The constitution strengthened the political power of the southern slaveholders?

Answer 1

Depends on how you look at it. The Constitution separated powers between the Federal government and the states, but was not always clear on who could do what. That actually changed over the years aseach Supreme Court decision came down clarifying things a little at a time.

In addition, the Constitution set up the Congress to favor neither the large states (i.e. large populations) or the small states. That's why in the House of Representatives, representatives are assigned by population and represent districts (New York has lots more than Nevada) while in the Senate, every state has two senators no matter their size. No law can be passed unless both houses of Congress approve it.

It wasn't the Constitution that affected the political power of the slaveholders, it was the Congress at the time which was split on the issue of whether slavery should be extended into the territories that were about to become states (like Texas and California). No one in Congress was really serious about trying to abolish it in the South before the Civil War.

The reason there was a Civil War was because the Southern states felt like they were being outvoted in both houses and, when a Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, was elected in 1860, they were sure they would lose any power they still had under the Constitution. The Republicans leaned more toward giving power to the federal government than the individual states.

Lincoln's election caused the southern states to secede from the United Staes starting in 1861 and declare their own independent country, the Confederate States of America. The Confederacy was built on states rights, with the central government having very little power. That actually hurt their was effort since it was almost impossible to get all the states to agree on anything important and the cntral govdernment was too weak to ram anything down their collective throats. Lincoln believed that the Constitution did not give any state the right to secede from the whole. That's why the North called the Southerners "rebels" and never accepted that they were fighting another sovereign country.