"Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several
states which may be included within this Union, according to their
respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole
number of free persons, including those bound to servitude for a term
of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three-fifths of all other
persons" (Art. I, Sec. 2); "The migration or importation of such persons
as any of the states now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not
be prohibited by the congress prior to the year 1808; but a tax or duty
may be imposed, not exceeding ten dollars on each person" (Art. I, Sec.
9); "No person held to service or labor in one state, under the laws
thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or
regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall
be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may
be due" (Art. IV, Sec. 2). With such provisions, though without the use
of the question-begging word _slaves_, the institution of human bondage
received formal recognition in the organic law of the new republic of
the United States.

"Just what is the light in which we are to regard the slaves?" wondered
James Wilson in the course of the debate. "Are they admitted as
citizens?" he asked; "then why are they not admitted on an equality with
white citizens? Are they admitted as property? then why is not other
property admitted into the computation?" Such questions and others to
which they gave rise were to trouble more heads than his in the course
of the coming years, and all because a great nation did not have the
courage to do the right thing at the right time.


4. Early Steps toward Abolition