9 - The Afterlife of the Compact of 1836

Summary

This chapter examines the afterlife of the Compact of 1836 in abolitionist and proslavery thought. To a significant extent abolitionists after 1836 accepted the authority of the spirit of 1787 and sought to fashion an abolitionism within that framework. One strand of such a response was represented in the Garrisonian rejection of the Constitution as a legitimate authority. A second strand challenged the characterization of that spirit as protective of slavery through a claim that the Constitution represented an attempt by antislavery founders to grapple with the reality of slavery in their historical moment. In concert with these developments, after 1836 supporters of slavery began to refine their own understanding of the role of spirit in constitutional interpretation by prioritizing the recognition of slavery as a constitutional institution. To different ends both groups would gravitate in the 1840s toward a view of the Constitution as correctly understood only with reference to the attitudes that were prevalent at the time of its creation. Thus the legacy of the compact of 1836 would be a legitimization of the constitutional authority of 1787–88.