Philadelphia Convention Essay

It is well-known that over 620,000 Union and Confederate soldiers perished in the American Civil War. (“Council on Foreign Relations”) However, most people do not care to ask: could compromises made in the U.S. Constitution be partially responsible for these many deaths? After the unsuccessful implementation of the Articles of Confederation, the United States Congress held a meeting in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1787 to search for ways to revise the Articles, and perhaps create a new Constitution. This meeting was called the Philadelphia Convention, and was attended by fifty-five delegates from the states, now called the Framers of the Constitution. During the Philadelphia Convention, there was an obvious divide between the Northern and

Southern states due to their very different economic interests. The North supported tariffs and opposed slavery, while the South supported slavery and opposed tariffs. (Quigley 121) In order for the Philadelphia Convention to be successful, Congress decided to compromise on these two issues. However, the compromises in the Constitution intended to end disagreements between the Northern and Southern states only further alienated the states from one another, eventually leading the Southern states to secede from the Union.
During the Philadelphia Convention, tariffs, taxes on foreign goods, were a great source of controversy between the Northern and Southern states. The Southern states’ economy was principally based on agriculture, which relied on exporting raw materials produced by slaves, such as cotton, to Europe and the Northern states for a profit. On the other hand, the North’s economy was more diverse and did not depend on slave labor for the production of goods. The Northern states also contained the largest trade cities in the United States at the time. The North both produced their own products and had many commodities being imported from Europe, resulting in competition between local and external manufacturers. Thus, the Northern states wanted tariffs to be imposed by the Federal Government on foreign goods in order to benefit their states’ economies. (123) However, establishing tariffs would have hurt the Southern states, since they imported large amounts of manufactured goods which were necessary to keep their plantations running and to keep up with high demands from the Northern states, where the raw materials produced in the South were made into new products to be sold within the United States and traded with foreign nations. For these reasons, the Northern and Southern states disagreed on the issue of tariffs. (124)
In addition to tariffs, the North and South had very different views on slavery.

Slavery began in the Americas long before the establishment of the United States, but by the time the Philadelphia convention took place, many of the Northern states had officially ended the practice. (124) The Northern states had, as has been stated, more diverse economies which were not based solely upon farming, so they could afford to abolish slavery in their districts. However, the Southern states were heavily dependent upon slave labor to ensure the success of their plantation farming. “Defenders of slavery argued that the sudden end to the slave economy would have had a profound and killing economic impact in the South where reliance on slave labor was the foundation of their economy. The cotton economy would collapse. The tobacco crop would dry in the fields. Rice would cease being profitable.” (“The Southern Argument for

Slavery”)
Due to the ongoing disagreements between the Northern and Southern states at the Philadelphia Convention, the Framers, after long periods of debating, decided to compromise on the issues of tariffs and slavery.

In order to please the Northern states, the Framers decided to allow the Federal Government to impose tariffs and collect taxes. According to Article 1, Section 8 of the United States Constitution, “The Congress shall have the power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States; To borrow money on the credit of the United States; To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes…” (“Signed Copy of the Constitution”) In order to satisfy the Southern states, the Framers created the “Three-Fifths Clause” and the “Fugitive Slave Clause”. “Representatives and direct taxes shall be appointed among the several states which may be included within this union, according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.” (Article 1, Section 2) Thus, three-fifths of the slaves in the United States, the majority of which were located in the South, would be counted towards the

official population of the state that they resided in, determining the number of House members for that state and the amount which that state would be taxed. The South had worried that they would have no say in Congress, since much of their population consisted of enslaved individuals who were not previously counted in determining the number of representatives from each state in the House of Representatives. The “Fugitive Slave Clause” reads, “No person held to service or labour in one state, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labour, but shall be delivered upon claim of the party to whom such service or labour may be due.” (Article 4, Section 2) Since many states in the North were “free states,” where slavery was no longer allowed, the Southerners were afraid that their slaves would attempt to escape from their ownership to live in the Northern states. The “Fugitive Slave Clause” put their fears at rest because they would be able to retrieve their runaway slaves from the North, ensuring that their slave-dependent economy would continue to thrive.
Although the compromises made in the Constitution did resolve conflicts between the North and South for a while, the two factions soon began to disagree over the compromises. Even after the “Three-fifths Clause” and the “Fugitive Slave Clause” were included in the United States Constitution, many Northerners continued to oppose slavery. Despite the fact that the “Fugitive Slave Clause” prohibited slaves from fleeing the South and banned individuals from harboring runaway slaves in “free states,” many abolitionists, such as the Quakers, continued to take in slaves who were on the run from their masters in a system called the Underground Railroad. (“Causes of the Civil War”) In addition to this, the North reaped most of the benefits from the “Taxes and Tariffs Clause” of the Constitution, angering the South even further. The North was allowed both a free raw materials market due to imports from the South and a protected market for manufactured goods due to protective tariffs implemented by the Federal Government. However, the South did not enjoy the same profits from tariffs that the North did. “Because manufactured goods were not produced in the South, they had to either be imported or shipped down from the North. Either way, a large expense, be it shipping fees or the federal tariff, was added to the price of manufactured goods only for Southerners. Because importation was often cheaper than shipping from the North, the South paid most of the federal tariffs.” (Marotta) For these reasons, the South was very dissatisfied with the compromises made in the Constitution, while the North was completely content.
To the Southern states, all of these so-called “compromises” seemed appealing at first, but ultimately were not able to fulfill their needs and desires. According to the Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union,
“The General Government, as the common agent, passed laws to carry into effect these stipulations of the States. For many years these laws were executed. But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution. The States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa, have enacted laws which either nullify the Acts of Congress or render useless any attempt to execute them. In many of these States the fugitive is discharged from service or labor claimed, and in none of them has the State Government complied with the stipulation made in the Constitution.” (“Avalon Project”)
Because the compromises made in the Constitution favored the Northern states, the Southern states felt that their rights under the Constitution were being violated, which caused them to secede from the Union, one by one.
Although the compromises made in the Constitution were a temporary solution to the conflict between the Northern and Southern states, they favored the North, and were not suitable to be in place for a long period of time. Perhaps if the Framers’ compromises had been stronger, the Southern states would never have seceded from the Union and started one of the longest and most bloody wars of American history: the Civil War.