Between which three constitution was the slave trades carried out
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Answer:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
— Declaration of Independence, 1776
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Thomas Jefferson presented the Declaration of Independence to the Continental Congress in 1776. (Wikimedia Commons)
When the American colonies broke from England, the Continental Congress asked Thomas Jefferson to write the Declaration of Independence. In the declaration, Jefferson expressed American grievances and explained why the colonists were breaking away. His words proclaimed America’s ideals of freedom and equality, which still resonate throughout the world.
Yet at the time these words were written, more than 500,000 black Americans were slaves. Jefferson himself owned more than 100. Slaves accounted for about one-fifth of the population in the American colonies. Most of them lived in the Southern colonies, where slaves made up 40 percent of the population.
Many colonists, even slave holders, hated slavery. Jefferson called it a “hideous blot” on America. George Washington, who owned hundreds of slaves, denounced it as “repugnant.” James Mason, a Virginia slave owner, condemned it as “evil.”
But even though many of them decried it, Southern colonists relied on slavery. The Southern colonies were among the richest in America. Their cash crops of tobacco, indigo, and rice depended on slave labor. They weren’t going to give it up.
The first U.S. national government began under the Articles of Confederation, adopted in 1781. This document said nothing about slavery. It left the power to regulate slavery, as well as most powers, to the individual states. After their experience with the British, the colonists distrusted a strong central government. The new national government consisted solely of a Congress in which each state had one vote.
With little power to execute its laws or collect taxes, the new government proved ineffective. In May 1787, 55 delegates from 12 states met in Philadelphia. (Rhode Island refused to send a delegation.) Their goal was to revise the Articles of Confederation. Meeting in secret sessions, they quickly changed their goal. They would write a new Constitution. The outline of the new government was soon agreed to. It would have three branches — executive, judiciary, and a two-house legislature.
A dispute arose over the legislative branch. States with large populations wanted representation in both houses of the legislature to be based on population. States with small populations wanted each state to have the same number of representatives, like under the Articles of Confederation. This argument carried on for two months. In the end, the delegates agreed to the “Great Compromise.” One branch, the House of Representatives, would be based on population. The other, the Senate, would have two members from each state.
Part of this compromise included an issue that split the convention on North–South lines. The issue was: Should slaves count as part of the population? Under the proposed Constitution, population would ultimately determine three matters: