Info Brief: The Compromises Over Slavery

Read about the debates and compromises over slavery at the Constitutional Convention.

The Debates Over Slavery

Let’s end with one of the most controversial (and troubling) aspects of the Constitutional Convention—the delegates’ compromises over slavery.

At the Constitutional Convention, the framers compromised over the issue of slavery. On the one hand, the delegates refused to recognize the right to property in men. They also made sure not to write the word “slave” or “slavery” into the Constitution. At the same time, the framers did agree to write important protections for slavery into the Constitution.

For now, let’s focus on three of them: the Three-Fifths Clause, the Fugitive Slave Clause, and the Slave Trade Clause.

Three-Fifths Clause

Text of the Constitution:

The “Three-fifths Clause,” Article I, Sect. II, Cl. 3

“Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.”

As discussed earlier, the U.S. House of Representatives draws up districts based on a state’s population—the more people in a state, the greater the number of districts it gets. And the greater the number of districts for each state—and for each region of the country (North versus South)—the greater the political power in Congress.

The key question in the debate over the Three-Fifths Clause was how to count enslaved people for purposes of representation in the U.S. House.

At the Convention, pro-slavery Southerners argued that enslaved people should count as a full person—five-fifths—but anti-slavery Northerners called them out for their hypocrisy. How could the Southern delegates ask for the Convention to count enslaved people as a full person for purposes of representation in the U.S. House, but also deny them all rights and treat them as mere property back home in the states?

Pennsylvania delegate Gouverneur Morris was one of the strongest anti-slavery delegates at the Convention. During the debates at the Convention, he called slavery a “nefarious institution— . . . the curse of heaven on the states where it prevailed.” Morris then attacked the Three-Fifths Clause for giving “the inhabitant of Georgia and South Carolina who goes to the Coast of Africa, and in defiance of the most sacred laws of humanity tears away his fellow creatures from their dearest connections and damns them to the most cruel bondages, . . . more votes in a government instituted for the protection of the rights of mankind, than the citizen of Pennsylvania or New Jersey who views with a laudable horror so nefarious a practice.”

The Convention rejected Southern attempts to count enslaved people as a full person for purposes of representation in the U.S. House, and Northern attempts to exclude them from the congressional count altogether. Ultimately, Roger Sherman of Connecticut brokered the compromise that became the Three-Fifth Clause. Enslaved people would count as three-fifths of a person for purposes of representation in the U.S. House.

Of course, the framers avoided using the word “slave” or “slavery” in the clause itself. But this clause had a huge practical impact over time. It entrenched the power of the slaveholding states in the new government. The Three-Fifths Clause increased pro-slavery strength in Congress (by counting enslaved people as three-fifths of a person), in the presidency (through the Electoral College), and at the Supreme Court (through electing pro-slavery presidents, who appoint those justices).

Fugitive Slave Clause

There was little debate at the Convention over the Fugitive Slave Clause’s language. And the language itself wasn’t new. It was mostly taken from the Northwest Ordinance of 1787.

The Northwest Ordinance was based on efforts by Thomas Jefferson in his time in Congress to deal with slavery in the territories. It banned slavery there. However, it also granted slaveholders the power to recapture enslaved people that escaped into the territories. The Fugitive Slave Clause was modeled after this idea—allowing Southern slaveholders to go into Northern states to retrieve enslaved people who had escaped from enslavement. And Congress would pass Fugitive Slave Acts to enforce this power.

At the Convention, the delegates unanimously approved Pierce Butler’s language for the Clause. Again, the Framers avoided using the word “slave” in the Clause.

Slave Trade Clause

Text of the Constitution:

Slave Trade Clause: Article 1, Section 9, Clause I:

“The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a Tax or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person.”

By the founding, even many slaveholders opposed the transatlantic slave trade. Only delegates from the Deep South—namely, South Carolina and Georgia—defended this inhumane practice, even threatening to leave the Convention if their fellow delegates didn’t give into their demands.

Some delegates—like John Dickinson, George Mason, and Rufus King—called for the Convention to ban the transatlantic slave trade altogether. But the framers rejected that proposal. Instead, the delegates agreed to a compromise over the issue. The Constitution would eventually grant Congress the power to ban the international slave trade, but not until January 1, 1808. So, the Constitution continued to protect the international slave trade for twenty years.

During those twenty years, an additional 200,000 enslaved people were brought to the United States and held in bondage. In 1808, the Constitution finally granted Congress the power to abolish the international slave trade, and so it did.

Conclusion

In the end, the anti-slavery Northern delegates wanted to block the expansion of slavery and did not want to write explicit protection for slavery—recognition of the right to property in man—into the Constitution. Many framers hoped that enough states in the North would move toward emancipation that slavery might die out in a generation or two. Connecticut’s Oliver Ellsworth predicted, “Slavery, in time, will not be a speck in our country.”

If only . . .

However, the delegates were also open to protecting the existing property rights of the slaveholders and were willing to compromise with Southern slaveholders in order to form a new Union, ratify the Constitution, and create a new national government stronger than the government under the Articles of Confederation. At the same time, Southern slaveholders fought to build in protections against future anti-slavery Northerners’ attempts to restrict (and even abolish) slavery.

In the end, the legality of slavery—whether to permit it or to abolish it—was left to the states, where it stayed until the ratification of the 13th Amendment after the Civil War.

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