CONSTITUTIONAL PROVISIONS AND MAJOR FEDERAL ENACTMENTS BEFORE THE CIVIL WAR REGARDING SLAVERY 
 

     Document                             Provisions 

U.S. Constitution (1787)      Art. I, sec. 2: "Representatives and direct taxes shall be
                                              apportioned" among states in proportion to the population
                                              of free persons, excluding untaxed Indians, and "three-fifths
                                               of all other persons." 

                                             Art. I, sec. 9: Congress may not prohibit "the migration or
                                             importation of such Persons as any of the states now 
                                             existing shall think proper to admit" until 1808. (Congress 
                                             enacted a ban on the importation of slaves as 
                                             soon as Constitutional prohibition on such legislation 
                                             expired.)

                                             Art. IV, sec. 2: "No person held to Service or Labor in one 
                                              state" under its laws, "escaping into another, shall, in
                                              in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be
                                              discharged from such service or labor, but shall be 
                                              delivered  up on claim of the party to whom such service or 
                                              labor may be due" (= the "Fugitive Slave clause").
 

Northwest Ordinance (1787)  Prohibited slavery in the Northwest Territory (out of
                                                   which the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois. Michigan,
                                                   and Wisconsin were subsequently formed).

Missouri Compromise (1820) Admitted Maine as a free state and Missouri as a 
                                                    slave state. "Forever" prohibited slavery in
                                                    remainder of  the Louisiana Purchase, north of 36'30"
                                                    Required Missouri to pledge that nothing in her 
                                                    Constitution should be interpreted so as to 
                                                    abridge the privileges and immunities of 
                                                    American citizens - but did not actually 
                                                    require Missouri to repeal a provision in her 
                                                    Constitution forbidding the entry of free blacks.
 

Wilmot Proviso (not enacted)  Proviso passed in the House but repeatedly 
                                                     defeated in the Senate between 1846 and 1848 
                                                     that would have forever prohibited slavery in 
                                                     any territories acquired from Mexico. Finally 
                                                     defeated by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo 
                                                     (1848), ending the Mexican War, which annexed 
                                                     former Mexican territories without any 
                                                     restriction on slavery.
. 
Compromise of 1850             - Admitted California as a free state.
                                                   - Established territorial governments for Utah 
                                                     and New Mexico while leaving the states to be 
                                                     formed therefrom free to enter the Union with 
                                                     or without slavery, as their constitutions 
                                                     should prescribe.
                                                   - Abolished slave trade (but not slavery) in 
                                                      District of Columbia
                                                   - Included new, harsher fugitive slave law. 

Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854)  Organized Kansas and Nebraska Territories, while 
                                                    repealing the Missouri Compromise prohibition 
                                                    on slavery in the northern part of the Louisiana 
                                                    Purchase, on the ground that that prohibition was 
                                                    "inconsistent with the principle of non-intervention
                                                    by Congress with slavery in the states and territories, as
                                                    [ostensibly] recognized in" the Compromise of 1850. 
                                                    Left  the citizens of these states and territories 
                                                    "perfectly free" to allow or prohibit slavery within their 
                                                     boundaries.

Dred Scott v. Sanford     Supreme Court decision holding that the Missouri 
   (1857)                            Compromise was unconstitutional, on the ground 
                                            that Congress had no authority to interfere with 
                                            "the right of property in a slave" that is 
                                           "expressly affirmed in the Constitution." Hence 
                                             neither Congress nor any territorial legislature 
                                             may exclude slavery from any United States territory. 
                                             Also denied that a black person is eligible to be 
                                             a "citizen" of a state, in the sense used in 
                                             the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees to the 
                                             citizens of each state "all privileges and 
                                             immunities of citizens in the several states."