The Constitution and slavery part 2

I'm Walter Isaacson of the Aspen Institute and I'm here with Professor Joe Ellis and we've been talking about the Constitution now when they don't use the word slavery tell us that we have charles cotesworth pinckney sort of doing the southern side of it which is i think he says that but you know why they can't eliminate slavery South Carolina and Georgia cannot do without slaves they've gotten a cotton economy that's dependent on clearing swamps for cultivation no white man will do that labor and they are also dependent on a continuation of the slave trade they get their way with that it's it continued for 20 years so that there are several compromises that involve slavery so when the abolitionist movement comes along 50 years later the leaders of the abolitionist movement called the Constitution a covenant with death right and it was definitely a compromise it was a compromise and people at the time and there even historians now the right you know slavery in the Constitution kind of books in which they they sort of pound the founding fathers over the head here let's go back to that moment if they had confronted slavery directly if they had called South Carolina Georgia and to some extent Virginia onto the carpet here and said we are going to put slave you on the road to its ultimate extinction what would happen you wouldn't have got the Constitution and I think that's absolutely clear that's not a South Carolina and Georgia would not have become part of the United States so you couldn't have had one United States right and you have to make the compromise and fight it out later basically postponed it in the hope that you know like when you say something good will happen they actually think some of them in the north believe that slavery is going to die a natural death right that it's it can't compete with free labor they don't foresee the cotton Kingdom they don't foresee the cotton gin and John Adams is the one who says to John Quincy later 1818 by 1891 the Missouri crisis I always thought we were going to solve this peacefully now I know we're not go getting baby so occasionally you make the compromise for practical pragmatic reasons and it ends up being morally ambiguous and you have to resolve it later correct and you know George Washington let's end with him he's rather interesting he owns a hundred slaves right when he comes to the convention two hundred two hundred slaves he when he dies he owns three hundred and seventeen and he brings with him to the convention the Constitutional Convention when they're writing about this he brings with him three three slaves and his his manservant his Vallot is a slave called Billy Lee Billy Lee is his slave e-bot when he was 17 years old in 1768 to accompany him on the fox hunt he's the only person who could keep up with Washington on a horse and then he's with him throughout the whole war he is standing there in Philadelphia Majan the scene Washington didn't understand at the big chair Billy Lee is dead there are actually principles okay we're not making this up we can find ya here let's look right here there's a vis the picture of that be honest and uh standing off to the side handing him papers when he wants to send a message to one of the delegates sitting somewhere else getting him water and he's listening to this debate about him and you wonder what's he thinking what is Billy Lee what is Billy Lee thinkin and what is George Washington and what I think George Washington is not thinking about Billy Lee I don't or worrying about Billy Lee you know this is one of the great discussion points of our time which is when do you compromise and when do you hold true to moral principles I'm sure you're right that if they hadn't have compromise you wouldn't have had a Constitution with all thirteen states being involved but you can argue and I guess that's one of the great things about American history was that a moral compromise or an immoral compromise and by postponing it we finally had to resolve it with the civil war and six hundred and thirty two thousand people are going to have to die Lincoln thought it was worth it the compromise yeah well and the war itself you know the second inaugural is about how we have to wash ourselves in blood to have these sins eventually expiated or expunged and now that we're speaking will end with lincoln because that flashes forward one of the things he does when he does to get his burg addresses he not exactly refer back to the Constitution as the founding of the country he doesn't he and he should but he doesn't he the first sentence is four score and seven years ago our Father for fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation conceived in Liberty and dedicated to the proposition all men are created equal well as we've just said they didn't bring forward a new nation in 1776 they brought forth a confederation of sovereign states provisionally United to win the war then go their separate ways the nation comes into existence in 1787 88 with the convention and ratification but as we've also said even then it's left unclear how national and how state-based this is and so when Lincoln is doing is he's referring back not just to the Constitution which has all these compromises but also to the Declaration which in some ways gives us our founding ideals and he wants it he wants to get Valeo yeah that all men are created as he will say this I want to go back to the mystic chords of memory thank you very much professor