Long ago (13 days) and far away (here), /u/Georgy_K_Zhukov asked "How did the investment of New England shipping in the slave trade influence the stance of northern legislators during the political debates on the abolition of the international slave trade in the United States?" This was the best kind of question for me, since I knew enough to get started and had the materials I'd like on hand (mostly) but wasn't something I'd personally looked into. It took me a little while grew quite a lot in the research, and I'm always up for having an arrow shower, so here's the historical outpouring that resulted in several parts. You may want a lunch.

The Short Version

It's complicated and the context matters. The short version is "probably a little, but some and some decisive stuff back earlier." Ok then, everyone's satisfied so we can all go home, consume the beverages of our choice, and call it good. Or we could go deeper.

The Long Version

Right then, let's roll the clock back to Philadelphia, 1787. It's summer, that time of year when rich white guys sit down to fix the Articles of Confederation, good and hard. The Committee on Detail gets to work based on general things settled by the convention. Its members are John Rutledge (SC), Edmund Randolph (VA), James Wilson (PA), Nathaniel Gorham (MA), and Oliver Ellsworth (CT). That's two New Englanders, two Southerners, and a dude from Pennsylvania. The rest of the convention takes a break while they go to work, but not before Charles Pinckney (SC) tells everybody that

“that if the Committee should fail to insert some security to the Southern States ag[ain]st an emancipation of slaves, and taxes on exports, he sh[oul]d be bound by duty to his State to vote ag[ain]st their Report.”

Waldstreicher, David. Slavery's Constitution: From Revolution to Ratification (p. 89). Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Kindle Edition.

As if they could have forgotten.

The Committee on Detail's report bans taxes on exports and slave imports, and by the way there'll be no banning of those slave imports either. A few clauses down is a requirement for a two-thirds majority to pass any acts which would regulate trade, "navigation acts" in the parlance of the time. That first appears in Rutledge's hand. Together this tilts wildly Southern. The South's exports can't be taxed. Its slave imports can't be taxed. What can the South do that would get taxed? It's either excise taxes, which had gone not so well previously, or a tax on imports that be a drain on shipping. Who did the shipping? New England, New York, and Philadelphia, mostly.

This was enough to get some pretty serious debate going. The arguments against involved much of the obvious: the Constitution they were drafting was proslavery. The 3/5 compromise would promote slave imports, since the South could literally buy votes in the House and Electoral College. If slavery weakened the South by requiring more military spending to keep it together, as the section sometimes argued, then the whole union would be on the hook. And really, we fought a revolution for freedom and now we're going to protect slavery?

Rutledge, who chaired the Committee on Detail, gets up and argues otherwise: Hey, we're not saying import slaves. We're saying importing slaves shouldn't be forbidden. Two, the South doesn't need your dirty Yankee help protecting itself. The fact that we're all paranoid about slave revolts and sore at how the British made off with so many of our slaves? Doesn't count. But ultimately:

Religion & humanity had nothing to do with this question. Interest alone is the governing principle with nations. The true question at present is whether the South[er]n States shall or shall not be parties to the Union. If the Northern States consult their interest, they will not oppose the increase of Slaves which will increase the commodities of which they will become the carriers.

Waldstreicher, David. Slavery's Constitution: From Revolution to Ratification (pp. 94-95). Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Kindle Edition.

Rutledge said what everybody knew. There was a kind of alliance between New England and the Lower South operating. Ellsworth helped prove it by calling the antislavery element out for hypocrisy. If slavery was wrong, why were they just banning the import of slaves? This from a guy from Connecticut.

The convention soon found they were at a serious impasse, so they got together another committee to work out a compromise: Yes to a tax on slave imports but it couldn't go higher than the average of existing duties. No ban on slave imports permitted until 1800. Cool? Not cool. South Carolina moved to kick the date back to 1808. The change passed with the votes of New England, the Lower South, and Maryland.

Since New England was being so nice about the slave trade, the Carolinians flipped on the navigation act clause, which was then deleted. We end up with this, the slave trade clause:

The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a Tax or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person.

New England gets commerce-regulating power that it wants and the Lower South does not. The Lower South and New England team up to save the slave trade they're both interested in.

As everything subsequent in this post flows in one way or another from those words, let's unpack them a little. You have the usual constitutional circumlocution around slavery. The framers were sensitive to the notion that the Constitution would not explicitly sanction what they called "property in man". This fooled no one, but the distinction would eventually become very important in antislavery constitutionalism largely thanks to the efforts of Salmon P. Chase and James G. Birney, but getting well outside the scope of the question. (Fair game for follow-ups or subsequent questions, of course.)

The key parts:

• Congress will have the power, come 1808, to impose a total ban on the importation of slaves to the United States.

• Congress does not have that power until 1808, though it may impose a tax of up to ten dollars a head on such imports. Congress could literally make that the first act of the first Congress, pass it on the first day, and have it be the first thing to cross George Washington's desk.

• The clause applies to states, not to the United States in general. Congress can do whatever it likes with regard to territories. It can even ban taking slaves already in the US into territories. It will do so, banning the import of slaves to the Northwest, Mississippi, and Orleans Territories. Only the first of these bans is well known, and then as an absolute prohibition. That's how it was written, but the choice of the first governor and indifference in Washington ensured it was never more than a questionably-secure ban on imports. The bans on imports to Mississippi territory (modern MS and Alabama, mostly) and Orleans (Louisiana, naturally) were more explicitly that, but only in effect briefly and are allowed to lapse. These precedents are relevant to later antebellum stuff, but again that takes us well past the bounds of the question.

• The clause allows Congress to exercise its power to ban the importation of slaves to the United States in general on, or at any point after, January 1, 1808. It's not required to do so on that date or any other.

• None of this requires states to import slaves. All of them had enacted bans on it during the Revolution as part of the non-importation movement. But those bans were state law and could be reversed. They would be by Georgia (1787-98), North Carolina (1790-4), and of course South Carolina (1805-7).

Incidentally, all of these constitutional provisions are unamendable. They're entrenched in the Constitution to exactly the same degree as the two senators per state rule.

(More coming. I leave you in antici...)

I just had the wholly novel experience of having two peer-reviewed articles be accepted back-to-back, without revisions, within twenty minutes of each other. I think I'm going to go buy a lottery ticket.

Join our AMA on the Right Wing Revolutions of 1918-1945, tomorrow at 10AM EST/3PM GMT!

I went to teotihuacan (likely spelled that wrong) in Mexico and holy hell, they estimate like 150,000 or more people lived there! it's amazing to see just the small bit that's been unearthed

Because my apartment complex's management reiterated the place's no-pets policy, I decided to keep my cats indoors. But I don't want to suffocate (and have my corpse eaten by Sir Cat, Noire and Fireball), so I opened the balcony door, and erected a wireframe "wall" propped up with dumbbell weights.

Unexpectedly (since the weights are quite heavy), the feline trio managed to have a "human, tear down the wall" moment. I'm sure if Reagan is still alive he would've shed a tear while a bald eagle will screech while doing a fly-by.

I got asked to write an introduction to my Peoples Temple podcast for the jonestown review over at the SDSU Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple. So that is now a thing.

I'm going to introduce AskHistorians to a bunch of people and I'm terrified out of my wits. I'm still screaming inside from joy and fear.

Can anyone recommend some good books on the following subjects?

-Salvadoran Civil War

-Trung sisters rebellion

-Donghak Rebellion

Sabaton's new album releases today, everyone celebrate

fun little factoid I found out. Native American Indians fought in the 30 years war!!!

I didn't know it until /u/Cozijo told me, but Beekman gave a lecture at the Gilcrease Museum for their West Mexican exhibit and the Museum had recorded it. So if any of you are up for an hour and fifty minutes of learning about West Mexico, it's worth watching. It's definitely a lot better than the podcast episode I did.

Also the book he and Robert Pickering (who organized the exhibit at Gilcrease and gave a lecture) edited came out in July. It's titled Shaft Tombs and Figures in West Mexican Society: A Reassessment. I've only read chapters from it so far, but what I read was fantastic. I'm going to order it soon when I can scrape together the cash.

Does anyone know if the Chinese laborers who were imported to the U.S. to work on the First Transcontinental Railroad were coolies or indentured servants?

Here's a question that has been on my mind for some times, hopefully someone can answer it for me.

During WW2, was there any oversight of the Japanese pow camps or were they pretty much a free for all for the commander in charge of the camp? I'm talking about the camps were the Japanese housed the Allied soldiers and civilians.

I dunno if this is even the right sub or if the question is too modern or too vague, but I've been interested about the history of t-shirts with images/logos/words on them and how they came about/rose in popularity. They're used for expressing personality/affiliations now, but when/how did this become socially acceptable and popular? What sort of clothing or accessories might have served this purpose before t-shirts? Can anyone enlighten me - or help me figure out how to make this a good question for an actual post?

In your area of expertise, what is the most influential/important piece of art/literature and why?