Using the best historical evidence at your disposal, speculate on the reasons the section on the slave trade being eliminated and what it says about the nature of political compromise and self-interest. (minimum 200-words) (25 points)

Article 1, Section 9, Clause 1, is one of a handful of provisions in the original Constitution related to slavery, though it does not use the word “slave.” This Clause prohibited the federal government from limiting the importation of “persons” (understood at the time to mean primarily enslaved African persons) where the existing state governments saw fit to allow it, until some twenty years after the Constitution took effect. It was a compromise between Southern states, where slavery was pivotal to the economy, and states where the abolition of slavery had been accomplished or was contemplated.

There is a sense in which the Clause is no longer constitutionally relevant since it expired in 1808. At the time the Constitution was adopted, there was no guarantee whether or when the federal Congress would act to prohibit the importation of slaves. So there is a legitimate inquiry about what took place in the political realm over the 20-year period between the adoption of the Constitution and 1808. During that time period, popular support for the abolition of the slave trade and slavery itself increased both in the United States and in other countries. There was more support for restricting the slave trade initially than slavery itself in this time period. In the 1790s, Congress passed statutes regulating the trade in slaves by U.S. ships on the high seas. The United Kingdom and other countries also passed legislation restricting the slave trade, increasing international pressure on the United States to likewise curb the practice.

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