The members of the Convention who wished to put an end to this hideous traffic proposed that it should be prohibited, and that the enforcement of the prohibition should be assigned to the General Government.

Pinckney, however, keen to defend his privileged institution and the special interests of his State, bluntly informed the Convention that if they voted to abolish the slave trade, South Carolina would regard it as a polite way of telling her that she was not wanted in the new Union.

To think of attempting to form a Union without South Carolina amazed them all and made them pliable.

Although there was considerable opposition to giving the General Government control over shipping, this provision was passed.

The Northerners saw in it the germs of a tariff act which would benefit their manufacturers, and they agreed that the slave trade should not be interfered with before 1808 and that no export tax should be authorized.
The third compromise affected representation.