The Constitution a pro-slavery compact; or, Extracts from the Madison papers, etc

by Wendell Phillips

Description

In 1831 William Lloyd Garrison (1805-1879) launched the American antislavery movement (as distinct from the abolition and manumission societies of the revolutionary period.) Garrison was more radical than earlier opponents of slavery, arguing that Americans should take steps to immediately end slavery. Garrison's newspaper, The Liberator, was the longest lasting antislavery paper in the nation. In the late 1830s Garrison hired the fugitive slave Frederick Douglass (1817-1895) as one of his show more agents, and sent Douglass across the nation to denounce slavery. Garrison's most important ally was Wendell Phillips (1811-1884), a graduate of Harvard Law School, a brilliant speaker, and a member of an elite Braham family in Boston. Phillips's cousin was the future Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. Garrison rejected in political action, arguing that the Constitution was proslavery, ultimately calling it a Covenant with Death and an Agreement in Hell. Many opponents of slavery initially rejected Garrison's arguments about the Constitution. But the publication of James Madison's Notes on the Federal Convention of 1787 shortly after Madison's death in 1836, showed the extent to which slavery was an issue at the Constitutional Convention. In this book Wendell Phillips published excerpts from Madison's papers to demonstrate the proslavery nature of the Constitution. He also published excerpts from the state ratifying conventions and other documents supporting the Garrisonian argument that the Constitution was indeed a?Covenant with Death.? show less