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1-009 Compromise of Shame
Vol. 1- No. 9
1995
Lead: Of the Issues facing the Constitutional Convention in 1787, among the toughest was that of representation in the new congress. One of the solutions that emerged was the Compromise of Shame. Intro: A Moment In Time with Dan Roberts. Content: In the early days the convention deadlocked over how to count black slaves. Southern states wanted slaves counted as freemen. Northern states wanted them counted not at all. The question was not one of morality for the delegates. A few members did harbor feelings of repulsion about slavery and later the convention took steps to bring an end to the slave trade after twenty years. But for the most part these were men of property and slaves were considered property. Land, ships, cattle, slaves: all property. Their solution was the “three-fifths compromise.” A census would be taken for the purpose of determining the membership of the lower house and each slave would be counted as three-fifths of a human being. In 21st Century retrospect the whole enterprise of counting human beings in a three-fifths ratio is loathsome. It is unfortunate that the nation's premier legal document should be blighted by this peculiar concession, and that national heroes such as Washington, Madison, and Franklin went along with such a scheme. Yet compromises, even repulsive ones, are often essential if representative democracy is to work. Without such compromises the Constitution would have been aborted and this country's national development retarded. Civil rights for all was an idea in its theoretical infancy. Some in the Convention thought slavery would just go away. Economically, it appeared on the wane. Yet, that very year, Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin and the South would soon need its slaves more than ever. Slavery would eventually lead to a bloody Civil War. Thus, in the steamy Philadelphia summer of 1787, in the interests of national unity, the Constitutional Convention adopted the Compromise of Shame. The Producer of A Moment in Time is Steve Clark. At the University of Richmond, this is Dan Roberts. Resources Bowen, Ezra. "Constitutional Convention, Philadelphia, 1787." Smithsonian. 1987 18(14), 32-43. Collier, Christopher and James Lincoln Collier. Decision in Philadelphia: The Constitutional Convention of 1787. New York: Random House, 1986. Finkelman, Paul R."A Covenant with Death: Slavery and the U.S. Constitution." American Visions. 1986 1(3), 21-27. Peters, William. A More Perfect Union. New York: Crown Publishers, 1987. Rakore, Jack N. "Philadelphia Story." Wilson Quarterly 1987 11(2), 105-121. Copyright 2006 by Broadcast Partners, LLC LAC071006
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