Event details

Sean Wilentz, George Henry Davis 1886 Professor of American History, Princeton University; Allen C. Guelzo, Henry R. Luce III Professor of the Civil War Era, Gettysburg College; Earl M. Maltz, Distinguished Professor of Law, Rutgers University; moderated by Bronwen C. McShea, 2018-19 Associate Research Scholar, James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions, Princeton University

Americans revere the Constitution even as they argue fiercely over its original toleration of slavery. In No Property in Man, Professor Sean Wilentz argues that though the proslavery side won important concessions in the Constitution, antislavery impulses also influenced the framers’ work. Wilentz suggests that the Constitution restricted slavery’s legitimacy under the new national government, opening the way for the creation of an antislavery politics that led to Southern secession, the Civil War, and Emancipation. This panel will consider the following questions with _No Property in Ma_n as its basis: How much were the framers complicit with American slavery? Did the Constitution enshrine its practice or pave the way for its removal? And what is at stake in this inquiry?