Development of the American Constitution Essay - 1666 Words

The Constitution was originally constructed as a document to unify a young nation, ensure rights, and prevent one man from having too much power. In order for the Constitution to be ratified, it evaded addressing divisive issues between the north and south, as to keep both sections of the union in favor of the Constitution. As the nation as well as its dependency on slavery grew, the ambiguity of the Constitution gave way to tension on three major issues between the abolitionist north and the pro-slavery south-what the protocol should be pertaining to runaway slaves, the slave status of newly formed states, and could states legally and peacefully secede from the Union. Because of the Constitution’s inability to directly address these†¦show more content†¦Clay presented the compromise of 1850, on January 29th, after mulling over the compromise for eight months. The compromise stated that Texas would surrender the disputed land claims and in return would receive ten mil lion dollars from the government to pay the debt owed to Mexico. The territories of New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona, and Utah would be created but with no mention as to their preference towards being a free state or a slave state. Washington D.C. would discontinue slave trade, but still allow the owning of slaves. California would be added as a free state, and to appease the slave states, who would oppose the majority in Congress being free states, the Fugitive Slave Act was added. The Fugitive Slave Act was the most divisive out of all the components of the Compromise of 1850. This act required all citizens to help return runaway slaves. The new law created a force of federal commissioners given the power to follow the â€Å"fugitive† slave into any state and return them to their owners. There was no limit-meaning slaves who had been free many years could be returned. Citizens who refused to help in the pursuit of the fugitives received time in prison as well as fines. The captu red slave could not testify on their own behalf and did not have the right to a jury trial. Even if the slave had been a freed man, there was no means to prove it, leaving them powerless to beingShow MoreRelatedThe Development of the American Constitution Essay510 Words   |  3 PagesThe Articles of Confederation were approved by all the early American states in 1781, but by 1787, it was apparent that the Articles were insufficient for the young nation to operate on. A convention was formed with the priority job being to revise the Articles of Confederation; however, they only concluded that an entire new structure was needed to fulfill the demands of the growing country. The Constitution was then born. 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