Slavery in the Constitution

Why did the Founding Fathers keep slavery in the Constitution?

Declaration of Independence

•On July 4, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was signed by our Founding Fathers.•Besides declaring our intended freedom from Great Britain, this document was a list, or indictment, of the wrongdoings of King George III.

Thomas Jefferson• Jefferson, one of the key

writers of the Declaration, was born to a slave-owning family and owned slaves himself.• Despite this, he included a

paragraph condemning slavery; this was eventually deleted from the final draft.

In your groups, Read the “Excerpt from Jefferson’s Slavery Grievance,”

and then answer the 3 “Guiding Questions” at the bottom of the

page.

All men are created equal?

•The Slavery Grievance didn’t make it into the Declaration of Independence in 1776, but the document did claim that, “All Men are created equal.”•Eleven years later, in 1787, the founders drafted the constitution, and they did not eliminate slavery.

This week’s big question

•why did the founding fathers keep slavery in

the constitution if the declaration of

independence claimed, “all men

are created equal?”