“Law on the side of liberty is of great advantage only when there is power to enforce it.” This quote comes from Fredrick Douglas' book, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, written in 1845. Fredrick Douglas, born into slavery in 1818, had no understanding of freedom. However, his words shed light on the state of our country from the moment he made this statement, but can be traced back fifty-eight years earlier, to when the Constitution was drafted and debated by fifty-five delegates in an attempt to create a document upon which the laws of a new country. However, eradicating the antiquated and barbaric system of slavery would be a courageous step to set the nation apart, but it would take a strong argument and a courageous move by someone or a group to abolish what has enslaved thousands of innocent people all over the world. within the borders. of America for centuries. There was an opportunity to write the law within the Constitution that would support this freedom that Fredrick Douglas alluded to. However, the power that controlled this law would, as Douglas stated, “enforce that law.” The delegates who had traveled to Philadelphia to attend the Constitutional Convention had faced several issues prior to their arrival in Pennsylvania in 1787. Just four years before the Convention, the Treaty of Paris Peace with Great Britain was agreed upon and signed with the assistance of Benjamin Franklin as the first American ambassador. Just a few months before the convention began in February 1787, Shay's Rebellion had begun and would cause trouble. This conflict, however, would be one of the main reasons why the convention would meet to consider the articles of... half the document... but this may have just been a ploy to get them to fight. At the end of the Revolutionary War, many slaves were returned to their masters, rather than given the freedom they had been promised. George Washington, our first president and founding father, was guilty of such an atrocity. Author Glen Brasher states, "Washington ordered the slaves returned to their owners and opened the lines so their masters could reclaim their property." One can only imagine how each of these men felt knowing that they had sacrificed so much in the hope that, along with the freedom of the colonies from Great Britain, they too would have the chance to taste the winds of freedom, but the hopes were dashed as they they returned to a life of turmoil and slavery. A soldier of the Hessian army who was there to witness the event described the scene: "we exploited them profitably and placed them .