How do you think the omission of slavery from the United States Constitution impacted the history of the United States?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

The Tenth Amendment to the Constitution left the slavery issue up to each state. Arguably, the failure to include the issue of slavery in the Constitution led to the Civil War. If the framers wanted the Constitution ratified by the Southern states, they knew they could not include abolition of slavery in the document. The Northern states supported abolition. When Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin after the American Revolution, the demand for slaves greatly increased, and the Southern states were even more economically dependent upon slave labor. The Northern states, one by one, had abolished slavery. However, the agrarian South, on the eve of the Civil War, had four million slaves—slavery was interwoven into their economy. When the Northern states pressed for the abolition of slavery, the Southern states asserted state's rights and secession, leading to the Civil War. If slavery had been abolished in the 18th century, many of the underlying reasons for the Civil War would never have occurred.