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How the Constitution was a cause of national disunity in the USA
Colin Lieberman
11/24 4?
Although the authors of the Constitution constructed a document that bound
together the existing states, they were unable to foresee social and economic
changes that would tear the Union apart. They wrote into it clauses that were
well suited for the late 18th century, but unfortunately brought only tension
and discord 65 years later. The most controversial issue that added to the
fissure of the Union was slavery. The economy of the agrarian south depended on
it, while ?high-minded? industrial northerners shunned it. By the 1850s, one of
the key facets of the slavery issue was whether or not to allow it in new
territories. Northern abolitionists argued that there was no Constitutional basis
for slavery, and that it should be disallowed in new territories. Southerners
argued that the Constitution recognized slavery as an existing institution, and
therefore validated its existence. On the eve of the Civil War, it was clear
that the Constitution had become a source of disunity, and conducive to volatile
north/south sectionalism.
In September of 1850, Congress passed a fugitive slave law that fined or
imprisoned any man or woman that interfered with bringing escaped slaves back
to their masters. American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson attacked this law,
calling it an ?immoral contract...which enacts the crime of kidnapping...
[which] is suicidal, and cannot be obeyed.? Emerson?s view was one held by many
other northerners. Blacks in Boston were warned by abolitionists to ?shun.. in
every possible manner? the police of Boston, who were empowered by law to act
as bounty hunters for southern slave holders. The fact that law can be passed
that engenders harsh views like Emerson?s, clearly shows that the law making
process, as outlined by the Constitution, was faulty, and did not represent the
people fairly.
Allowing slavery to spread onto new soil was another cause of disunion.
Neither side would consent to admit one sort of state or territory, without that
admittance of a state of the other sort. The Missouri compromise admitted Missouri
as a slave state, and Main as a free state. The compromise of 1850 admitted
California as free state, and left the status of Utah Territory and New Mexico
Territory to popular sovereignty. Again, the decision making power of the
Constitution came under scrutiny. Do individual states have the right to decide
for themselves issues like slavery? Abolitionists argued that Congress has the
right to make ?all laws...necessary and proper? as outlined in Article One,
section Eight of the Constitution. However, southern states-righters argued
that since the right to regulate slavery is not defined as a power of the federal
government, it is an issue granted to the individual states, as outlined in the
Tenth Amendment. States-righters also argued that slavery was a legitimate
enterprise in the eyes of the authors of the Constitution, and it is recognized
in Article One, Section Two, which states that representation in the House is
based on the whole number freemen and paid servants, plus three-fifths of all
other men, excluding indians. The only possible definition of all other men, is
slaves. No legal document this ambiguous towards moral issues could expect to
last very long against disunity.
When many southern states realized that arguing with northern abolitionists
over a way of life was futile, they opted to secede from the union. The
founding fathers had never taken into consideration this eventuality. There was
no standing law or precedent. Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy
argued that states have the right to secede. He argued that the federal
government was nothing more than a way of standardizing trade and taxation among a
conglomeration of consenting sovereign states. He argued that the structure of
the Constitution placed ?beyond any pretense of doubt the reservation by the
States of all their...rights and powers.? On the other hand, Union president
Abraham Lincoln argued that territories that had been purchased, and
assimilated into the nation, which included almost every existing state and
territory except the original 13, was never a state, and had no rights to claim.
He argued that it was illogical that these states should claim ?power to
lawfully destroy the Union itself.?
Any legal document that leaves room for such heated argument will not
reamain a binding document in a democratic society. The Constitution left so
much open to interpretation, without authorizing a body to interpret it,
facilitating the national split. Both sides had clear cut Constitutional basis
for their arguments, such as the Necessary and Proper clause versus the Tenth
Amendment. This document that was intended to bind the states together, had
become the direct cause of controversy and bloodshed by 1861.
page 2
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