sentiments, as Alexander Stephens acknowledged in the Cornerstone Speech, but their regard for property rights, and the need to present the delegates from the southern colonies with a document they would be willing to ratify, prevented slavery from being illegalized at the nation’s birth. Between 1777 and 1804, all of the northern states had abolished slavery legally, though the Fugitive Slave clause in the Constitution forced those states to return escaped slaves to their owners in the south. The slave trade—that is, the importing of slaves from Africa or other foreign countries—was made
...more
