Abstract
This paper provides the first empirical study of delegate voting behavior on issues of slavery at the U.S. Constitutional Convention. We analyze two categories of votes: those related to apportionment and those related to the regulation of the slave trade. Although it is widely believed that delegates voted consistent with the interests of their states on issues of slavery, we find that for votes on apportionment, the effect of state interests was enhanced by both the delegate’s personal interest and his religious background. For votes regulating the slave trade, state interests had a significant effect but only within specific regions.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Allen, W. B. (1988). A new birth of freedom: fulfillment or derailment? In Goldwin, R., Kaufman, A. (Eds.), The Constitution, equality and race (pp. 64–92). Washington: American Enterprise Institute.
Barrow, C. (2000). More than a historian: the political and economic thought of Charles A. Beard. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers.
Beard, C. ([1913] 2004). An economic interpretation of the Constitution of the United States. New York: Dover Publications.
Bradford, M. E. (1982). A worthy company: brief lives of the framers of the United States Constitution. Marlborough: Plymouth Rock Foundation.
Brown, R. E. (1956). Charles Beard and the Constitution: a critical analysis of “An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution”. New York: Norton.
Candler, A. D. (Ed.). (1968). Colonial records of the State of Georgia, 19 reels. Atlanta: Microfilm Division of the Georgia Department of Archives and History.
Delaware, (1797). Laws of the State of Delaware, passed at a session of the General Assembly. Evans #32030. New Castle: Samuel and John Adams.
Diamond, M. (1981). The founding of the democratic republic. Itasca: Peacock.
DuBois, W. E. B. ([1896] 1969). The suppression of the African slave-trade to the United States of America, 1638–1870. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press.
Dubin, M. J. (1998). United States congressional elections, 1788–1997. Jefferson: McFarland & Company, Inc.
Essah, P. (1996). A house divided: slavery and emancipation in Delaware, 1638–1865. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia.
Farrand, M. (Ed.). (1966). The records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (4 Vols.). New Haven: Yale University Press.
Finkelman, P. (2001). Slavery and the founders: race and liberty in the age of Jefferson (2nd ed.). New York: M.E. Sharpe, Inc.
Freehling, W. H. (1972). The founding fathers and slavery. The American Historical Review, 77(1), 81–93.
Garraty, J. A., & Carnes, M. C. (Eds.). (1999). American national biography. New York: Oxford University Press.
Heckelman, J. C., & Dougherty, K. L. (2007). An economic interpretation of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 revisited. Journal of Economic History, 67(4), 829–848.
Holcombe, R. G. (2002). From liberty to democracy: the transformation of American government. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press.
Hutson, J. H. (1987). Supplement to Max Farrand’s the records of the Federal Convention of 1787. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Jacobson, G. C., & Kernell, S. (1983). Strategy and choice in Congressional elections (2nd ed.). New Haven: Yale University Press.
Jensen, M. (1964). The making of the American Constitution. Huntington: Robert E. Kreiger Publishing Company.
Jillson, C. (1981). Constitution making: alignment and realignment in the Federal Convention of 1787. American Political Science Review, 75, 598–612.
Jillson, C. (1988). Constitution making: conflict and consensus in the Federal Convention of 1787. New York: Agathon Press.
Jillson, C., & Anderson, T. (1977). Realignments in the Convention of 1787: the slave trade compromise. Journal of Politics, 39(3), 712–729.
Jillson, C., & Eubanks, C. L. (1984). The political structure of constitution making: the Federal Convention of 1787. American Journal of Political Science, 28(3), 435–458.
Kaminski, J. P. (Ed.). (1995). A necessary evil? Slavery and the debate over the Constitution. Madison, Wisconsin: Madison House.
Kaminski, J. P., & Saladino, G. J. (Eds.). (1995). The documentary history of the ratification of the Constitution: commentaries on the Constitution, public and private (Vols. 13–18). Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin.
Kernell, S. (1977). Toward understanding 19th century congressional careers: ambition, competition, rotation. American Journal of Political Science, 21, 669–693.
Lord, C. (1984). Roll calls of the Continental congresses and the Congresses of the Confederation, 1777–1789. ICPSR data set # 7537.
Maltz, E. M. (1992). Slavery, federalism, and the structure of the Constitution. The American Journal of Legal History, 36(4), 466–498.
McDonald, F. (1958). We the people: the economic origins of the Constitution. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
McGuire, R. (1988). Constitution making: a rational choice model of the Federal Convention of 1787. American Journal of Political Science, 32(2), 483–522.
McGuire, R. (2003). To form a more perfect union. New York: Oxford University Press.
McGuire, R., & Ohsfeldt, R. (1984). Economic interests and the American Constitution: a quantitative rehabilitation of Charles A. Beard. The Journal of Economic History, 44(2), 509–519.
McGuire, R., & Ohsfeldt, R. (1986). An economic model of voting behavior over specific issues at the Constitutional Convention of 1787. The Journal of Economic History, 46(1), 79–111.
McGuire, R., & Ohsfeldt, R. (1997). Constitutional economics and the American founding. Research in Law and Economics, 18, 143–171.
Miller, J. C. (1991). The wolf by the ears: Thomas Jefferson and slavery. Charlottesville: The University Press of Virginia.
Ohline, H. A. (1971). Republicanism and slavery: origins of the three-fifths clause in the United States Constitution. The William and Mary Quarterly, 28(4), 563–584.
Poole, K. (2000). Non-parametric unfolding of binary choice data. Political Analysis, 8, 211–237.
Poole, K., & Rosenthal, H. (1997). Congress: a political-economic history of roll call voting. New York: Oxford University Press.
Rakove, J. (1996). Original meanings: politics and ideas in the making of the Constitution. New York: Alfred Knopf.
Robinson, D. L. (1971). Slavery in the structure of American politics, 1765–1820. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
Schlesinger, J. (1966). Ambition and politics: political careers in the United States. Chicago: Rand McNally and Co.
United States. Bureau of the Census. (1975). Historical statistics of the United States, colonial times to 1970. Washington: U.S. Department of Commerce.
Williams, W. H. (1996). Slavery and freedom in Delaware, 1639–1865. Wilmington: Scholarly Resources, Inc.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Open Access This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0 ), which permits any noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited.
About this article
Cite this article
Dougherty, K.L., Heckelman, J.C. Voting on slavery at the Constitutional Convention. Public Choice 136, 293–313 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11127-008-9297-7
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11127-008-9297-7