What would later become the American conservatives’ fixation on “small government” was inextricably tied up, first, with the protection of slavery, and then, after the Civil War, with the South’s efforts to preserve white supremacy. The South demanded “strict construction” of the Constitution, a kind of “originalism” that focused on the language of the Constitution, which protected slavery, against the liberals’ appeal to the Declaration and the “spirit” of the Revolution, which tended to undermine slavery. —
