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And of course even the democracy they created was not very democratic. “We the People” did not include blacks, women, or even landless white men. (Nevertheless, as Wood points out, it was the most representative and participatory system in the world at the time.)
But the deepest flaw was the preservation of slavery. Although the word “slavery” was not mentioned in the Constitution, the founders allowed the slave trade to continue until 1807 to prevent the Southern states from jumping ship. And yet, the Constitutional Convention was the closest America came to abolishing slavery until after the Civil War. Both Wood and Ellis write that the Revolution mobilized opposition to slavery not only in the North but also in Virginia. Wood states that the first anti-slavery congress in world history was held in Philadelphia in 1775. After the war, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island passed laws abolishing the slave trade. The Adjusters knew how hypocritical their tolerance for slavery seemed, after years of talking about escaping their bondage to England.
Wood debunks the myth that only Southern delegates owned slaves: John Hancock of Boston, John Dickinson of Philadelphia, and Robert Livingston of New York all owned slaves. But none were proud of it, and many Northern delegates believed the institution was fading. “No leading member of the revolutionary generation ever attempted to claim that slavery was morally compatible with the values of the Declaration,” writes Ellis.
Yet there was one thing that the Revolutionary generation cared more about than the abolition of slavery, and that was creating a nation. At the start of the Constitutional Convention, Northern delegates introduced a clause abolishing slavery. The Southern states vehemently opposed, and the Northern delegates agreed. Why? Wood quotes Madison’s desperate line: “The greater the evil, the worse it would be if the Union fell apart.” Ellis writes that if South Carolina had to choose between independence and maintaining slavery, it would choose to retain slavery. This is a difficult position to negotiate.
Although Wood signed a letter criticizing some of the 1619 Project’s arguments, both he and Ellis view the issues of race and slavery as major flaws in America’s birth. “The Cause’s two enduring legacies,” writes Ellis, “are American independence and slavery, which constituted the fundamental contradiction of American history from the very beginning.” What enriches these two books is their moral complexity. Despite our fundamental contradiction, both Wood and Ellis believe in what they call a civic “little r” republicanism, a sense of public purpose embedded in our establishment. Yes, our software can have bugs, but there is also a self-correcting mechanism built into the Constitution: It can be changed. Unity can be more perfect.
Could America really be great if we were built on a foundation that included slavery? Both Ellis and Wood would say that although the Constitution contains this dreadful flaw, it also contains the cure for the wrongs of democracy if we choose to use it.
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