We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
Didn't the founders who wrote the constituion want to abolish slavery ,but South Carolina held out and would not sign unless slavery was allowed? I know I read this decades ago but like I said not sure about it now.Wonder hat would have become of us if it had of been abolished in 1776?
Several southern states threatened to break away but South Carolina was the leader of the movement. The Northwest Ordinance, the third and most ignored of the founding documents, was written about the same time as the Constitution and hints at the wish to abolish slavery, and does so in future stes but not in the original 13: There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted: Provided always, that any person escaping into the same, from whom labor or service is lawfully claimed in any one of the original States, such fugitive may be lawfully reclaimed and conveyed to the person claiming his or her labor or service, as aforesaid. [50]