Slavery and its influence on writing the Constitution

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DARK BARGAIN: SLAVERY, PROFITS AND THE STRUGGLE FOR THE CONSTITUTION

By Lawrence Goldstone

Walker & Company, $24.00, 240 pages, illus.

REVIEWED BY ROBERT SEIDENBERG

Iconoclasm is such a popular pastime among the left, that one shudders at the thought of the sound bites that might emanate from this book if the usual gang of dead-white-man bashers (Katie Couric, Michael Moore, et al) takes a liking to it. But this realpolitik reassessment of the 1787 Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia -- far from demonizing the framers -- infuses them with a fullness of character that would tend to support a face-value reading (that is, a conservative interpretation) of the Constitution.

In the legendary view of the Convention -- the one we receive in school, on television and in most works of scholarship -- the debates surrounding our founding document constitute nothing less (or more) than a four-month colloquium on political philosophy conducted by the greatest minds since the golden age of Athens.

The issue of slavery could be but a footnote to such lofty proceedings. But in this week-by-week, sometimes day-by-day, chronicle of the Convention, Constitutional scholar Lawrence Goldstone brings forth a much different picture. To be sure, the grand philosophical colloquium did take place. However, this phase of the Convention, marked by an abundance of civility and graciousness, occupied only the first four weeks. The following 14 weeks -- marked more by sniping and sarcasm -- is where the real work was done, and the issue of slavery was central to it.

The first and largest conflict to be engaged was how the two legislative houses would be apportioned. Either or both houses might allocate seats by population, by wealth, by property-ownership or by state. Small (in population) states favored the status quo vote-per-state formula of the Articles of Confederation. Larger states wanted more equitable representation for their more numerous citizens.

Southern states, which were large if slaves were counted but small if they were not, opposed any arrangement that would give the North overwhelming numbers in the legislature. The civility of the early weeks gave way to bitter contention with charges and countercharges of power-mongering, and threats from all sides to walk out. It seemed on a number of occasions that the Convention would collapse.