Zuckert presents theory on role of slavery in the Constitution

Throughout history there has been much heated debate about the role of slavery in the Constitution, but one Constitution Day lecturer argued that the answer is not so cut and dry.

Michael Zuckert, professor of political science at The University of Notre Dame, presented his theory that slavery was neither legitimized nor marginalized by the Constitution—but rather left as an issue for the states—at a lecture on Monday.

“In surveying the Constitutional provisions relating to slavery, what is striking…is how much they share this one characteristic—they are the places where it was unavoidable that the Constitution take some stand on slavery,” Zuckert said.

During the lecture—which was presented over lunch by the Gerst Program in American Values and Institutions—Zuckert pushed back on theories that the Constitution was either written as an endorsement of slavery or an attempt to kill off the institution. Rather, he argued that many modern views of the interplay between slavery and the Constitution are colored by the history of events leading up to the Civil War, when slavery became a real problem for the Union.

During the writing of the Constitution, Zuckert said, slavery was treated as an important but not critical issue and as a result was left in the purview of the states whenever possible.

Zuckert also questioned the tendency to read issues of race or slavery into certain often-cited clauses of the Constitution. He highlighted the three-fifths clause—which decreed that slaves should be counted as three-fifths of a person for purposes of taxation and Congressional representation. He argued that the clause was not a statement on the value of people of different races. Instead, it was a simple political and economic compromise which came from earlier precedents.

“This is probably the clause in the entire Constitution that has had more nonsense spoken about it than any other,” Zuckert said. “This was not a racial matter.”

During the question and answer portion of the lecture, several members of the audience pushed back against Zuckert’s claim that the Constitution does not legitimize slavery. He argued that the lack of explicit references to race or slavery in the Constitution implied that many of the founders believed the institution was illegitimate.