The Constitution avoided the words slave and slavery, but it protected the institution through structure and compromise. This was not an incidental imperfection. It was part of the price paid to secure agreement among states divided by human bondage.
THE THREE-FIFTHS CLAUSE
For representation and direct taxation, five enslaved persons were counted as three persons. The clause did not declare that an enslaved person possessed threefifths of human worth; enslaved people had no political voice. Its practical effect was to increase the representation and presidential influence of slaveholding states by counting people whom those states denied freedom and voting rights.
THE SLAVE TRADE AND FUGITIVE LABOR
Congress was prohibited from banning the international slave trade before 1808, though it could tax imported captives. Another clause required persons “held to Service or Labour” who escaped into another state to be returned. The Constitution thus strengthened a union in which slavery could expand and gain national protection. Some framers criticized slavery; others defended or profited from it. Many accepted postponement to preserve union. The resulting document contained resources later used against slavery-national authority, republican principles, amendment and the Declaration’s moral influence-but the original Constitution did not abolish bondage. The Civil War and Reconstruction Amendments would be required to transform the constitutional order.
“The Constitution formed a more perfect Union. Its accommodation of slavery ensured that the Union remained profoundly imperfect.”
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