Book contents
- The Antebellum Origins of the Modern Constitution
- Cambridge Studies on the American Constitution
- The Antebellum Origins of the Modern Constitution
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 The Constitutional Imaginaries of the Missouri Crisis
- 2 The Declaration of Independence and Black Citizenship in the 1820s
- 3 Abolitionism and the Constitution in the 1830s
- 4 The Slaveholding South and the Constitutionalization of Slavery
- 5 Theories of the Federal Compact in the 1830s
- 6 Slavery, the District of Columbia, and the Constitution
- 7 The Congressional Crisis of 1836
- 8 The Compact and the Election of 1836
- 9 The Afterlife of the Compact of 1836
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
4 - The Slaveholding South and the Constitutionalization of Slavery
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 October 2020
- The Antebellum Origins of the Modern Constitution
- Cambridge Studies on the American Constitution
- The Antebellum Origins of the Modern Constitution
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 The Constitutional Imaginaries of the Missouri Crisis
- 2 The Declaration of Independence and Black Citizenship in the 1820s
- 3 Abolitionism and the Constitution in the 1830s
- 4 The Slaveholding South and the Constitutionalization of Slavery
- 5 Theories of the Federal Compact in the 1830s
- 6 Slavery, the District of Columbia, and the Constitution
- 7 The Congressional Crisis of 1836
- 8 The Compact and the Election of 1836
- 9 The Afterlife of the Compact of 1836
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The 1830s saw a reconsideration of the institution of slavery across the South, in which the sense of slavery as an anomalous institution within a republican society gave way to the articulation of more aggressive claim of slavery as a positive good. As southern intellectuals and polemists shifted from apology for slavery to celebration of it, the sanctity of property rights both in slaves and more generally came to be interpreted as a measure of the Southern States’ success in balancing freedom and order. Alongside that shift, the importance of constitutions within the Southern imaginary grew. This chapter traces the constitutionalization of slavery that these developments gave rise to. In the first instance, slavery as an issue was “constitutionalized” through an overt association of slavery with constitutional rights. At a second level, constitutionalization proceeded in a greater attachment to extant constitutions and a call for their preservation as central objects of political life. This chapter shows how these two developments, placed together, resulted in a conflux of slavery and constitution that made defense of each imperative to the other.
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- The Antebellum Origins of the Modern ConstitutionSlavery and the Spirit of the American Founding, pp. 87 - 115Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2020