Why Virginia ought to ratify the constitution

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Because "our negroes are numerous, and daily becoming more so." -- Edmund Randolph, in the Virginia ratifying convention, quoted in Kevin Gutzman, James Madison and the Making of America, p. 217

Comments

  1. Samson Corwell7:48 PM

    Huh. I'm not sure why that's a reason for ratifying the Constitution. You may have goofed when typed in the title, so that may be why I don't get it.

    Admittedly, I've attempted to rewrite the United States Constitution several times. Being the civil libertarian that I am, I took the "rationalist" approach and explicitly wrote out indefinite detention, assassinations, conscription, and taxes not placed on transaction while restricting secession and the powers of the state governments.

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    Replies
    1. gcallah8:41 PM

      "You may have goofed when typed in the title"

      Well, Siri goofed: now corrected. You might put yourself in slaveholder Randolph's shoes and ask why he would think that.

      Delete
    2. Samson Corwell9:26 PM

      Am I correct in guessing that they wished to ratify it because the Fugitive Slave Clause? I'm admittedly taking a literalist view of the Constitution in order to see how they would've interpreted it at the time. Having poured over laissez-faire/Rothbard-derived libertarian material I'm having trouble not looking at this in terms of economic regulation.

      Side note: Though I have to wonder: For all of Rothbard's siding with the anti-Federalists, he was fond of the laissez-faire economic policies that were in place after the Civil War.

      Delete
    3. gcallah12:07 AM

      Even more important, I think, was the 1808 ban on importation of slaves. Anti-ratification people, in fact, decried the delay.

      Delete

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