debated throughout the summer of 1787. next a discussion hosted by the colonial williamsburg foundation, a law professor and two actors who portray free and end vlade blacks at williamsburg discussed the role compromises slavery played in drafting the constitution. and the enduring legacy. those compromises. this program also includes two dramatic interpretations of 1780s african-americans. >> good evening. welcome to so important an interest. slavery and the united states constitution. i'm deirdre jones and i want to welcome you to our final event for our constitution weekend. you may know me as a programming lead for the actor interpreters for free and end slaved black people. this evening i have the pleasure of serving as your moderator.

i am joined by alley and hope. hope wright, my dear colleague, began her career at colonial williamsburg when she was in the third grade. she was a performer in a play on my own time, and the black music program. she has collaborated with many other departments at the foundation as well as with other museums over the course of her career. she has worked a variety of educational institutions as an actress, story teller, writer, refer, and mentor. please welcome hope wright. >> thank you. >> our special guest, ally larson, is a professor of law and director of the bill of rights law. cynic she joined the william and mary faculty in 2010, she has received many awards including the statewide outstanding faculty award in the rising star category. professor larson is a scholar of

constitutional law and legal institutions with a focus on how information dynamics affect both. her work has been featured multiple times in various publications and these are just a few of her accomplishments. please help me in welcoming ally larson. our discussion, it will be about an hour long this evening. and it may feel uncomfortable at times. that's okay. you may feel angry. that's okay. you may feel sad. that is also okay. all of these feelings arose for me when i was researching for our event and it is to know feel something. this reminds us that we care. while slavery is not the beginning of the story, for the purposes of diving into two very large topics in a very little bit of time, we'll start our weaving meeting lydia, a woman

from the time period who we find in her home speaking with elizabeth. did you know that hope has portrayed elizabeth derosario? why don't you introduce briefly liss liz. >> all right. she is a free black woman who lived in williamsburg, a mother of two daughters, caroline and suki, and also a property owner. so someone who did quite well for herself as free black woman in williamsburg. >> thank you. now lydia was legally enslaved to george, one of the delegates to the constitutional convention. this is behind us. in this interpretation, it is september 19th, 1787. we find lydia in her home sharing some important news with elizabeth.

>> it says be it known unto all men by these he presence that i george with of willsburg do emancipate and set free my negro woman slave lydia. even under my hand and seal this 20th day of august in the year of our lord 1787. [ laughter ] good day. i am lydia. and i am a free woman.

elizabeth, i don't know where my emotions will go this week. my emotions are a pendulum between elation and despair. i have yermd for freedom ever since i knew i was a slave. as you well know, elizabeth, the path for freedom for one born a slave is very, very difficult. almost impossible. and eve and agnes and lucy told me of their plan to join the british during the war, i thought of running, too. then i thought better of it. what would do i at a british war camp? i shudder to think what they have endured. what has become of all the people who sought their freedom?

by aligning themselves with so-called enemies of their so-called masters. no, i thought. this is not my battle. benjamin agreed. so we waited. we waited for mr. with's words and deeds to arrive. eloquent talk of these gentlemen about the rights of man is enough to make anyone hopeful. and i was hopeful when the declaration of independence said all men are created equal. but nothing changed for us. as the war started raging, my thoughts turned to our survival. freedom linger in the back of my mind as we lived through back of my mind with the devastation war brings. when i learned of the pass that

was, of the law that was passed. surely i thought now is the time mr. with will free us. he must free us. and so we waited. another five years, elizabeth, for what? for the death of my mistress? i will never know what they discussed in private. was it her dying wish to see us free? or her living wish that kept us enslaved? am i glad to be free of her? interesting choice of words, elizabeth. it is complicated.

i do mourn my mistress. it is hard to believe that she is gone. she and i developed a way of being with one another throughout the years. i ingratiated myself to her. perhaps this is a matter of survival. i helped her manage her household with the utmost skill and cleverness. and in return she allowed me a few comforts in this life. for that i am grateful. however, a mistress is a mistress. oh, you remember when i begged her to let me travel with her as her maid servant. 11 years ago, when they traveled to philadelphia in '76, yes, you do. when they traveled to philadelphia for the convention on the declaration of independence. i wanted to go.

i wanted to go so badly. of course, bench minute was driving and he would be gone for as long as they were. i wanted to immerse myself in the free black population of philadelphia. for the slaves there. in paris, paris was so young. i'm sure that fannie would have preferred to stay here and care for her child. her mistress reminded me of my place. you are housekeeper, lydia. your job is to tend to the house. what need is there for to you travel? fannie is my maid servant. she will travel and you will stay here and that is that. this beautiful home has been my

prison. when benjamin returned from philadelphia, he had about his encounters with the free blacks there. how we dreamed of freedom then. whispered about what we would do with it. and now we are free. and polywill be free when she matures and charles is free. but kate, rachel, lydia, lucy, bob, jamie, fannie, paris, isaac, rose, edwards will not be free. mr. with is giving them to the tollivers as a gift. they are to be divvied up amongst my dead mistress's dead nieces and nephews. it makes me want to cry and scream and crunch something. how can i celebrate my freedom,

bench ming's freedom when so many i love with still slaves? >> lydia was grappling with her new found freedom. but she has been enslaved most of her life. as it relates to lydia, and this time period, what is the definition of slavery? how would you define a slave? >> well, a slave person was somebody who was bound by slave laws. and i think that's important to point out that slavery is entrenched in the laws here in virginia. and all colonies. far and wide reaching. it changes people's classifications. it puts limits on what they can and cannot do. and it is not just one law or a handful of laws. it is hundreds of laws that are amended and strengthened over time. >> can you speak a little bit about the laws that codified

slavery here in virginia? or anywhere? >> all right. well, before we talk about the laws, there are a couple of cases that kind of set precedent. one is in 1640. and it involves three men he who are in servetude. victor a did you haveman, and james gregory, a scotchman. so they ran from virginia to maryland. they were caught and returned to virginia. they all committed the same crime. they were runaways. they were caught together. they did the same thing. but you begin to see racial differences in treatment with this case where victor and james gregory were made to serve their original owner one additional year in the colony of virginia for three years. john ponch was played to serve his owner and his heirs for the rest of his natural life

wherever they lived. >> and john punch was black. >> he was black. he is referenced as african in this record. but then you have another case that turns out a little different. in 1656, where you have a woman by the flaname of elizabeth key. she had a mother who was of african-american descent and a father named thomas key of english descent and rather prominent. and english law traditionally, everything goes through the father. and she had been bam tiptized a christian. so there were restrictions on how christians could be held in bondage, the type of bondage they could be held in. and thomas key made arrangementes for his daughter that after he died, if she was under the age of 18, she serve in this family and then be considered free at the age of 18. however, a great bit of time had passed since her 18th birthday.

she was into her 20s. and she sued for her freedom on the fact that it had been a breach of contract but two very important points was that she was baptized as a christian and her father was a free englishman. and we see a different outcome with this case where elizabeth key was found to be a free woman and she was also paid in bushels of corn, i believe, barrels of corn, for the additional time served in which she should have been free. so these are two legal cases that show different precedent. when the first laws passed, you can tell it is a little reactionary. the first slave law in virginia, when it is passed in 1662, it says where there is a have been questions as to the status of children born of an african woman and a white father, this law, 1662 states that the status of the child is that.

mother bond or free. >> which is something different than what you usually see in english common law? >> yes. everything goes through the father. things are bestowed. the first son inharts the most, rights, titles, what have you. so this is something very different. and this is something that will be very important as we do get a little bit closer to the constitution. you have set into motion, it is perpetual and hereditary. so by the time you get to the 1780s, most people who are large slave owners, they have gained those enslaved people through natural increase, through inheritance, through wives a dowries. when you think of people who own hundreds of end slaved people. you look at someone who owns 200, it is very like i that they didn't purchase 200.

they might have purchased a dozen or so. when you look at that pros and assess a value to that property, oftentimes when you look at inventories of the period, most of the value of the things that people own when they pass away will be vested in in slaves. so just that law alone has provided a snem which wealth is built just through natural way. that's just one. just one. >> so do you find other laws, other laws that are codified in this time period that sort of solidify or start to solidify the institution of slavery? >> yes. with elizabeth key's case's points. one of her points was that she was baptized as a christian. so we see that baptism does not alter a person's status, bond or

free. because there were other people. and that is something that should be pointed out. black people were still very active in trying to use the legal system at this time. and actually, even into the 18th century. now this long 1667 is closing another window. and you still continue to see enslaved people being baptized, closest to us in williamsburg and other parrish records. but oftentimes this becomes a way to keep track of the birth of an enslaved person. because now taxes are being paid on enslaved people when they become 16, which kind of leads to another law. more than just one law. the classification of enslaved people from the very beginning has always been that of property. and that is people, if you were indentured, or if you were an

apprentice, you have certain rights by virtue of being recognized as human in the eyes of the law. but from the very beginning, enslaved people are never recognized as human beings. >> thank you for that. >> you're very welcome. >> when you consider, you mentioned, she mentioned inventories, taking note of people and baptismal reg industries as people enslaved people will show up. those are things that i have used. hope has taught me to use them can. we also get into lydia, she receives her freedom in this, in that interpretation that you all saw. what were some path ways to freedom for enslaved people? especially once those laws started coming down in the 1660s. do you know of any enslaved people that received their freedom? >> well, you see, before kind of

like the big revision looking at slave laws also known as the black codes, oftentimes, it's individuals. one individual who petitions the court, or petitions the governor's council. when the black codes are solidified in 1723, you see a law pass states that for an enslaved person to be granted permission, they would have to provide some meritorious service or deed. and even then, the only people that could confer the status of freedom could grant that would be the governor's council. so we know that there were probably about 50 or 60 or so of those petitions. they go before the governor's council. and they're approved about two-thirds or so. but that is still a very small number of people who gauge their freedom that way.

>> and that's just looking at virginia. >> that's just looking at virginia. >> virginia in the 18th century was a very agrarian society. and cash crops such as tobacco, indigo, sugar, rice, they led us to believe, they lead us to believe that slavery was only in the south. now, will you all be able to speak a little on the regional differences over slavery heading into the constitution? >> well, by and large, there are two definitions. a slave society is where over half the population is enslaved. that is mostly the south where it is slave society. tobacco, indigo and rice that you mentioned. but the north is still very much a society with slaves where you have people working in homes a

little bit more, in taverns, skill trades. not that that didn't happen in the south as well but by and large, the whole economy is based on the agriculture there. so there is never an absence of slavery ever in any of the 13 original colonies and the same time the john ponch case is going to in virginia, massachusetts is the first comefully to legalize sleighory of the original 13. >> thank you. >> i was going to say the early colonies, slavery, the rate was equivalent in the north and south. by the time we get to 1787, there are pretty stark regional differences. a lot more enslaved people in the south than the north for the reason she suggests with the difference in the economy and the longer growing season, the thought that you need to have more slave labor to take advantage of that growing season. so that sets up some pretty

fierce battle lines when we get to the convention in 1787. >> let's go there. let's jump right into 1787. and that time period before the how many delegates to the constitutional convention owned slaves? >> so there are 55 delegates to the constitutional convention. we've all heard the stories, a hot summer in philadelphia. they've taped up the windows. of those 55 people, 25 of them owned slaves. almost half. but i think it is important to recognize that even the delegates who didn't own slaves, there was not a lot of talk of racial equality. not a racial paradise even in the states where slavery is slowly being facesed out. there is still a consensus that enslaved people were property and there is a lot of talk about property rights and the property rights of the people that own the slaves.

and that's shared among all the delegates in the constitution. even the anti-slavery voices would stop short of saying a national government could divest a person of their property rights. >> is that something that you all want to share? you mention that had slavery was starting to be phased out. so for post revolution, we are several years removed from it. are there states that are trying to do away with slavery? >> pennsylvania is the first. the quakers are the first. and then there were gradual emancipation schemes. where you might not confer someone's freedom right away. when they reach a certain age, then they are given their freedom. so this is starting to happen in some colonies by the time we get to the constitutional convention. >> i think virginia makes a law that makes it easier for enslave people toward the end of the

american revolution. so now that we're in 1787, we're thinking back on it. what were they trying to do? why create a constitution? >> yeah. what's the fuss about? the constitution is the paramount law in the united states which means it trumps all conflicting laws and it means it is really hard to amend. so i think of the constitution in part as a mission statement. so it embodies value that's we share as americans and we strive for. another really important part of the constitution though was to set up the national government. so it's a long story, but the short version is that the government they were existing under, the articles of confederation, was failing. congress did not have enough power. they couldn't regulate commerce, they couldn't tax. instead they had on ask the states for money and it was operating more like a league of nations of 13 different countries as opposed to one

united states of america. >> is that sort of how the articles of confederation were used? >> so the articles of confederation required unanimity in order to change anything. you're never going to get that. rhode island was always a stinker. they always held out. >> i'm from rhode island. it is a very different change from we the 13 sovereign states to we the people. that was a huge change to have popular sovereignty. so a big function of the constitutional convention was creating and instilling the national government that we now know. >> wow, we the people. so knowing that we allude to house slavery, denied the humanity of people, where in the constitution is slavery mentioned? is it mentioned?

do they say anything about slaves? >> yeah. so it's an interesting omission. they use euphemisms like other persons. i think it is telling. even if they weren't willing to abolish slavery in 1787, there were plenty of them that were under easy with it. madison wrote to jefferson and said it would be the achilles' heel of the country. so i think that omission is telling. even though they don't mention slavery by name, there are three explicit provisions in the constitution that protect slave owners. that protect slavery. the first one is probably the one that everybody is most familiar with. and that is the 3/5 clause. you all remember the way our congress is set up. two chambers. a senate and a house of representatives. preaching was the great compromise. to make sure that the small states and the big states,

everybody was happy all the states got two senators. everybody. every state. every state. but the house of representatives is apportioned by population. so there is the big fight is about power. the southern states would like to count slaves toward their numbers so they have more represent yifls in congress. and the northern states do not want that. so it is a fight over who has more representatives in congress. but i want to be clear, it's not a fight about morality. it's a fight about power. so even the northern delegates, they're arguing that slaves are property. it's really pretty ugly. and the southern here's are saying, we want to count them as whole people, they're not doing it because they're treating them like whole people. they're doing it because they want more representatives in congress. >> it seems like we see that

throughout the 18th century. enslaved people being used to the advantage for slave owners to gain power. is the 3/5 compromise, you touched on it, seems lying it is directly related to the great compromise. it was all about the numbers of people and trying to get more power. neil neilson was wondering, were northern or southern states more responsible for the horrific 3/5 rule? what was the motivation, we talked about that, but does 3/5 show up anywhere else leading up to this point in 1787? >> so they would have been familiar with the fraction. because madison used it in a proposed amendment to the articles when dealing with taxes. so he had used 3/5 of a person in order to count for purposes of taxation under the article so

that's where it comes from. in terms of who is to blame, i think there's enough blame to go around. it was seen as a very important stepping stone to actually reaching a constitution, to reaching a document that would tie all 13 colonies together. without it, the consensus was that we wouldn't have a constitution. because those five southern states, they were ready to walk, right? >> do you think they really would have done it? we'll never know. >> that's what they said. >> wow! >> so you mentioned that there were three inspections directly related to slavery. what is the second one? >> the second one has to do with the importation of enslaved people. so this is foreign slave trade. and this was really controversial in the convention. because under the articles of

confederation, the earlier government, congress did not have power to regulate the slave trade. the southern states wanted to it stay that way. the northern delegates were much more willing to fight the slave trade than they were to fight domestic slaveslavery. part of that is the property rights that we were talking about before. there's no vested property rights when we talk about the importation of people. part of it is just politics. so the upper south of virginia was actually making a fair bit of money selling slaves to the deep south. and it is to their check advantage to stop the competition from the foreign slave right. that's pretty grim, right? >> that i know i've heard hope tell me that virginia was started very much to make money. and i imagine it was the same for all the other colonies and that probably didn't change when they became states. especially after the war.

so what happened? >> yeah. this is actually a quid pro quo. so in exchange for extending the slave trade until 1808, in the constitution, congress is not allowed to stop the slave trade until 1808. even then it is an option. congress gets the commerce clause which turns out to be a really important source of power for the national government. the southern states didn't want to know to have a congress clause without a super majority and they gave in on that as long as they got to protect their foreign slave trade for 20 years. by the way, jefferson did eliminate the slave trade in 1808 as soon as the constitution allowed him to do it. and this is one of two provisions. the fight was so vicious that once they reached that compromise, it was not amendable. >> that is fascinating, too. it seems like it links with what

hope was talking about. the natural increase perpetuating itself which was happening at greater rates in virginia than some of those more southern states that people had a lot less of a life expectancy growing, things like rice and indigo. thank you. you said there was one more. >> yeah. why do i always do that? >> the third is the fugitive slave clause. this is the clause that gives southern sleigh owners a right to have their enslaved people returned to them if they he is came to the north. here's the interesting thing about this. by the time we get to the civil war, this is a huge controversy. a huge divide between north and the south. the northerners really hated having to return free, formerly enslaved people who had run away

back to their owners in the south. they hated that. but at the time of the convention in 1787, this was not controversial at all. it was introduced at the ends of the convention by a south carolina delegate. there was no quid pro quo. no compromise. it was just, there was no date. >> flofs objection? >> just another example of how even if there were anti-slavery voices at the convention, and there were, ben franklin, alexander halt, they stopped short of thinking that you could divest a property owner of their property. not how, it is really jarring today to think of it that way. >> i imagine in that time period, from the 1600s, from the sfoenlt century, they have been practicing this mind set of denying humanity of envlade people.

so if it comedy down to their property, what they believe to be their property, the humanity of people they're telling themselves aren't human. it doesn't make sense to me. it still doesn't make sense to me but i'm a 21st century kind of woman. i cut you off again. >> so there is an obvious tension between the all men are created rhetoric of the declaration of independence, and treating humans as property. that's an obvious tension. and i don't want it to come across like they didn't recognize that. like there were plenty of poem recognized that tension. abigail adams recognized that tension in a letter. it was just a nonstarter to think in 1787, this practice that had become so ingrained, that they would come out with a constitution that abolished it. >> thank you. thank you so much. we have a question fr.

they want to know, what was the total number of representatives and what percentage insisted on keeping slavery? can you speak about that? >> sure. so there are five of the 13 colonies are in the south and they are not going to ratify an anti-slavery constitution. and everyone knows that. there are 25 of those men, almost 50% of those men actually owned slaves. and even the ones that didn't were not pushing for racial equality. so it is a very different world than the world that we know. it is sometimes hard to put yourself back in that perspective. but yeah. there were five states that would not have signed a constitution that gave congress the power to abolish slavery. that's why we had a civil war. >> yeah. it seems like that became inevitable.

just delayed. it's interesting that before you had mentioned about, it is gone now. about choosing to see them as property and not as people. and about how they, that's how they saw them. even like gazette ads that we've read and considered, you see this, you see the social recognition of their humanity in some cases, referencing people who have gone to look for their wives or husbands, even though legally enslaved people couldn't marry. so it seems like, whenever it is in favor of the delegates, that they choose whatever is best for them. which is human, right? they were people. just like the enslaved people were. so you mentioned a little bit about the compromise. if you want to add a little more on how compromise, or how you all see compromise affecting our

constitution, and how it affected people at the time. do you have any examples? >> well, how about i start and then you can come up with the people of the time. one thing to think about. you can think of the constitution in two ways. so they were writing a political document. a document that was a political compromise which meant there would be concessions. not everybody would be happy. in the ratifications, the northerners think it put slavryy on the road to extinction. in some ways, that's an example of the effective compromise. another way to look at the constitution is as a statement of values. and if you look at it that way, they didn't want to write the word slavery in it. they were uneasy about slavery, even if they were protecting it as a political document.

there were several delegates to the convention that very much hoped slavery was on its way out. let's not throw them a parade, right? that doesn't mean it's cause to celebrate. but i think you can look at it as they didn't want to taint the document that they were hoping would endure for generations with the horror of slavery. >> thank you. >> i think when you think of compromise, it was these 55 men in a room making the compromises with each other. it was at the expense of so many. specially enslaved individuals where decisions were being made about them. and you know, they weren't even at the table with a position to have a say so. and that's something you see like once a law is written, we see how just the definition of property was written into the law and how it still had all these effects, 100 plus years

later, that when compromises have to be made, it is at the expense of oftentimes free and enslaved black people. >> you don't have a voice. >> yeah. >> we get these questions, what about women? this is to be be confused with we will. women come in all shapes, colors and complexions so we're focusing primarily of women of african disent. and even though women were not at the table, they did have rights. white women did have rights unlike black we will of the period. >> and that goes back to the first question you asked hope. what is slavery? it is legalized ownership of another human being, buying and selling and abusing and having the legal right to do that. that makes it in a totally

different category than anyone else who is not in that room. >> thank you. you said that perfectly. >> when you mentioned just runaway, gone to his wife, even though it wasn't something legally recognized. just being defined as property, just that classification alone cuts you off from so many things. from being legally married to someone. as a parent, especially a mother, as an enslaved woman, before you even bring children into the world, any children that you do bring forth, they will automatically belong to the person that owns you. so just that classification alone. it reverberates through history. and what it means to you. what you're restricted from. the benefits and privileges and rights that you don't see because you're not seen as human. >> thank you. >> we continue to deal with the effects of choices made in the

past. now, according to gary nash and his book, the forgotten fifth, the argument that slavery could not have been abolished wreaks of the dangerous and indeed owed just concept of inevitability. almost always in historical writings, a concept advanced by those eager to excuse mistakes and virtually never by those writing on behalf of victims of those mistakes. the idea of historical inhe wasability is a winner's weapon as old as the tales told by ancient conquerors. i'll ask, was abolishing slavery they intended with the constitution? >> i mean, the difficult answer is no. there's a lot of truth in that statement.

i don't mean to excuse the men who made those decisions but according to the debate records, it was a nonstarter. wasn't even something that alexander hamilton or ben franklin thought they were authorized to bring to the convention. even if they were willing to fight for it in their own state. not just the property rights idea but state sovereignty was so entrenched. it wouldn't be a national solution. it would be individual states that would decide if slavery was awouldished. so even the anti-slavery voices were not going to push for a national government with power to abolish slavery. >> now we know, as you mentioned, about 25 of those 55 delegates that were in the room, they did own enslaved people. slavery was still present in the

united states. and even today with researching this topic, looking back, over 200 years, trying to find information about not only the debates but the people that those gentlemen owned. i've been hitting a lot of walls. right now, you are going to see an interpretation that takes place in philadelphia in 1787.

their do you remember me? oh. well, perhaps you know my master. he met here at independence hall with about 55 other 55 other ge for months. day after day, they met here in philadelphia to debate the ins and outs of the new constitution. and now those debates and discussions have ceased. well, for the moment. one of the men would go on to be remembered by some as the father of the country and my master will be known as the father of the constitution. can you imagine him sitting there with his quill flying across the paper. he did his best to take notes of the discourse of the convention. secret notes which were not to be released until the members had died. but did he write down

everything? he wrote that morris of pennsylvania protested. that slavery is a nefarious institution. it's the curse of heaven on the states where it prevailed. he noted that charles of south carolina said that if slavery be wrong, it is justified by its example to all the world. he even wrote the words of john rutledge, a man of that same state, south carolina, he said that if the convention thinks that north carolina, south carolina, and georgia would ever agree to the plan, unless their right to slavery to import slaves be untouched, the expectation is in vain. the people of those states would never be such fools to give up such important interest.

so important in interest. yet my master and the other gentlemen were very careful not to mention this interest by name. none of our names. he saw fit to write the discourse and debates as they drafted this new constitution but did not mention whether or not i was in the room. he did not mention if i opened the windows, lit the candles, offered refreshments or stood there ignored. ignored as i've always been, unless, of course, something goes wrong. then i'm the first to be accused. yet, thanks to history, and those that chose to write me out of it, you don't even know my

name. james madison owned sarah, william, sooki, just to name a few people. george washington owned abram, adam, alice and anthony and the list goes on. george mason owned sampson, nance, bridgett. charles of south carolina owned john, jelena, peter, molly, esther and many others. these are a few names that we can remember today. george washington knew that the subject of slavery was unavoidable by the time of the constitution's ratification. by that time the institution was already thoroughly mixed into the foundation of our new

nation. so skipping ahead in time a little bit from 1787 and 1788, what happened to the constitution after the civil war? >> the constitution was radically changed after the civil war. there's three amendments that were ratified in the wake of the civil war and we call them the civil war amendments or the reconstruction amendments. the 13th amendment which abolished slavery in 1865. the 14th amendment which is the one we probably know the best, it was in 1868 and it attached a bunch of civil rights to all people, well, but particularly formally enslaved people. this is where you find the guarantee of equal protection under the law and the guarantee of life, liberty and property without being -- without due process of law, you can't be deprived of it. that comes from the 14th amendment. and in the 15th amendment

guarantees the right to vote regardless of race. not gender, sex, but race. cumulatively, these three amendments just completely changed the relationship between the states and the federal governments. so before the civil war, the idea was that the states would protect your rights from this big, bad, distant national federal government. after the civil war, it's the federal government that is given the power to enforce these protections against the states. so it's the 14th amendment, for example, that is used to dismantle jim crow laws when we get to the civil rights movement. it's the 14th amendment that's the source of authority for brown v. board of education in 1954. >> i want to go back to the 13th amendment, a little bit. it abolishes slavery. if i recall correctly, it has an interesting word, phrase in it.

do you know what i'm speaking of? the word would be except. and i think as we consider constitutional legacies and even all of the items that we talked about leading up to this point, that that exception is one that's very important to consider as we think about the effects of our history and the effects of years and centuries of prejudice that accumulated over time. is there anything else -- i cut you off again. i'm so sorry. >> i think you definitely see that exception in the immediately after math of the reconstruction amendments, then, you know, you move into jim crow, who is determining what a crime is? so a crime could be loitering, for instance. you see, you know, people being

arrested and jailed for that and you see a whole system of prison labor for hire which many call slavery by another name. you always see these little loopholes being used to exploit again. now freed people and free people. but you still see the systems are hard to shake. >> that's the reason why we needed the 14th amendment is because after the 13th amendment, the southern states enforced these black codes which were de facto slavery. making an employment contract was a crime. and so the 14th amendment was ratified to give congress the power to fight those black codes. that's what i mean about the radical shift between the states and the federal government. >> what happens with the 15th amendment? >> the 15th amendment is all about voting rights. of course, again, it looks great, it's a big accomplishment, but it's years

and decades and decades of fighting to actually enforce the 15th amendment. it's not until the voting rights act, you know, 60 years later. >> progress is not quick. but finally when we get to those amendments, we start seeing -- we start seeing at least legislation and laws being put into place to try to make those changes possible in a way that we weren't seeing prior to that. thank you. does anyone want to speculate and share more about the legacy of slavery, of the constitution? >> i think it just goes to show that it can't be separated from this founding document and from the start of our country as a newly freed country, not colonies under the british anymore. it's entrenched.

that no one is untouched by it. even if northern states were affected differently, they were still a part of it as well. and we just have to sit in that truth. it's -- nothing is going to be gained by downplaying it, by denying it, by pretending that it's not there. we need to sit in that truth and recognize it and recognize what it was and what it is. >> right. i'm grateful that we're at a place where we can sit and have this kind of conversation, honestly, about our history and about our past and try to understand the laws, the constitution, slavery, what's happening right now around us. now, i'm getting to -- towards the end of our evening. but i do want to ask, especially since this is a -- the final event of our constitution

weekend for this year. i wanted to ask if the constitution didn't necessarily include everyone in the "we the people" if everyone wasn't included as the people, then why celebrate the constitution? >> i think that's the most important question that we can ask ourselves. i personally think there's reason to celebrate and i can get to that in a minute. but i agree with hope that nobody is served by taking the constitution out of context. we have to appreciate it for what it was which was a flawed document. a deeply flawed document that allowed people to own other people. you can't separate that. you can't whitewash that out of the constitution. nobody is served by doing that. if you think of the constitution as a mission statement, as laying out our values of

equality, liberty, government by the people, freedom of expression, that is worth celebrating. and that motivates every generation to fight for it knowing that it wasn't perfect. knowing that it's still not perfect. but at least it's something that will inspire us all to be the better people who are worthy of the words written in that document. >> thank you. thank you. i love that. because i just feel like we shouldn't just celebrate something blindly without knowing why we're celebrating it. we have to examine it in order to appreciate it, so we can continue to aspire to it. thank you. >> i think about how we celebrate. oftentimes we mark a certain day, like september 17th was the actual day, and sometimes you mark it, you see it on a calendar. but there's so much that goes on before you get to that moment. and then there's so much aftermath that happens later and there's change. so i think this is an

opportunity to go back to something that we probably all had in school, you know, but hadn't thought about in a while. we deal in history everyday. but the constitution, i was on a two-month crash course when you asked me to be on this panel, and looking at what the constitution says and what it doesn't, looking at all of the decisions that went into certain parts. so i think this is an opportunity to look and to know. because nobody gains anything by being ignorant of what this says. this is all -- whether we're in it or not, whether it's good or bad. this is all a part of our history. >> our history. >> and, you know, it's only going to be to our gain and to our benefit to know what it says, to know, you know, what has changed. to know what people fought for to get, you know, the constitution amended in

subsequent acts that had to be written to get basic protections that are in the constitution, to be lived out. so we owe it to ourselves, our history and the people that came before us to do that. >> thank you. that was really beautiful. i agree with both of you. and this -- we've only looked at -- again, our focus was slavery and the constitution. on this constitution day and henceforth, we can look at the constitution in order to really appreciate something, you have to examine it and you have to know what it says. and so the question that i pose to the audience, that you can just think about, as we wrap up this evening is, what do we do with our constitutional rights? and examine the constitution so that you can know what those rights are. now, we've only touched on a

little bit -- this is the tip of the iceberg regarding this conversation and i'm so grateful for the opportunity to talk with you both and to be here, spaced out like we are. but there is more to be learned and i know that i also had to do some deep diving and received a lot of help from a lot of people. but some of the sources that i came across that i really -- that i really enjoyed and that were recommended to me that i'll direct you too also are james madison's montpelier's website. there is an article on slavery, the constitution and the lasting legacy. there's also a book that hope recommended to me, lawrence goldstone's dark bargain, slavery profits and the struggle for the constitution. perhaps you can take a class from ali larson here.

and one of the classes i've enjoyed is in the matter of color. race and the american legal process. those are just a few books and i'm so grateful that we got to share with you, that we got to share with one another, and that we got to commemorate this constitution weekend standing on the soldiers of so many ancestors and our new angel, ruth baden ginsberg. thank you for being with us, and thank you to everyone who supported this process. have a great night. you're watching american history tv. every weekend on c-span3, explore our nation's past. c-span3, created by america's cable television companies as a public service and brought to you today by your television provider. weeknights this month we're featuring american history tv programs as a preview of what's

available every weekend on c-span3. tonight we begin with women's history. the national world war i museum and memorial hosted mona sequel to talk about her book, peace on our terms, the global battle for women's rights after the first world war. the history professor argues that a diverse group of women pushed for more rights and some of these women who were attending the paris peace conference helped push president wood hydrowils wilson to suppore 19th amendment. each week, american history tv's american artifacts visits historic places. next we travel to independence national historical park in philadelphia to visit the assembly room inside independence hall where both the