; Whereas the Founders in drafting the Constitution preserved slavery and racialized social stratification through systemic measures, without needing to explicitly mention harmful intent and racialized impacts; Whereas the Founders and their contemporaries understood freedom and liberty in direct relation to enslaved people and in their capacity to enslave Black people; Whereas the trade in and chattelization of human beings is referenced in 3 sections of the Constitution, namely article I, section 9, clause 1, which expressly sanctioned the continuation of the international slave trade for 20 years, article I, section 2, clause 3, which upheld the further dehumanization of the African by relegating their status to that of three-fifths of a White man, and article IV, section 2, clause 3, which egregiously mandated the capture and return to enslavement of fugitives; Whereas the system of enslavement served to unite all Thirteen Colonies under the banner of White supremacy; Whereas, of the Nation’s first 12 Presidents, 10 enslaved Black people; Whereas President James K. Polk traded enslaved Black people from the Oval Office; Whereas enslaved Black people built the United States Capitol and the White House; Whereas more than 1,700 United States Congressional Members who served in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries had enslaved Black people, including the first woman elected to the United States Senate, Senator Rebecca Latimer Felton; Whereas the Dred Scott v. Sanford legal ruling in 1857, which decided that enslaved Black people were not citizens of the United States under article III, was decided by 5 slaveholding Supreme Court Justices, including Chief Justice Roger B. Taney and Associate Justices John Campbell, John Catron, Peter Daniel, and James Moore Wayne; Whereas the horrors of chattel slavery are immeasurable and have led to generational trauma for millions of Black people