|
I’m Steve Ember. This week in our series, we continue the story of the United States Constitution. In May of 1787, a group of America's early leaders met in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to amend the Articles of Confederation. That document had established a loose union of the 13 states with a weak central government. But instead of amending the articles, the delegates at the convention wrote a completely new constitution. As we heard last time, one of the issues they discussed was slavery. The existence of slavery affected decisions like how to count the national population. It also affected the powers proposed for Congress. The delegates at the convention accepted several political compromises on the issue of slavery. One compromise was the "three-fifths" rule. The population would be counted every ten years to decide how many members each state would have in the House of Representatives in Congress. With the three-fifths rule, the delegates agreed that every five slaves would be counted as three people. Another compromise would allow states to import slaves until the year 1808. After that, no new slaves would be brought into the country. Many of the delegates in Philadelphia did not like these compromises. But they knew the compromises would keep the southern states -- where slavery was most widespread -- from leaving the convention. After all the debates, bitter arguments, and compromises, the delegates were nearing the end of their work. Four months had passed since the convention began. The weather had been hot. Emotions had been hot, too. But that was expected. After all, the men in Philadelphia -- and the delegates were all men -- were deciding the future of their country. | 
