The Long Clasp (Post 9)

Part II
The Threat

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THE PEOPLE

§§ Slavery and The People

Madison was a slave-holder.  So was Washington.  So was Jefferson.  Madison is credited as the chief author of the Constitution.  That document does not contain the words slave or slavery anywhere, until the 13^th Amendment abolished it after the Civil War.  That the author of that Amendment was no Madison we should recognize by this coupling of ideas: “neither slavery nor involuntary servitude [shall exist] except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.”  It was that sloppy language that legitimated one of the worst debasements of the black man after the Civil War, and many a poor white man as well.
            At a time when several British colonies in North America had a long history of slavery, and others did not, thirteen colonies revolted from Britain, declared themselves sovereign States, joined together to prosecute the rebellion to a successful conclusion, and afterwards languished for want of “efficient and energetic government” at the national level.  So a chosen group of men from the thirteen States convened “to settle the question whether societies of men [could] establish[ ] good government upon reflection and choice, [or must] depend for their political constitutions on accident or force.”  This was a profound enterprise, new to the known history of the world.  To many minds the right to choose your government defines the very premise of Democracy.
            The supremely great idea of the USA, the fundamental sine qua non of the Constitution without which not a word else of that great document carries any meaning, and which has been, is now, and ever shall be the wonder of the world, so long as this populace holds to its promise, is the idea contained in the first and last phrases of its Preamble, its mission statement:

           The Great daring of these phrases is the collective assertion and covenant that no other authority than they themselves has claim to grant or withhold the right of a People to choose for themselves how they will be governed.  For a right given can be taken away.  The People of the United States of America did not grant themselves the right, and they covenanted that they cannot rescind the right.  They declared with the authority of free men their inherent agency to come together to decide for themselves.
            Unspoken but inescapable is the corollary, that as for one of the People so for every one.  If not every one of those People has equal claim to that authority, then it follows that some have greater claim—and if some, then perhaps one, and there lies monarchy, tyranny, dictatorship, and slavery.

Though technically not a Framer of the Constitution, Jefferson can rightly be called its herald.  His articulation of principles in the Declaration of Independence memorialized that inherent agency to decide for themselves, which remains the central grain of sand round which the pearl of Freedom continues to grow:

We hold these truths to be self-evident,
That all men are created equal,
That they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,
That among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,
That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness

          One year almost to the day before that Declaration was signed, Jefferson had co-authored^[8] another document, “A Declaration by the Representatives of the United Colonies of North-America, Now Met in Congress at Philadelphia, Setting Forth the Causes and Necessity of Their Taking Up Arms”.  It begins:

If it was possible for men, who exercise their reason to believe, that the divine Author of our existence intended a part of the human race to hold an absolute property in, and an unbounded power over others, marked out by his infinite goodness and wisdom, as the objects of a legal domination never rightfully resistible, however severe and oppressive, the inhabitants of these colonies might at least require from the parliament of Great-Britain some evidence, that this dreadful authority over them, has been granted to that body. But a reverance [sic] for our Creator, principles of humanity, and the dictates of common sense, must convince all those who reflect upon the subject, that government was instituted to promote the welfare of mankind, and ought to be administered for the attainment of that end.

            A more clear description of slavery, omitting its brutality, delivered with a wry understatement that renders insupportable any justification for its existence within the entire human race, is difficult to frame.  And then follows a pithy statement concerning the purpose of government—to promote the welfare of mankind.  These distinctions were known, recognized, made.  Those great words of the Declaration of Independence and the Preamble of the Constitution did not include by specific mention women or negroes or Indians or white men with little property. Very true.  But more subtly they did not exclude them.

The question left to settle was, “Who is meant by the phrase, We the People?”  Union was the strategic priority at that time.  Compromise was necessary to achieve it.  On one side, slave States retained jurisdiction over their “peculiar institution.”^[9] But they gave up sole determination of its future by becoming part of a larger governance.  They gave up a degree of their claim to numerical strength in the national government by the three-fifths clause.  They gave up all their claim to continuing the slave trade after 20 years.
            Some who signed the Constitution surely thought no further than the present understanding of their time.  Others, with deeper philosophical insight and greater imaginative capacity, foresaw that political equality could not persist if restricted to a subset of the whole.  That is an oxymoron.  As for one of the People so for every one.  Madison omitted “slavery” from the Constitution, referring only to men, people, persons,^[10] and specific offices.  These propertied, white, slave-holding men left open the possibility for future generations to acknowledge, not grant, the political right of other human beings to their essential dignity in this great country.  And once We acknowledge that right, We also covenant that We cannot rescind it. THAT is the ever unfinished work, the great task remaining ever before us. It is our time, who are now alive, that we shall highly resolve that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable!