653).A key event plainly revealed Madison's feelings towards slavery. At the Federal Convention of 1787, Madison offered his treatise, "vices of the Political System of the United States," before the convention. In it he wrote that, "Where slavery exists the republican theory becomes still more fallacious,"(Hutchinson, 9:351). He worked hard to keep the word slavery out of the Constitution realizing the problem was not a division between the little states and the big ones but rather the North against the South. He worked to cure the nation of its slave problem. Madison was opposed to the Twenty-Year Compromise but clearly saw that the south would never ratify the Constitution if slavery were immediately outlawed. Therefore, he had to agree with the compromise. When the question of tariffs on the importation of slaves was discussed,"Mr. Madison thought it wrong to admit in the Constitution the idea that there could be property in men. The reason of duties did not hold as slaves are not like merchandize, consumed" (Madison, p.532). Madison defends the Twenty Year Compromise in the Federalist Papers by saying, "the importation of slaves is permitted by the new Constitution for twenty years; by the old it is permitted forever,"(Hamilton, Madison, Jay, p.238).Madison argued for the clause extending slavery until 1808 because it was the only way to keep the Southern States in the Union. If the southern States did not join, the consequences would have, "dreadful effects in the future." Could Madison have foreseen the splitting of the nation and the prelude of a Civil War?James Madison became a member of the New Congress soon after the ratification was complete. He continued to fight to bring slavery to an end through constitutional methods. He wanted to place a duty on the importation of the slaves. His main concern was that people would consider this as being inconsistent but he was not treating them as property but numbering t...
