A brief thread on how slavery was almost abolished in 1790, but was defeated by just 4 votes.

Info is from actual historian and author of the Pulitzer Prize winning book, Founding Brothers, Joseph Ellis.

In 1790, before Hamilton’s financial plan was passed, Quaker delegations from NY & PA petitioned the House of Representatives to end the African slave trade immediately.

Predictably, representatives from slave labor dependent states like Georgia and North Carolina were besides themselves. Downright apoplectic.

They believed that even the mere mention of slavery within congress was out of bounds.

What’s more, the issue of the slave trade had already been codified into our constitution. The Constitution explicitly stated that the slave trade couldn’t be restricted or abolished until at least 1808.

Knowing that the slave trade was protected by the newly ratified constitution, James Madison allowed for the Quaker petition to be forwarded to committee where the matter would be given a quick and quiet death.

However, the next day another petition made its way into congress.

This second petition from the Pennsylvania Abolitionist Society asked congress to end slavery entirely.

The petition cited that it was incompatible with the values for which the revolution was fought & that congress had the authority to end it by deeming it “necessary & proper”

This second petition was endorsed under Ben Franklin’s signature, which in today’s terms would carry a similar weight to an endorsement from Obama

Madison’s plan to quietly sweep the issue of slavery under the rug was shot. The House put itself into committee & the debate was on

For the first time in our history, the issue of slavery was being discussed in a public forum on a national level.

Nearly everyone at the time was in agreement that slavery was wrong, but this was a chance for us to put our money where our mouth was and do something about it.

The debate kicked off with Thomas Scott of PA, arguing on behalf of the petitioners that although the Constitution prohibits ending the slave trade, it says nothing about ending slavery itself.

This technicality gave abolitionists their best shot at winning emancipation.

The proslavery rebuttal began with Georgia reps James Jackson & William Loughton Smith. The two argued that the economies of southern states relied heavily on unpaid labor, stating that “no white man would perform the tasks required” to tend the land.

The proslavery reps from GA, also proclaimed that the southern states only agreed to the ratification of the Constitution on the precondition that slavery be allowed to continue without Northern interference.

They believed this debate was a violation of that understanding.

Thomas Scott then made the argument that the defining text in regards to slavery was not the Constitution, but in fact the Declaration of Independence which clearly stated that “all men are created equal.”

Throughout the progression of the debate suggestions were made to buyout slave owners, and that failure to act would lead to a slave insurrection.

Madison suggested compromising on the issue by banning slavery in western territories.

The debate concluded after a vote to refer the petitions to a committee resulted in a 43-11 vote.

7 of the 11 votes against going to committee came from SC & GA.

The findings of the committee were reported a little over a month later and each side delivered enhanced versions of the their original arguments, except with one additional factor.

South Carolina and Georgia vowed to secede from the union if slavery was outlawed.

Threat of secession at a time when our nation was still so fragile spooked many reps into shelving the fight for what they thought was the greater good of our nation.

This ultimately led to a 29–25 vote in favor of extinguishing any federal plans for emancipation.

4 votes was the difference between us setting slavery on a path to extinction in 1790 or having to fight a bloody civil war 70 years later to achieve the same goal.

There have been those willing to fight to achieve our nation’s founding promise from the very beginning, and there are those who have fought to undermine it.

In 2016 we lost that fight.

In 2020 let’s win it.

Happy Fourth of July.