At the Constitutional Convention in 1787, delegates from each state met to design a new government that would protect the rights of all Americans. But at that time, over 600,000 black Americans were enslaved, with no protected rights at all. The question of how to treat enslaved people in a democracy caused long, powerful, and angry debate at the Convention.

The men who had fought for liberty during the Revolutionary War had many different opinions on slavery. Some believed it was wrong and should be illegal, while others thought it was acceptable. Many were somewhere in the middle. In this situation, coming up with a policy on slavery in the United States was very difficult.

In this lesson, you'll explore how slavery divided Americans into two groups: those who saw slaveholding as a crime against liberty, and those who saw it as part of their right to own property.

Goals
Here are the big ideas you will learn about in this lesson:

• Slavery was debated hotly at the Constitutional Convention
• Diversity and equality were not valued by all the delegates at the Convention
• Delegates compromised on some of their beliefs to agree on the final Constitution

Strategies
You will be using many reading and writing strategies to complete this lesson. The key strategies that you will focus on are:

• Determining important information
• Comparing and contrasting ideas
• Making inferences

• emancipation
• liberty

Thomas Jefferson called for freedom and equality in the Declaration of Independence in 1776. Yet Jefferson, like many wealthy Americans, owned slaves. Watch this video to find out more about Thomas Jefferson's definition of freedom.

Click "View" on the left to watch the video.

How do you think men like Jefferson could write about freedom but own slaves? Write down your thoughts in one to two sentences.

Before the Revolutionary War, the American colonies had laws that made slavery legal. But after the war, most Northern states began to pass emancipation acts (laws) that abolished slavery. In Southern states, slavery remained a key part of the economy. These states continued to pass strict laws that denied rights to slaves and gave more power to slaveholders.

As a result, when delegates met at the Constitutional Convention to create laws for the new nation, slavery was an important issue. Watch this video to learn about some of the different opinions the delegates had about how the ideas of liberty and freedom applied to slavery.

Click "View" on the left to watch the video.

What was one reason that pro-slavery delegates felt they had a right to own slaves?

The videos you have seen and the text you have read describe how slaveholding men thought slavery could be acceptable in a democracy, and how the issue of slavery divided Americans.

Now show what you've learned by answering these three questions. Be sure to save all your answers before you go to the next screen.

In this lesson, you have seen how delegates brought different attitudes toward slavery with them to the Convention. You will now read more about the debate.

Click "View" on the left to read the passage.

Then list two to three ways that slavery influenced different parts of the Constitution.

You will now check your understanding of the vocabulary words for this lesson by placing them in sentences. Click "View" on the left to begin the activity.

Choose two words from the vocabulary list and write a new sentence for each word.

Vocabulary words: abolish, convention, delegates, emancipation, and liberty

As the videos and the reading have explained, slavery was a major topic of debate at the Constitutional Convention. Think about what you have learned about how people at the time tried to justify slavery in a democracy. In this activity, you will compare the opposing values of those who supported slavery and those who wanted to get rid of it.

Click "View" on the left to begin the activity. Your teacher will review the answers with you.

Then, before moving on to the final assignment, you may want to watch this lesson's videos again or reread the passage.

Declaring Freedom

Video: 1m 49s

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Debating Slavery

Video: 1m 51s

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Debating Slavery

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In this lesson, you have learned about the debate over slavery that took place at the Constitutional Convention in 1787. You will now write an essay that shares what you have learned and what you think about it.

Begin by reviewing your notes. Click "review my work" above and view or print out the screen that pops up.

Final Assignment Instructions

• Click Slavery and the U.S. Constitution—Final Assignment (PDF).
• Choose one of the topics in the PDF and write an essay.
• Organize your response so that it includes at least three supporting details that you have learned from the reading passage, videos, and other materials in this lesson.
• Use at least three vocabulary words (or form of the words) as part of your supporting details. For example, for the word jump, you could use jumps, jumped, or jumping.