Three-Fifths Compromise and Slavery at Constitutional Convention 1787 Term Paper

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In Article 1, Section 9 of the Constitution, Congress was limited from prohibiting the importation of slaves, at least until 1808. For twenty years, Congress was, by virtue of the Constitution, enjoined from any attempt to limit slave importation. Finally, however, Congress did pass a law outlawing the slave trade as of January 1, 1808.

The final mention of slavery in the Constitution virtually prevented slaves from gaining freedom by escaping to a non-slave state. The Fugitive Slave Clause states that the laws of one state could not excuse a person from "service or labor" in another state; in short, escaped slaves were to be extradited from free states back to slave states because the escapees were not truly human with rights to liberty, but rather property with no rights.

Three of every four Southerners lived, after 1808, in the coastal states of Maryland, Virginia, and North and South Carolina; those states also, not surprisingly, had the largest concentration of slaves.

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As the nation expanded, and cotton cultivation began in the lower Southern states, including Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri and Texas, it was apparent that slave labor would be crucial to the prosperity of those states as well. In a demand market such as that, it became lucrative for slave owners in the Upper South -- the four largest slave states -- to sell slaves to the cotton states. This was advantageous to the Upper South because their economies were in decline; the sale of slaves to the developing states gave both areas what they needed to maintain a profitable economy for the slave-owning classes.

Works Consulted

Economics of Internal Slave Trade and Northern Slavery. Internet. http://cghs.dade.k12.fl.us/slavery/antebellum_slavery/economics/internal.htm

Slavery and the Constitution. Internet. Retrieved from http://www.usconstitution.net/consttop_slav.html

The Three-Fifths Compromise. Internet. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-fifths_compromise.....

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