This activity is part of Module 12: Slavery in America: From the Founding to America’s Second Founding from the Constitution 101 Curriculum
Generations of Americans battled over slavery and the Constitution—with each side laying claim to the Constitution’s text and history.
A range of voices—both pro-slavery and anti-slavery—turned to the Constitution’s language and constructed arguments to favor their side of the great constitutional battles over slavery in the 1800s.
But it’s also important not to forget the human cost of slavery—the violence, forced labor, the families were torn apart, wives sold away from husbands, and children from parents.
And every right that we cherish is violated: no right to speak, pray, read, learn, gather together, or to a fair process before we’re punished or lose our freedom. No right to marry and raise a family, or to earn a freely chosen living, and so on.
Finally, let’s also not forget that African Americans played a central role in this story of constitutional transformation.
In the late 1700s and throughout the 1800s, African Americans played a key role in the nascent abolitionist movement. These voices fought for the rights of free African Americans, and they demanded emancipation for enslaved people.
They also advanced a powerful vision of equal citizenship—a vision that the Reconstruction generation would later write into the Constitution with the ratification of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments.
To further explore this topic, download the attached info brief!
