The crucial compromise was an agreement to avoid any direct discussion of the divisive issue and to use euphemisms like “that species of property” when the forbidden topic forced itself onto the agenda. The two most explicit decisions implicitly endorsing slavery were the agreement to count slaves as three-fifths of a person for purposes of representation in the House and a prohibition against ending the slave trade for twenty years, concessions to the Deep South, especially South Carolina, that appear horrific to our eyes but without which the Constitution almost certainly could never have
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