The Crooked Path to Abolition with James Oakes | BRI Scholar Talks

20+ minute interviews with modern authors and scholars on topics of U.S. History and Civics.

Students should be familiar with the debates surrounding slavery in the Constitutional Convention in Chapter 3. Students should read the James Madison and the Bill of Rights Narrative and Benjamin Franklin and the First Abolitionist Petitions Narrative for context before reading this Lesson.

This eLesson was written by Shannon Jones, a member of BRI's Teacher Council. Introduction: In the midst of the 1830s, Congress was not only stymied by the ongoing tariff debate and the sectional division created by this debate, but it also began to see a rise in anti-slavery petitions from abolitionists.

Today there are few more controversial topics in the study of American history and government than the issue of slavery and the Constitution. On the surface, the Constitution seemed to protect slavery in the states, prohibited Congress from banning the slave trade for twenty years, and required that fugitive slaves, even in the North, be returned to their masters. Because of these apparent constitutional protections, a bloody Civil War was fought to free the slaves and win ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment to end slavery in the U.S. forever. The Constitution, therefore, in the eyes of some scholars, seems to be a contradiction to the universal ideals of liberty and equality in the American Founding and the Declaration of Independence which proclaimed “all men are created equal” and endowed with “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”