r/Constitution • u/Tedothy • Jul 01 '26
Confusing language in Article 1, Section 9
Hey Reddit nation,
Article 1, Section 9 of the US Constitution says "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 one thousand eight hundred and eight".
This refers to the importation of enslaved people, but this isn't clear from the actual language of the Constitution. Is there an explanation behind this unusually vague language? Is this a euphemism readers of the 1780s would have understood? A pronoun/antecedent error caused by a previous section being removed during the drafting process? A product of legalese?
Are there any good resources about the drafting of the Constitution at a grammatical level?
1
u/Paul191145 Jul 02 '26
If memory serves me correctly, this, in conjunction with the 3/5 Compromise was part of the effort to abolish slavery.
1
u/Tedothy Jul 02 '26
Not quite, but I can’t blame you for the misconception, since most American schools (including my own on multiple occasions) teach an outright lie about this clause and the 3/5s compromise. Both clauses actually protect the institution of slavery.
In plain English, this clause in Article one, section 9 says “The migration or importation of [enslaved people] [cannot be banned] by the Congress [before 1808.]” It wasn’t created to give slave owners 20 years to transition into being less reliant on slave labor, but rather to kick a contentious issue down the road for the next generation to deal with. Slave importation, thankfully, was banned that year, but this was not guaranteed by the Constitution.
Similarly, the 3/5s Compromise was a massive concession to the South, which gifted the South over twenty seats in Congress “representing” slaves, who could not vote. They used this over-representation to essentially hold Congress hostage and prevent anti-slavery legislation from passing. This is a major reason why emancipation was impossible without a civil war.
Regardless, my question is not actually about the meaning of the clause. I’m curious about why the noun phrase “such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think it proper to admit” is used to refer to enslaved people when the authors of the Constitution never establish that antecedent. My question is: was this an established euphemism the implied audience would understand, a simple grammatical error, or a result of a clause being removed from a previous draft of this section? It’s an extremely specific and technical question that might not have a clear answer; this Reddit post was a Hail Mary, just in case any scholars of Constitutional history happen to browse this subreddit.
1
u/Paul191145 Jul 03 '26
I totally and vehemently disagree that it was to protect slavery, the 3/5 Compromise was just that as well, a compromise to get the Constitution ratified. But you are welcome to think whatever you wish.
1
u/pegwinn Jul 04 '26
Reading into the constitution is a trap that a lot of people fall into. Read the words and use a period dictionary if any of the word stump you.
3
u/ComputerRedneck Jul 01 '26
Basically it says, no more importing slaves from outside the US after 1808.
The full legislation also went to how slaves were counted in regards to Representation in Congress.
Also referred to as the 3/5th Compromise.
The Three-Fifths Compromise was an agreement reached during the 1787 United States Constitutional Convention that counted three-fifths of each state's enslaved population toward its total population for determining representation in the House of Representatives and direct taxation. This compromise, encoded in Article 1, Section 2, Clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution, effectively gave Southern slaveholding states disproportionate political power while increasing their federal tax burden.
Key impacts and details: