Three Silences For The Abolition Of Slavery

The silence dealt with the talk about slavery and whether or not it should have been abolished. Although there were heated debates, Joseph Ellis called it a silence because "no one from the North or the Upper South rose to answer the delegation from the Deep South" (Ellis, 105) and the delegation was ignored by most of the Founding Gathers in order to keep America together. James Madison and the state of Virginia were more silent than the Northern states, who wanted abolition, and the deep Southern states, who wanted slavery. There were three silences that took place: the North and South were silent towards each other regarding the slave trade, James Madison was silent about slavery, and Congress was silent about slavery. Those for the abolition of slavery argued two things. One being that slavery was not explicitly protected by the Constitution and therefore the Declaration of Independence should
Originally, seven resolutions were passed but this was reduced to three and the seventh resolution about the Quakers was one that was dropped. According to Ellis, "What had begun as an initiative to put slavery on the road to extinction had been transformed into a decision to extinguish all federal plans for emancipation." (Ellis, 118). The plan to end slavery ended up with no government agency being able to change anything until 1808. Two of the nation's Founding Fathers, Madison and Washington, both portrayed some of the very few imperfections that the Founding Fathers had. First of all, Washington wanted nothing to do with the topic of slavery and he was happy after it was put aside in Congress. Madison revealed how he was a straddler with slavery because he did not side with either the North or South, and he even stated "The true policy of the Southern members was to let the affair proceed with as little noise as possible." (Madison,