March 12, 2026 • 20 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, The United States Constitution is the oldest written constitution still in force, yet one question about the document continues to shape debates about American history: Did the Constitution support slavery, or did it leave room for the institution to be challenged and eventually abolished?
For our ongoing Story of Us—Story of America series, Bill McClay, author of Land of Hope, examines how the framers dealt with slavery during the Constitutional Convention of 1787 and what the text of the Constitution actually says about our original sin.
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we returned to our American stories. Up next another
installment of our series about Us, the Story of America series,
with Hillsdale College professor and author of the fantastic book
Land of Hope, doctor Bill McLay. When the Framers finished
their masterpiece, the Constitution, they knew the impact it would
(00:31):
have upon the world, and he thought it would decide
the fate of Republican government for all of eternity. But
that document wasn't without controversy. Let's get into the story.
Here's Bill McLay.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
So the Constitution, the handiwork of this secretive convention, gathered
in Philadelphia in the summer, a hot, muggy summer of
seventeen eighty seven, was finally complete and signed on September seventeenth,
seventeen eighty seven. It's worth stepping back to contemplate what
(01:09):
an achievement this was. Without getting into the details of
the Constitution, just make one point. We've lived ever since
then under the same constitution, the same set of rules
and principles that were being debated and discussed all the
way back in the late eighteen hundreds.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
That's remarkable.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
We are the oldest constitution in the world. Oldest functioning
constitution in the world. A lot of people think of
America as a young country. In many ways, we are,
but our Constitution is venerable. It's shown its ability to
stand the test of time. It's taken a licking and
(01:53):
keeps on ticking. It says a lot about us that
this is the case. Spense with our Constitution, as occasionally
as advocated is something that would be very, very troubling
because it's always been a part of us.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
It's always been a part of the way we have
lived together.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
We've altered it, we've amended it, sometimes misunderstood parts of it,
but it's there, and we go back to it again
and again and again. It's like scripture in that way.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
It's a big country.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
It's become even bigger than it was in seventeen eighty seven.
It's got profound differences it did then it does now.
That's why the Constitution's framework is so compelling. It's also why,
I think why you don't see the kind of soaring
language in the Constitution that you do in the Declaration.
(02:54):
The Declaration is a beautiful document. It's a work of literature.
Constitution doesn't have the soaring literary lift of Jefferson's beautiful words.
It doesn't make a lofty pronouncement about human nature or
high ideals or low ideals for that matter.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
It doesn't do that. It's not what it's for.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
The Constitution is a different kind of document, more like
a rule.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
Look. It defines with a lot of room.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
It tries to define what the different parts of government did,
what they didn't do. But there was, to our eyes
and to the eyes of many at the time, one
gaping omission.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
The issue of slavery.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Slavery has a long history, and in the New World,
the Western Hemisphere, it's I think true to say that
the exist distance of slavery has been more the rule
than the exception in human history. It's been sadly a
part of most developed societies. The pioneers of slavery in
(04:13):
Europe were the Spanish and the Portuguese. They got a
head start on the colonization of the Western hemisphere and
introduced slavery along with it.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
The English followed. In America, slavery.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Was preceded by an institution called indentured servitude, and this
was a system of for slavery that in many ways
could resemble slavery an indentured servant would get free passage
to the New World in exchange for essentially being like
a slave. In some instances it's not always.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
But to be.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
To exist as a coerced form of labor for whatever.
The term of the indenture was five years, seven years,
and then at the end of that time the indenture
would be over the person would be released to be
a free person. It was a harsh deal, but it
was one way of getting to the New World for
(05:21):
people who had no money. Indentured servitude was much more common.
It was actually the form in which coerced labor first
really makes its way in America. It's a dismal subject,
but at any rate. Africans who came to the British
(05:43):
part of North America were treated as indentured servants at first,
but as the number of Africans grew, discrimination according to
race began to show its ugly face. This discrimination, this
race prey is anti Black racism hardened over time into
(06:05):
the form of laws that were passed by representative assemblies
that relegated Africans and their children to the status of
permanent slaves, that is to be shattle slaves, to being
the legal property of the slave owners, just the same
as a as a horse, as a house, as land,
(06:26):
as farm implements, the same way they were considered property,
human beings as property. Economics drove some of this demand
for agricultural workers grew at the very same time that
the flow of white and dentured servants from England slowed,
(06:46):
and over time the economy of certain states like Virginia,
like South Carolina became dependent on slaves. These economies were
almost entirely dependent. Over fifty percent of the population of
Virginia in the year seventeen fifty was enslaved. In South Carolina,
(07:10):
it was sixty seven percent in a city like Charleston,
the percentages approached ninety percent by the time the Founders
got to Philadelphia in seventeen eighty seven. Slavery was a fundamental,
inescapable part of the American economy, and yet slavery stood
(07:35):
in clear violation of the fundamental notions of liberty and
equality that were enunciated in the Declaration of Independence. We
hold these truths to be self evident, that all men
are created equal. The man who wrote that Thomas Jefferson
himself owned slaves, so did the man who chaired the
(07:59):
Constitutional Convention, George Washington. How could these men square their
stated claims and loyalty to reverence for our founding documents
with these aspects of their own lives. This is a
very important question to us today. Are we to look
(08:20):
back at the founders with admiration? And if so, how
do we understand that historical context has to be taken
into account.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
And you've been listening to Professor Bill McLay of Hillsdale
College tell the story of our constitution. It's not the
oldest country, he pointed out, America, but it is the
oldest constitution, and we've altered it, amended it. But there
it is. They go back to it again and again,
Professor McLay said, like scripture. And then there with slavery
(08:52):
haunting the founders, in some ways haunting us today. Fifty
percent of the Virginia population slaves, sixty seven percent of
South Carolina slaves, ninety percent of the residence of Charleston slaves.
When we come back how this all worked out, how
it flushed out with Professor Bill McLay here on our
(09:13):
American Stories, and we continue with our American Stories and
(09:41):
the Story of America series with doctor Bill McLay, author
of the fantastic book Land of Hope.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
When we last.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
Left off, Bill McClay was answering the question of why
the Constitution allowed for slavery. Let's get back to the
story here again, is Professor McLay.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
Each of us is born into a world that we
didn't make. We don't make its rules, we don't make
its expectations, we don't create its infrastructure.
Speaker 3 (10:19):
We're born into it, and we make our way in
it and through it.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
These men lived in their times, not ours, and yet
there is a contradiction that you can't get away from that.
They had stated ideals that were difficult to reconcile with
their lives. Now Washington would end up freeing his slaves
when he died. Jefferson, who wrote beautifully of the injustice
(10:58):
and horror of slaves, disagreed with the practice, to put
it mildly, and later came to see it as a sin.
He wrote, I tremble for my country when I reflect
that God is just. The Almighty has no attribute which
can take side with us in such a contest. As
(11:21):
Thomas Jefferson, owner of slaves, a man.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
Of his times.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Many of the framers the men who were involved in
writing the Constitution were convinced, sincerely convinced that slavery was
on the path to eventual extinction that would just disappear,
and they also believed that compromise in the short term
was necessary to get the Constitution enacted. Roger Sherman, so
(11:54):
important in the fashioning of the Great Compromise, said this,
I disapprove of the slave trade.
Speaker 3 (12:03):
Yet as the states were.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
Now possessed of the right to import slaves, as the
public good did not require it to be taken from them,
and as it was expedient to have as few objections
as possible to the proposed scheme of government, I think
it best to leave the matter as we find it.
The abolition of slavery seems to be going on in
the US, and the good sense of the several states
(12:28):
were probably by degrees completed. I urge on the Convention
the necessity of dispatching its business. Those are rather cold
and antiseptic words, But what Sherman seems to realize is
(12:48):
that if the nation were split asunder, and it's very beginning,
then it was chances for success as a nation state
in a world of aggressive nation states. To pursue abolition
of slavery in the United States at the time of
the Constitutional Convention would be suicidal for.
Speaker 3 (13:09):
The nation's future.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Delegates from South Carolina and Georgia had already indicated, and
they were not fooling around about it, that if slavery
were to be abolished, they wouldn't be a party.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
To the Constitution. They simply would not sign on.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
So the United States of America would begin its life
as this United States of America. So the defenders of
slavery prevailed and won concessions to protect slavery. The importation
(13:47):
of slaves was extended for another twenty years and then
there could be a vote on the banning of further importation,
which did occur, and under the administration of President Thomas Jefferson,
on the issue of representation, there was the three fifths compromise,
which I think has been misunderstood. It doesn't mean that
(14:10):
slaves were to be counted as three fifths of a
human being. The three fifths compromise came about because there
were states that wanted for slaves to be counted at
one hundred percent for taxation purposes, that is part of
the general population, but zero percent for representation purposes. So
(14:33):
the three fifths compromise was a way of trying to
balance the representation of slaves for both purposes. There's a
clause in the Constitution requiring that fugitive slaves slaves that
run away from their masters, that requires those who find
the slaves to return them to their masters. This is
(14:56):
a protection for slavery, there's no doubt about it. But
one of the things that Madison did that I think
is very important. He saw to it that the language
of the Constitution never mentions the word slavery. There's no
protection for the institution itself. The way he put it
(15:17):
was that there would be no property in man underwritten
by the Constitution, no property in man. He did not
want anything to slip in that would seem to provide
a constitutional basis for the existence of slavery as constitutionally guaranteed.
(15:37):
So he was leaving the door open for the Constitution
to become an entirely anti slavery document. And as I've said,
in eighteen oh eight, when the Grace period ran out,
the legal importation of slaves ended, but slavery not only continued,
but it grew.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
So what do we conclude about today.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
Well, I think we conclude that the Constitution was an
imperfect document created by imperfect men to deal in the
most prudential way possible, the most prudent way possible, with
a difficult situation. Many political problems cannot be solved in
one swoop.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
They can be managed in the short term and steered
towards a good long term goal.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Political necessity dictated the internal contradictions of a constitution that
allowed slavery in some areas while permitting it to be
forbidden in others. Remember, the Northwest Ordinance explicitly abandoned slavery
from the Northwest territories in the states that would be
made up from it, So the stain of slavery, tray
(17:00):
of slavery, the moral outrage of slavery.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
Would not be eliminated in one swoop.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Even when Lincoln's time, Lincoln was not an advocate of
immediate abolition. He felt that the most important thing as
the Civil War began was to preserve the unions. So
there was an understanding from very early on that if
you didn't have a cohesive, coherent, effective constitution, the liberty
(17:34):
that would result from abolition would not matter for much.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
If the nation itself couldn't hold together.
Speaker 4 (17:41):
So it's wrong to say, and I say this emphatically,
it's wrong to say that the nation, the American nation,
was founded on slavery.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
It's wrong to say that there are some things that.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Are right about it is true the nation was founded
with a toleration of the existence of slavery in places
where it was already established, was already completely legal. It's
easy in retrospect to wish that they had, but I
think to think historically about it, you have to come
to terms with the fact that there might not have
(18:17):
been an American nation at all without the Constitution, without
the compromises that made the Constitution possible. And the way
that Madison ended up drafting and crafting the text of.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
The Constitution.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
Made it clear to no less of an observer than
the great Black abolitionist Frederick Douglas that the Constitution was
a glorious liberty document, a glorious liberty document, a glorious
freedom document that did not have a pro slavery taint
to it. It permitted slavery, it tolerated slavery, but it
(18:59):
does slavery. That's I think the right way to see you.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
And a terrific job with the production, editing and storytelling
by our own Monte Montgomery himself a Hillsdale College graduate.
And a special thanks to Hillsdale College professor doctor Bill McLay,
author of the fantastic book Land of Hope and the
Young Reader's Edition. By the way, our own Greg Hengler
reads the Young Readers Edition to his seven daughters every night.
Speaker 3 (19:34):
I own the book.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
You too should go to Amazon or the usual suspects
pick up Land of Hope and the Young Reader's Edition.
And a special thanks of course to Hillsdale College. And
they sponsor all of our history stories. It's a terrific
place to go and learn about your country. Their online
courses are free. They teach all the things that are
good and beautiful in life. Go to Hillsdale dot edu
(19:59):
and listen to the terrific and free online courses The
Story of America series with Professor Bill McLay. Here on
our American stories
And we returned to our American stories. Up next another
installment of our series about Us, the Story of America series,
with Hillsdale College professor and author of the fantastic book
Land of Hope, doctor Bill McLay. When the Framers finished
their masterpiece, the Constitution, they knew the impact it would
(00:31):
have upon the world, and he thought it would decide
the fate of Republican government for all of eternity. But
that document wasn't without controversy. Let's get into the story.
Here's Bill McLay.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
So the Constitution, the handiwork of this secretive convention, gathered
in Philadelphia in the summer, a hot, muggy summer of
seventeen eighty seven, was finally complete and signed on September seventeenth,
seventeen eighty seven. It's worth stepping back to contemplate what
(01:09):
an achievement this was. Without getting into the details of
the Constitution, just make one point. We've lived ever since
then under the same constitution, the same set of rules
and principles that were being debated and discussed all the
way back in the late eighteen hundreds.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
That's remarkable.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
We are the oldest constitution in the world. Oldest functioning
constitution in the world. A lot of people think of
America as a young country. In many ways, we are,
but our Constitution is venerable. It's shown its ability to
stand the test of time. It's taken a licking and
(01:53):
keeps on ticking. It says a lot about us that
this is the case. Spense with our Constitution, as occasionally
as advocated is something that would be very, very troubling
because it's always been a part of us.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
It's always been a part of the way we have
lived together.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
We've altered it, we've amended it, sometimes misunderstood parts of it,
but it's there, and we go back to it again
and again and again. It's like scripture in that way.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
It's a big country.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
It's become even bigger than it was in seventeen eighty seven.
It's got profound differences it did then it does now.
That's why the Constitution's framework is so compelling. It's also why,
I think why you don't see the kind of soaring
language in the Constitution that you do in the Declaration.
(02:54):
The Declaration is a beautiful document. It's a work of literature.
Constitution doesn't have the soaring literary lift of Jefferson's beautiful words.
It doesn't make a lofty pronouncement about human nature or
high ideals or low ideals for that matter.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
It doesn't do that. It's not what it's for.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
The Constitution is a different kind of document, more like
a rule.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
Look. It defines with a lot of room.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
It tries to define what the different parts of government did,
what they didn't do. But there was, to our eyes
and to the eyes of many at the time, one
gaping omission.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
The issue of slavery.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Slavery has a long history, and in the New World,
the Western Hemisphere, it's I think true to say that
the exist distance of slavery has been more the rule
than the exception in human history. It's been sadly a
part of most developed societies. The pioneers of slavery in
(04:13):
Europe were the Spanish and the Portuguese. They got a
head start on the colonization of the Western hemisphere and
introduced slavery along with it.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
The English followed. In America, slavery.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Was preceded by an institution called indentured servitude, and this
was a system of for slavery that in many ways
could resemble slavery an indentured servant would get free passage
to the New World in exchange for essentially being like
a slave. In some instances it's not always.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
But to be.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
To exist as a coerced form of labor for whatever.
The term of the indenture was five years, seven years,
and then at the end of that time the indenture
would be over the person would be released to be
a free person. It was a harsh deal, but it
was one way of getting to the New World for
(05:21):
people who had no money. Indentured servitude was much more common.
It was actually the form in which coerced labor first
really makes its way in America. It's a dismal subject,
but at any rate. Africans who came to the British
(05:43):
part of North America were treated as indentured servants at first,
but as the number of Africans grew, discrimination according to
race began to show its ugly face. This discrimination, this
race prey is anti Black racism hardened over time into
(06:05):
the form of laws that were passed by representative assemblies
that relegated Africans and their children to the status of
permanent slaves, that is to be shattle slaves, to being
the legal property of the slave owners, just the same
as a as a horse, as a house, as land,
(06:26):
as farm implements, the same way they were considered property,
human beings as property. Economics drove some of this demand
for agricultural workers grew at the very same time that
the flow of white and dentured servants from England slowed,
(06:46):
and over time the economy of certain states like Virginia,
like South Carolina became dependent on slaves. These economies were
almost entirely dependent. Over fifty percent of the population of
Virginia in the year seventeen fifty was enslaved. In South Carolina,
(07:10):
it was sixty seven percent in a city like Charleston,
the percentages approached ninety percent by the time the Founders
got to Philadelphia in seventeen eighty seven. Slavery was a fundamental,
inescapable part of the American economy, and yet slavery stood
(07:35):
in clear violation of the fundamental notions of liberty and
equality that were enunciated in the Declaration of Independence. We
hold these truths to be self evident, that all men
are created equal. The man who wrote that Thomas Jefferson
himself owned slaves, so did the man who chaired the
(07:59):
Constitutional Convention, George Washington. How could these men square their
stated claims and loyalty to reverence for our founding documents
with these aspects of their own lives. This is a
very important question to us today. Are we to look
(08:20):
back at the founders with admiration? And if so, how
do we understand that historical context has to be taken
into account.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
And you've been listening to Professor Bill McLay of Hillsdale
College tell the story of our constitution. It's not the
oldest country, he pointed out, America, but it is the
oldest constitution, and we've altered it, amended it. But there
it is. They go back to it again and again,
Professor McLay said, like scripture. And then there with slavery
(08:52):
haunting the founders, in some ways haunting us today. Fifty
percent of the Virginia population slaves, sixty seven percent of
South Carolina slaves, ninety percent of the residence of Charleston slaves.
When we come back how this all worked out, how
it flushed out with Professor Bill McLay here on our
(09:13):
American Stories, and we continue with our American Stories and
(09:41):
the Story of America series with doctor Bill McLay, author
of the fantastic book Land of Hope.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
When we last.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
Left off, Bill McClay was answering the question of why
the Constitution allowed for slavery. Let's get back to the
story here again, is Professor McLay.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
Each of us is born into a world that we
didn't make. We don't make its rules, we don't make
its expectations, we don't create its infrastructure.
Speaker 3 (10:19):
We're born into it, and we make our way in
it and through it.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
These men lived in their times, not ours, and yet
there is a contradiction that you can't get away from that.
They had stated ideals that were difficult to reconcile with
their lives. Now Washington would end up freeing his slaves
when he died. Jefferson, who wrote beautifully of the injustice
(10:58):
and horror of slaves, disagreed with the practice, to put
it mildly, and later came to see it as a sin.
He wrote, I tremble for my country when I reflect
that God is just. The Almighty has no attribute which
can take side with us in such a contest. As
(11:21):
Thomas Jefferson, owner of slaves, a man.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
Of his times.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Many of the framers the men who were involved in
writing the Constitution were convinced, sincerely convinced that slavery was
on the path to eventual extinction that would just disappear,
and they also believed that compromise in the short term
was necessary to get the Constitution enacted. Roger Sherman, so
(11:54):
important in the fashioning of the Great Compromise, said this,
I disapprove of the slave trade.
Speaker 3 (12:03):
Yet as the states were.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
Now possessed of the right to import slaves, as the
public good did not require it to be taken from them,
and as it was expedient to have as few objections
as possible to the proposed scheme of government, I think
it best to leave the matter as we find it.
The abolition of slavery seems to be going on in
the US, and the good sense of the several states
(12:28):
were probably by degrees completed. I urge on the Convention
the necessity of dispatching its business. Those are rather cold
and antiseptic words, But what Sherman seems to realize is
(12:48):
that if the nation were split asunder, and it's very beginning,
then it was chances for success as a nation state
in a world of aggressive nation states. To pursue abolition
of slavery in the United States at the time of
the Constitutional Convention would be suicidal for.
Speaker 3 (13:09):
The nation's future.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Delegates from South Carolina and Georgia had already indicated, and
they were not fooling around about it, that if slavery
were to be abolished, they wouldn't be a party.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
To the Constitution. They simply would not sign on.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
So the United States of America would begin its life
as this United States of America. So the defenders of
slavery prevailed and won concessions to protect slavery. The importation
(13:47):
of slaves was extended for another twenty years and then
there could be a vote on the banning of further importation,
which did occur, and under the administration of President Thomas Jefferson,
on the issue of representation, there was the three fifths compromise,
which I think has been misunderstood. It doesn't mean that
(14:10):
slaves were to be counted as three fifths of a
human being. The three fifths compromise came about because there
were states that wanted for slaves to be counted at
one hundred percent for taxation purposes, that is part of
the general population, but zero percent for representation purposes. So
(14:33):
the three fifths compromise was a way of trying to
balance the representation of slaves for both purposes. There's a
clause in the Constitution requiring that fugitive slaves slaves that
run away from their masters, that requires those who find
the slaves to return them to their masters. This is
(14:56):
a protection for slavery, there's no doubt about it. But
one of the things that Madison did that I think
is very important. He saw to it that the language
of the Constitution never mentions the word slavery. There's no
protection for the institution itself. The way he put it
(15:17):
was that there would be no property in man underwritten
by the Constitution, no property in man. He did not
want anything to slip in that would seem to provide
a constitutional basis for the existence of slavery as constitutionally guaranteed.
(15:37):
So he was leaving the door open for the Constitution
to become an entirely anti slavery document. And as I've said,
in eighteen oh eight, when the Grace period ran out,
the legal importation of slaves ended, but slavery not only continued,
but it grew.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
So what do we conclude about today.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
Well, I think we conclude that the Constitution was an
imperfect document created by imperfect men to deal in the
most prudential way possible, the most prudent way possible, with
a difficult situation. Many political problems cannot be solved in
one swoop.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
They can be managed in the short term and steered
towards a good long term goal.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Political necessity dictated the internal contradictions of a constitution that
allowed slavery in some areas while permitting it to be
forbidden in others. Remember, the Northwest Ordinance explicitly abandoned slavery
from the Northwest territories in the states that would be
made up from it, So the stain of slavery, tray
(17:00):
of slavery, the moral outrage of slavery.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
Would not be eliminated in one swoop.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Even when Lincoln's time, Lincoln was not an advocate of
immediate abolition. He felt that the most important thing as
the Civil War began was to preserve the unions. So
there was an understanding from very early on that if
you didn't have a cohesive, coherent, effective constitution, the liberty
(17:34):
that would result from abolition would not matter for much.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
If the nation itself couldn't hold together.
Speaker 4 (17:41):
So it's wrong to say, and I say this emphatically,
it's wrong to say that the nation, the American nation,
was founded on slavery.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
It's wrong to say that there are some things that.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Are right about it is true the nation was founded
with a toleration of the existence of slavery in places
where it was already established, was already completely legal. It's
easy in retrospect to wish that they had, but I
think to think historically about it, you have to come
to terms with the fact that there might not have
(18:17):
been an American nation at all without the Constitution, without
the compromises that made the Constitution possible. And the way
that Madison ended up drafting and crafting the text of.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
The Constitution.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
Made it clear to no less of an observer than
the great Black abolitionist Frederick Douglas that the Constitution was
a glorious liberty document, a glorious liberty document, a glorious
freedom document that did not have a pro slavery taint
to it. It permitted slavery, it tolerated slavery, but it
(18:59):
does slavery. That's I think the right way to see you.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
And a terrific job with the production, editing and storytelling
by our own Monte Montgomery himself a Hillsdale College graduate.
And a special thanks to Hillsdale College professor doctor Bill McLay,
author of the fantastic book Land of Hope and the
Young Reader's Edition. By the way, our own Greg Hengler
reads the Young Readers Edition to his seven daughters every night.
Speaker 3 (19:34):
I own the book.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
You too should go to Amazon or the usual suspects
pick up Land of Hope and the Young Reader's Edition.
And a special thanks of course to Hillsdale College. And
they sponsor all of our history stories. It's a terrific
place to go and learn about your country. Their online
courses are free. They teach all the things that are
good and beautiful in life. Go to Hillsdale dot edu
(19:59):
and listen to the terrific and free online courses The
Story of America series with Professor Bill McLay. Here on
our American stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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