Slavery and the Constitution

In mid-May 1787, fifty-five delegates, representing every state except Rhode Island, assembled in Philadelphia for the single purpose of constituting a better and stronger central government. Four months later, the Constitution of the United States of America was born. In the Constitution, the word slavery did not appear even once; however, the issue of slavery was intertwined with other important issues. Some believe the Founding Fathers took a variety of positive steps that demonstrated their antislavery instincts and that, taken together, drastically reduced the slavocracy's potentia…