Did the U.S. Constitution, written in 1787, provide for the existence of slavery?
Slavery became stronger, not weaker, during the era of the American Revolution. The Constitution of the United States, written in 1787, did not include the word "slavery," but clearly provided for its existence. The Constitution's three-fifths clause counted slaves as three-fifths of a person for census purposes, in order to give Southern states greater representation in Congress. Also the Constitution protected the importation of slaves until the year 1808, and it declared that escaped slaves must be returned to their owners. In 1793, Congress passed a Fugitive Slave Act, which spelled out how this provision of the Constitution was to be enforced.