1784 Anti-Slavery Proviso Passes: Effects on the Constitution

That's actually what I was getting at earlier -- not would the Deep South support a policy of gradual emancipation in 1789 as such, but would they be thinking to preserve their property over a specific timeframe (say the next 50 years) instead of insisting that slavery in their states be untouchable in perpetuity? Actually, even more specifically, I was thinking that if they suggest a provision that the Constitution that not only can the federal government not touch chattel slavery in those states that have, but no such amendment can be passed touching said provision - if such an extreme counterbalance was sought, the other framers could very well object on legal grounds, saying that not allowing the Constitution to be amended in the future is a dangerous proposition, whatever the subject matter at hand. From there, it could be a simple matter of someone suggesting "How about we just say no such amendment for the next 50 years?", and everyone agrees that will work; then skip ahead to 1839, and low and behold, the idea of abolishing the institution once and for all has become pretty popular.

If the South thought this was even remotely possible they just wouldn't have ratified the Constitution in the first place.

The clause about the slave trade would serve as a warning. Everyone knew that "not until 1808" would in practice mean "as soon as 1808 arrives". But at least that didn't affect a State's internal affairs. This decidedly would have.

And then there's the question of what would happen to the slaves themselves. If they are no longer slaves, but making them citizens is unthinkable (even to most of the North) then what the heck are they? At best, expect a "slaves in all but name" situation.
 
As previously noted, VA ratified by only 89-79. Any attempt to ban slavery in Kentucky could easily have provided the extra half-dozen nays.
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In reality, of course, it would almost certainly never have come to that. The mere threat of such a split would have been enough to get the provision dropped. After all, the larger states conceded the smaller ones equal representation of the Senate, against Madison's furious objections, rather than see the Convention fail. And that, in 1787, was a far bigger deal than slavery.
If they were willing to compromise on giving smaller states political equality in Senate with larger states, why wouldn't they compromise on prevention of the spread of slavery?

cheeky:idontcare:
 
If they were willing to compromise on giving smaller states political equality in Senate with larger states, why wouldn't they compromise on prevention of the spread of slavery?
:idontcare:

There was nothing they needed to compromise on. The question was purely an internal affair for each state to decide when admitted. So far as I can discover, the "issue" (or rather non-issue) was never so much as raised at the Convention, even when the procedure for admitting new states was under discussion.

Or to put it another way, the matter already had been compromised before the Convention even met The NWO meant that states north of the Ohio were most likely to be "free", while further south, slavery already existed in what would become KY and TN, so that it was already a fait accompli there - they and any formed further south were pretty certain to be "slave" (though no one yet talked of free states or slave states - that still lay decades in the future). The 1784 Ordinance seems to have been simply forgotten, or perhaps just dismissed as unenforceable - which it almost certainly was.
 
Possible compromise. How about this clause in the Constitution.

"Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except [etc etc] shall be permitted in any new State more than one-fifth of whose territory shall lie on the right bank of the Ohio River, nor in any territory hereafter acquired lying to northward of the thirty-third parallel of north latitude."

On further reading of Fehrenbacher, I find that something close to that almost happened OTL

In 1804 the Louisiana Purchase was divided at the 33rd parallel, with the southernmost part, the future state of LA, becoming the "District of Orleans". Representative James Hillhouse of CT introduced a motion forbidding the importation of slaves there, which at one point narrowly squeaked through the HoR, only to be withdrawn when the Senate declined to concur.

This was probably unavoidable iro the DO, where there were already some 30,000 slaves, so that the ship had sailed long ago. But had Hillhouse been a bit more adroit, then in return for accepting this, he might have secured a ban on slavery in the remainder of the LP, which then had only a handful of slaves, and for a year was even administered as part of Indiana Territory, here slavery was already forbidden, So instead of a Missouri Compromise in 1820 we might get a "Louisiana Compromise" in 1804, with slavery banned even in the future State of Arkansas, as well as Missouri.

In the case of AR, I'm not too optimistic long term. Directly adjacent to TN and MS, it will probably legalise slavery even if admitted to statehood without it. But MO is another matter. Paradoxically, the most "enslaved" portion of the State was in the north, along the Missouri River. Northern settlers, w/o the prospect of having to compete with slave labour, might well go there in greater numbers than OTL. Given that even OTL, antislavery forces were stronger in MO than in any other slaveholding state, they might TTL be strong enough to prevent its introduction post-statehood. And if slavery doesn't win Missouri, then it won't stand an earthly in Kansas. So later history is going to be quite a bit different. The Dred Scott decision may never be delivered in its OTL form, and even if it is, with a wall of free states running from Canada to the Ozarks it will have little practical effect.
 
I'm sure there was a lot of abuse; there was in the case of colonial transportation of debtors, too. Regarding being liable for another's debts, it's a long-standing legal notion that any inheritance may be rejected, and debts are part of that. You can't just force a parent's debt on a child. If some kind of exception was made to that, it would be fairly shocking-- I don't expect it was the case. Still, I'll try to dig up some more about this whole thing abourt indentured servitude in the North-West; it sounds fascinating.

Yet this was allowed in New Mexico, and continued for a short time even after the Civil War.

See http://www.whatitmeanstobeamerican.org/ideas/how-new-mexicos-peons-became-enslaved-to-debt/
 
I can’t find the citation, but its my understanding that during the 1780s, the slave states were generally opposed to the spread of slavery, for fear of having more competition - not too dissimilar to when the floor dropped out underneath the tobacco market in the early days of Virginia. Their change in attitude did correlate to the spread of cotton cultivation.

So, I could see this possibly happening. I am quite interested to see how a situation like Texas, which was never a Federal territory, would pan out.
 
I can’t find the citation, but its my understanding that during the 1780s, the slave states were generally opposed to the spread of slavery, for fear of having more competition - not too dissimilar to when the floor dropped out underneath the tobacco market in the early days of Virginia.
Some did so, for those reasons, Virginia foremost among them; others, like South Carolina, were net slave importers before the revolution, and were anxious with the slave trade being closed down and now looking to get their imports from other slave states... like Virginia.
 
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