AHC/WI Right to own slaves was enshrined in the U.S. Constitution?

So the question is what if the right to own slaves was enshrined in the U.S. Constitution.Is it possible there could be such an outcome at all?And how would this affect the abolitionist movements?
 

Lateknight

Banned
So the question is what if the right to own slaves was enshrined in the U.S. Constitution.Is it possible there could be such an outcome at all?And how would this affect the abolitionist movements?

It basically couldn't be because the north would never except a constitution that contains such a clause.
 

TFSmith121

Banned
And the South got what they wanted in the 3/5ths as it was

It basically couldn't be because the north would never except a constitution that contains such a clause.

And the South got what they wanted in the 3/5ths as it was.

Whole lot of comprimisin' goin' on.;)

Best,
 
So the question is what if the right to own slaves was enshrined in the U.S. Constitution.Is it possible there could be such an outcome at all?And how would this affect the abolitionist movements?

the north would walk off the assembly till the point was removed if not..they just make their own union, with freedmen and hookers...forget the union and freedmen
 
Agree with others. Northern states wouldn't ever accept that. We would see early division of the Union.
 
the north would walk off the assembly till the point was removed if not..they just make their own union, with freedmen and hookers...forget the union and freedmen

You may have created the impetus for the greatest alternate history quote ever:

"Go ahead and keep your slaves! We'll start our own union, with freedmen and hookers and blackjack!" - Ben Franklin
 
At the time, most of the Founding Fathers assumed slavery was on the way out. Why would they enshrine what was, at the time, seen as a dying institution?

Then the cotton gin fucked everything up.
 
When you can satisfy the North by protecting slavery with euphemisms, what is the point of bluntness?
 
The Constitution is not an unchangeable document. A clause guaranteeing slavery can be "removed" by passing an amendment. The south was way better off with the 3/5 clause. This allowed the south/slave states to have a disproportionate influence much longer than it should have. without the 3/5 clause, the House of Representatives becomes a substantial free majority body at least 20 years sooner than OTL. By 1860 the writing was on the wall, the House had moved irretrievably to a northern/free majority, and it was also clear that essentially any new state admitted would be a free soil state swinging the Senate against the south. This loss of disproportionate political power was one reason for the timing of the ACW - the trend was irreversible and accelerating.

The 3/5 clause showed a good deal of political acumen and foresight on the part of slave state politicians to ensure a continued heavy influence of their region. If there had been a slavery cause in the constitution, but no 3/5 clause, the crisis would have come sooner, and if it had come before the cotton gin it might have seen slavery end relatively peacefully. In any case, the northern states swallowed the 3/5 clause with some difficulty, accepting a slavery clause would have been too much to swallow.
 
Ummm...

So the question is what if the right to own slaves was enshrined in the U.S. Constitution.Is it possible there could be such an outcome at all?And how would this affect the abolitionist movements?

Perhaps we should define "enshrined" here? Art. II, Section 2, USC, as originally ratified, did after all state,

No person held to service or labor in one state, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.​

That's effectively, as a legal matter, more of a Constitutional recognition of slavery even than the 3/5ths Clause.

To that extent, I take it you may have meant, "What if a right to own human chattels was set out in the Constitution in such terms as to apply to the territories / make the Fugitive Slave Clause [supra] readily enforceable / preclude the whole idea of any action being brought similar to that in Dred Scott." If that's the question, then the answers being given follow, with the added answer that, had the Constitution been ratified with so explicit a clause, it would likely not have taken until the Hartford Convention for New England to begin thinking seriously about secession, rallied by Pickering. Had that failed, it would have been tried again and again, especially once William Lloyd Garrison & Co. took to the presses and the pulpits.
 
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