sermon on Race and Slavery
- Charles Langston: Speech in Oberlin- Wellington Trial
- Elizabeth Cady Stanton: Speech for the Anniversary of the American Anti- Slavery Society
- Virginia Slave Code
- Lydia Maria Child: Correspondence with Mrs. Mason on John Brown
- South Carolina Declaration of the Causes of Secession
- Confederate Constitution
- Frederick Law Olmsted: Journeys and Explorations in the Cotton Kingdom
- Harriet Jacobs: Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
- Alexander Stephens: Cornerstone Speech
- Thornton Stringfellow: Slavery: Considered in the Light of Bible Teachings
- David Einhorn: Response to “Bible View of Slavery”
- District of Columbia: An Act for the Release of Certain Persons Held to Service or Labor
- Frederick Douglass: “The Reasons for Our Troubles”
- Treaty between United States and Great Britain for the Suppression of the Slave Trade
- Emancipation Proclamation
- Frances Ann Kemble: Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation in 1838– 1839
- “The Scourged Back” Photograph
- Frederick Douglass: “Men of Color, To Arms!”
- War Department General Order 143 Establishing the Bureau of U.S. Colored Troops
- Thomas Morris Chester: Civil War Dispatches
- William T. Sherman: Special Field Order No. 15
- Photograph of the 107th U.S. Colored Infantry
- Black Code of Mississippi
- Gordon Granger: General Order No. 3
- Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
- William Lloyd Garrison: Valedictory Editorial of the Liberator
- Thomas Garrett: Description of Harriet Tubman
- Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
- Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution