Focht 1

Jesse Focht
Professor Jackson
HIST 1700
25 April 2016
Why Didnt Slavery End with the Revolutionary War?
When Lafayette visited America, long after giving aid during the revolution, he was
shocked by what he saw. Here was a country that he sacrificed much for in the name of liberty.
Liberty, freedom from oppression, and other ideals that the colonists espoused and died for.
When he saw the manner in which the American slave holders treated their slaves it bothered
him so much that he said I would never have drawn my sword in the cause of America if I could
have conceived that thereby I was founding a land of slavery (Foner 250). While the most of the
world had moved on from slavery, America was stuck in a rut.
In the late eighteenth century slavery was not a new problem. In fact, many people did
not view it as a problem at all. Slavery was considered an economic necessity by most of the
founding fathers. However, slavery was also viewed as a great evil and a curse on the American
people by others. By the time the revolutionary war began in the American Colonies, there were
people calling for slavery to end. How could a system of oppression exist simultaneously with
the enlightened ideals of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? And if the revolution was
about freedom from oppression, why didnt slavery end with the revolutionary war? In this paper
I will postulate that slavery did not end for three primary reasons: the rise of capitalism, faulty
science, and a fear of disunity in the colonies.

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It may be hard to see how capitalism may have contributed to the entrenchment of
slavery, but in many ways it set the framework for slavery to persist. In 1775 a man named Adam
Smith published a groundbreaking work called An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the
Wealth of Nations but he didnt write it in isolation. One of his mentors, and chief
correspondents, was none other that Benjamin Franklin (educationscotland.uk.gov). Smith would
send chapters to Franklin as he wrote them to get feedback. Franklin had a heavy influence on
Smiths work, and because of that connection, Smiths work played a large role in the shaping of
the new American economy.
The ideals laid out in Wealth of Nations challenged the old paradigm and introduced
laisse-faire capitalism. Before Smiths work made its way onto the world scene, mercantilism
still held sway over trade and trade was viewed as a way of building up national power. In that
system, there wasnt as hard of a drive for production and money making. Thats not to say, of
course, that people werent interested in making money. But what happened when people were
allowed to trade in the capitalistic method was that production went up. This meant that cotton
became more lucrative, tobacco could be sold with greater freedom, and more money was always
over the horizon. The newly formed open economy influenced people to seek capital at a much
higher pace.
In the northern colonies, manufacturing was the chief form of income. Laisse-faire
capitalism benefited manufactures as much as producers of raw materials, but they needed less
man power to achieve their ends. The north, therefore, was less dependent on slavery to generate
income. This freed them up to pursue abolition sooner than the south, as it had little effect on
their economy.

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In the south, it was a different story. Prior to the revolution, some of the southern
colonies, particularly Virginia, were already considering abolition. After the revolution, the
southern colonies doubled down on slavery. Virginia even became one of the biggest exporters of
slaves in the newly formed country (Mecklin). Even though the ratified constitution sought to
limit the slave trade by 1808, it pushed southerners to rely on breeding slaves (Van Horne).
Other southern colonies pushed hard for slavery at the constitutional convention. South
Carolina was the biggest pusher and, arguably, they were more concerned about being able to
keep their slaves than any other issue. Why might this be? In South Carolina slaves were the
primary workforce of their society and had been for well over a cenury. And with the ever
increasing demand for raw goods, especially cotton, they needed more unfree labor to keep up
with new found demands if they wanted to be relevant in the new world economy.
This was one of the primary reasons why their delegates came to the convention, and why
they would have pulled out of the union if they couldnt get their way (Madison). With that
looming threat hanging over the constitutional convention, many of the founders, even ones who
vigorously opposed slavery, decided it would be better to allow slavery to exist than risk losing a
fragile union of the states. Had the Union dissolved, the revolution would have been in vain, and
it would have opened the door for recolonization if not anarchy.
This fear of disunity may have been the central reason that slavery didnt end right away.
Even as Great Britain, France, and the Netherlands ended slavery at the start of the nineteenth
century, America lagged behind until a bloody civil war would end it once and for all. So how
could a fear of disunity really be greater than the cognitive dissonance of believing in liberty and
owning slaves?

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America made it through the revolution, but not without help, and certainly not for free.
American owed a large debt to the countries that aided them as well as to the soldiers who
fought. In the early days after the revolution, America had to figure out how to have a new
economy in order to repair damages and pay debts. The Articles of Confederation got them
through the war, but soon proved unreliable in managing this fledgling country.
The only way to survive as a nation not only economically, but also politically, would be
a unity of the newly formed states. If the states couldnt work together, they couldnt survive.
Disunity would have made the states vulnerable to other world powers who might have seized on
the weakness to take over. What would stop Britain from sweeping back in and reclaiming what
they had just lost? The country falling apart before it could get its feet off the ground would have
made all of the sacrifices of the war for nothing. Even the ideals of liberty would have likely died
if the Union couldnt persist.
Does this validate slavery or the decisions to retain it following the war? By no means.
Slavery was a great evil and more people would realize it every day for the next eighty years.
But it was this fear of disunity that would ultimately drive many of the founders to turn a blind
eye, even if they personally didnt like slavery, and allow it to survive when they had a golden
opportunity to let it simply die. While there are many people to blame for the failure of the
convention in ending slavery, one man stands above the rest: Charles Pinckney, one of the
delegates from South Carolina.
Charles Pinckney and his cousin, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, were two of the four
representatives present at the constitutional convention representing South Carolina. While both
voiced their displeasure with the idea of abolition, Charles Pinckney was the more outspoken of
the two. According to the Bill of Rights Institute, many at the convention distrusted Pinkney,

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thinking he was too young, too proud, and too ambitious. During the course of the convention,
Pinckney would express his views on every topic, speaking more than one hundred times. Later
in life he would speak so much about his presence at the convention that people referred to him
as Constitution Charlie.
Aside from his ambition and apparent vanity, he also jealously guarded the southern
states rights and their right to slavery. One notable date was August 21, 1787 when the issue of
ending the importation of slaves was brought to the floor of the constitutional convention.
Charles Pinckney bluntly said:
South Carolina can never receive the plan if it prohibits the slave trade. In every
proposed extension of the powers of the Congress, that State has expressly & watchfully
excepted that of meddling with the importation of negroes. If the States be all left at
liberty on this subject, S. Carolina may perhaps by degrees do of herself what is wished,
as Virginia & Maryland have already done
He did not stop there. The following day, the debate continued. This time, when Charles
Pinckney spoke he want further than before stating that:
If slavery be wrong, it is justified by the example of all the world. He cited the case of
Greece Rome & other ancient States; the sanction given by France, England, Holland &
other modern States. In all ages one half of mankind have been slaves. If the S. States
were let alone they will probably of themselves stop importations. He wd. himself as a
Citizen of S. Carolina vote for it. An attempt to take away the right as proposed will
produce serious objections to the Constitution which he wished to see adopted.
[Emphasis mine].

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His comments were likely true. Had the congress tried to intervene in the slave trade,
South Carolina and Georgia would have been unlikely to adopt the constitution. Both Pinckneys
at the debate said nearly the same thing, offering what can almost be seen as a veiled threat. Even
John Rutledge, also of South Carolina, said If the Convention thinks that N. C., S. C. & Georgia
will ever agree to the plan, unless their right to import slaves be untouched, the expectation is
vain. The people of those States will never be such fools as to give up so important an interest.
Their message was clear: leave the issue of slavery alone, or forget about the unity of this new
nation.
There were men present who spoke against slavery. Some men argued against slavery as
a moral issue, but others were focused on economics. George Mason sparked the comments
above when said:
The present question concerns not the importing States alone but the whole Union
Maryland and Virginia have already prohibited the importation of slaves expressly. North
Carolina has done the same in substance. All this would be in vain if South Carolina and
Georgia be at liberty to import. The Western people are already calling out for slaves for
their new lands, and will fill that Country with slaves if they can be got through South
Carolina and Georgia. Slavery discourages arts and manufactures. The poor despise labor
when performed by slaves. They prevent the immigration of Whites, who really enrich
and strengthen a Country. They produce the most pernicious effect on manners. Every
master of slaves is born a petty tyrant. They bring the judgment of heaven on a Country.
As nations can not be rewarded or punished in the next world they must be in this. By an
inevitable chain of causes and effects providence punishes national sins, by national
calamities. I lament that some of our Eastern brethren have from a lust of gain embarked

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in this nefarious traffic. As to the States being in possession of the Right to import, this
was the case with many other rights, now to be properly given up. I hold it essential in
every point of view that the Genl. Govt. should have power to prevent the increase of
slavery.
The fact that they came up with the idea to limit and eventually end the importation of
slaves by 1808 was nearly miraculous in light of the South Carolinian attitude. Even with George
Mason and others arguing for the end of slavery, their motives were as much economic as moral.
Masons prediction was partly right in his view that slavery would become even more entrenched
in South Carolina and Georgia. The only thing he didnt expect was that his home state, Virginia,
would reverse their trend toward abolition in the coming decade However, they stopped short of
coming up with a plan, even a gradual plan, for the abolition of slavery. Some of this can be
attributed to some of the faulty science of the day.
Thomas Jefferson was a prominent statesman, but he was also a devout student of
science. He kept up with all of the cutting edge theories and even opened a University that is still
in existence to this day. Many people can remember his famous words memorialized in the
Declaration of Independence (US 1776) that say:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are
endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life,
Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
What many people might not know is that he had another paragraph in the Declaration of
Independence calling for the end of slavery. In the end, before some of the southern colonies
would agree to adopt the Declaration of Independence, it was decided that it should be struck
from the document. But the record still exists and the removed paragraph is as follows:

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He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of
life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating &
carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere or to incur miserable death in their
transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the
warfare of the Christian King of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where
Men should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every
legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce. And that this
assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those
very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has
deprived them, by murdering the people on whom he has obtruded them: thus paying off
former crimes committed again the Liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges
them to commit against the lives of another.
Its clear in the above passage that Jefferson had a negative view of slavery. He calls it a
cruel war against human nature itself and a violation of the most sacred rights of life and
liberty. Now, knowing that Jefferson would write so strongly against slavery, how could he also
hold slaves and allegedly have children with one of them? The answer to this obvious cognitive
dissonance is a flaw in one of his key scientific beliefs, that Africans were a lesser form of
human.
In the writings of Thomas Jefferson, you can see his conflict of beliefs played out in his
numerous letters to friends and colleagues. In one sentence he would say he didnt think that men
should be enslaved and had a hard time keeping slaves in light of his views on liberty. Then, in
the next sentence he would say that they might not be able fend for themselves if freed. He
thought of them as incapable as children and as racially inferior to whites as seen in a letter to

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Edward Coles (Jefferson). This was based on what he believed to be scientific fact. Even when
he would advocate for the end of slavery (though done through the democratic process) he didnt
believe whites and blacks could live in the same nation peacefully. He thought it would be best to
have slaves removed back to Africa rather than have a race war similar to the Haitian slave revolt
of 1791.
While Jefferson held a lot of wrong beliefs about the African race, his views on ending
slavery were radical for his time. Remember, slavery was common in his day. It had been around
for over a hundred years before he was born. The fact that he was enlightened enough to view it
as a cruel war against human nature and contrary to liberty is nothing short of remarkable. He
may have failed on several fronts in his belief systems, but he still viewed slavery as holding a
wolf by the ear, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. (Jefferson to Holmes). One
of his biggest fears was that it would divide the nation into two, those for and against slavery,
and come with a terrible price of civil war. He didnt live to see that his prediction was right.
Why focus so much on one mans beliefs when there were so many people shaping the
nation? Jefferson was one of the most influential people of his day. While some people disagreed
with his beliefs, such as Alexander Hamilton, he still worked hard for a liberated nation. His
words on life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are some of the most quoted words in
America. And his belief system clearly shows the conflict of interests that upstanding people
faced in the late eighteenth century.
While Jefferson was a radical thinker in many ways, it would be unfair to the memory of
his slaves to say he had no choice in the matter of their freedom. Jefferson, for all of his disdain
regarding slavery still couldnt bring himself to free his slaves during his lifetime. It would be

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wrong to continue the line of thinking that justifies or excuses his lack of action by saying he
couldnt find a reasonable plan to free them as some historians have done.
One of Jeffersons contemporaries that gets lost in the shuffle of history freed all of his
slaves and set them up with a chance for a decent future. That mans name was Robert Carter III,
one of the wealthiest men in Virginia, one of the largest slave holders, described by historian
Andrew Levy as the Anti-Jefferson. Although I wont go into great detail here, it should be noted
that he not only freed his slaves, he freed more slaves than any other plantation owner in his day.
He is forgotten perhaps because of his failed attempts at statesmanship. He was no towering
figure in those early days like Washington and Jefferson, but he was a patriot who donated to the
cause of liberty during the revolution. He was a patriot who took to heart the radical ideals of
freedom and released his slaves. There were others like him in those days before 1808 when the
problem of slavery became more entrenched and bitterly defended by those who decided they
couldnt go without slaves, but he was one person who seemed to have more to lose.
Earlier I also mentioned Benjamin Franklin in his involvement in shaping the new
economy. He was also one of the most prominent men of his day. Early in life Franklin owned a
few house slaves, which wasnt uncommon in Pennsylvania, even if not as extreme as southern
colonies. Even though he once owned slaves, near the end of his life he would become the
president of the Pennsylvania Abolitionist Society (Franklin). He even signed a petition calling
for the end of slavery that was sent to the constitutional convention. His change of heart should
be viewed as a cross section of northern thought.
In the north, people turned more towards abolition as their need decreased. In the south
people clung to slavery as a necessary evil. Later as northerners would push more for abolition,
southerners would not only cling to their belief and practice of slavery, they would change their

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tune. In the south, slavery evolved from a necessary evil into a positive good in popular thought.
There were many different ways of thinking and it is essential to realize that. Over the years the
founding fathers have been elevated to a heroic status. The reality is, they were simply men.
They had an imperfect view of the world like every human in history and did what they thought
was right with what they knew to do. There were triumphs and failings all around. Its hard to
say if slavery could have ended sooner and with less bloodshed. Harder still to imagine the union
of the states being preserved had there been a greater push for abolition at the constitutional
convention.
These men, and others at the first continental congress, were closest to the flame of
liberty and couldnt help but to be touched by their enlightened thinking. They couldnt cry
liberty and ignore slavery. The more honorable men wrestled with the idea until they came to the
conclusion that slavery stood as a monument to hypocrisy in liberated idealism. So why didnt
slavery end with the conclusion of the revolutionary war? The answer is fear of disunity in a
struggling nation, new economic growth, and flawed science. Had fear not won the day, perhaps
slavery would have ended earlier and with far less bloodshed.

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Works Cited
Smith, Adam. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, (1776). London:
Methuen, 1950. Print.
Free trade and the making of America educationscotland.gov.uk. Education Scotland. Web. 28
Mar. 2016
Jefferson, Thomas. The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Being His Autobiography,
Correspondence, Reports, Messages, Addresses, and other Writings, Official and Private
(Washington, D.C.: Taylor & Maury, 1853-1854).
Mecklin, John M. The Evolution of the Slave Status in American Democracy. The Journal of
Negro History. Vol. 2, No. 2 (Apr. 1917) pp. 105-125. Print
Van Horne, John Douglas. The Southern Attitude toward Slavery. The Sewanee Review. Vol.
29, No. 3 (Jul. 1921). Pp. 322-350. Print.
Madison, James. The Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787 reported by James Madison:
August 22. The Avalon Project at Yale University Law School.
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/debates_822.asp. Print accessed online.
Jefferson, Thomas. Jefferson to Edward Coles, August 25, 1814. The Thomas Jefferson
Papers. Transcription available at Founders Online. 2016. Print.
Jefferson, Thomas. Jefferson to John Holmes, April 22, 1820. Thomas Jefferson Papers.
Special Collections, University of Virginia Library. Transcription available at Founders
Online. Print.

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Petition from the Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery, signed by Benjamin
Franklin, President of the Pennsylvania Society, February 3, 1790, Records of the United
States Senate, Center for Legislative Archives. Print.
Levy, Andrew. "The Anti-Jefferson: Why Robert Carter III Freed His Slaves (And Why We
Couldn't Care Less)." American Scholar 70.2 (2001): 15-35. Art Full Text (H.W. Wilson).
Web. 24 Apr. 2016.
Founders and the Constitution: In Their Own Words. Arlington, VA: Bill of Rights Institute,
2004 pp. 126-138. Print.
Foner, Eric. Give Me Liberty!: An American History (Brief Fourth Edition) (Vol. 2), 4th Edition.
W. W. Norton & Company, 20140205. VitalBook file.