constitution were quick to realize that such a document would never be
approved by the South. Most of the antislavery forces concluded that it
was necessary to put the Union above abolition.

While the Constitution did not specifically mention slavery, it did
legally recognize the institution in three places. First, there was a
heated debate over the means of calculating representation to the House.
Southern spokesmen wanted as many delegates as possible and preferred
that slaves be counted. Northerners, wanting to restrict Southern
representation, insisted that slaves not be counted. Some of them
pointed out that it was an insult to whites to be put on an equal footing
with slaves. The compromise which was framed in Article I, Section 2,
was that a slave should be counted as three-fifths of a man.

Second, the antislavery elements tried to make their stand at the
convention by attacking the slave trade. However, while many Southern
states were opposed to the trade, the issue became entangled in power
politics. South Carolina, which had few slaves, believed that the
termination of the slave trade would force up the price of slaves and
place her at a severe disadvantage in comparison with Virginia which
already had a large slave supply. It argued that Virginia would be
artificially enriched to the disadvantage of the other Southern states.
The states of the North and middle South were again forced to compromise,
and, in Article II, Section 9, they agreed that the trade would be
permitted to continue for another twenty years.

The third capitulation occurred in Article IV, Section 2, which as the
Fugitive Slave Provision. It stated that a slave who ran away and
reached a free state, did not thereby obtain his freedom. Instead, that
state was required, at the master's request, to seize and return him.

In fact, the delegates to the Constitutional Convention were afraid that
the revolutionary ideology of freedom and equality had unwisely and
unintentionally unleashed a social revolution. Southern planters
envisioned the end of slavery on which their wealth was based. Northern
capitalists were opposed to the liberal and democratic land laws which
the people were demanding. The economic leaders in both sections of the
country believed that there was a need to protect property rights against
these new revolutionary human rights. While the Northern states strove
to stabilize society in order to build a flourish