Constitutional Compromises

In the previous blog I focused on the US Constitution's priority of protecting citizens' rights—to the unfortunate omission of their welfare and needs for education, health care access, or food. The Constitution was preoccupied with rights, rather than welfare. Another fatal defect of the Constitution was its compromise between northern and southern states over the issue of slavery.

The North generally adhered to the concept that “all men are created equal,” and believed that slavery was a fundamental denial of that ideal. The South's agrarian economy was completely dependent on the free services of enslaved people, however, and it adamantly refused to join the union, unless the institution of slavery was protected.

The result was a Constitution that attempted to gloss over the slavery issue by not even mentioning it, while acceding to the South's demands in two momentous ways: (1) the US Senate would constitute two representatives from each state—regardless of population, and (2) for purposes of determining the number of representatives in the House (which goes by population), slaves would be counted as 3/5 of a person (an appalling compromise). The less populated states of the South thus gained an inordinate advantage in Congress, which allowed it for seven decades to block any national legislation that would be to its disadvantage.

The unsustainable constitutional compromise finally ruptured in 1860, when Abraham Lincoln was elected president. In response, the South not only seceded from the Union (a constitutionally illegal deed), but committed an act of war by firing on a federal fort. The provocation was answered by the North declaring war on the South. After several years of vicious combat that caused massive destruction and loss of lives, the South surrendered. The US Congress—at the time dominated by northern states—abolished slavery and offered full citizenship to African enslaved people—including voting rights.

A new day seemed to have dawned in America, as Congress soon passed several additional laws that promised full rights to Blacks. Tragically, a new compromise was made, that canceled the federal government's Reconstruction Program, which would have ensured that the rights of Blacks would be equivalent to those of European descent. That compromise installed Rutherford Hayes as president, in exchange for an end to Reconstruction.

Although the Constitution (amended after the Civil War to eliminate the original compromises to slavery) officially guaranteed freedom and rights to formerly enslaved people, the South found new ways to block legislation and deny freedom to Blacks. The Jim Crow era (enabled by the end of Reconstruction) began. Nearly 100 years later new federal laws were once again implemented, spurred on by civil rights demonstrations throughout the South in the 1960s.

Despite these attempts to rectify “civil wrongs,” US institutions retain a significant degree of racist attitudes embedded within them. Much of that prejudice can be traced back to that original constitutional compromise, which formed the foundation of a national racial unjustness that persists, over 230 years later.