States and Territories, Part 2 | America's Written Constitution with Akhil Reed Amar

There were never many fugitive slaves. Akhil Reed Amar explains why the clause that actually broke the Union was the one giving Congress power over the western territories. This lecture separates slavery into the distinct constitutional questions it actually comprised: the citizenship of free Black Americans, the three-fifths count in the House and the Electoral College, the international slave trade and the 1808 date, fugitives, slavery in the states, and slavery in the territories. Amar reads interstate privileges and immunities as a rule of equal treatment rather than portable rights, which is where Taney's reasoning in Dred Scott goes wrong, and covers full faith and credit for out-of-state judgments and the gap between civil and political rights that left women citizens without the vote. He treats the Fugitive Slave Clause as a partial compromise that Congress and the Taney Court then implemented in far more pro-slavery ways, culminating in the 1850 act. The territories are the heart of the lecture: Article IV gave Congress the choice, the first Congress chose free soil in the Northwest Ordinance, and Taney declared that choice unconstitutional. The lecture ends on the Republican Guarantee Clause, the sleeping giant that would become the most important provision in the document after the Civil War. Chapters: 00:00 What Taney claimed in Dred Scott 02:13 Privileges and immunities as equal treatment 05:19 Full faith and credit for state judgments 07:53 Slavery as six or seven separate questions 10:26 The Fugitive Slave Clause 15:30 Slavery in the territories 19:41 The Northwest Ordinance and equal footing 21:43 The Republican Guarantee Clause 24:19 Back to "Join or Die" Learning objectives: After watching, you'll be able to: - Explain why privileges and immunities grant equal treatment rather than portable rights - Distinguish the civil rights of citizens from political rights such as voting - Break down slavery in the Constitution into its separate clauses and questions - Contrast Article IV's grant of power over the territories with Taney's reading of it - Describe how the Republican Guarantee Clause became the basis for Reconstruction 📺 Watch the full playlist on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCq6-l8oFuvk 🎓 Enroll on Coursera for assessments and a certificate: https://www.coursera.org/learn/written-constitution 🌐 Explore more learning opportunities on Yale Online: https://online.yale.edu/courses/americas-written-constitution