Answer:
This Compromise regulated commerce in the North and South but not the slave trade. That was put off for another 20 years.
Explanation:
The Commerce and Slave Trade Compromise was one of the agreements reached in the Constitutional Convention of 1787. There were two issues at stake here. First, Southern states did not want the new federal government to have the power to regulate commerce. They were afraid that this would give the government the power to effectively end slavery in the United States. The second issue was the slave trade itself. Northern states wanted to abolish the international slave trade, while southern states did not.
These were contentious issues. Most northern states had already begun abolishing slavery at the state level, as they moved towards more industrial economies. The southern states, which were the richest in the country at the time, relied heavily on slave labor. It was so important to them that Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina threatened to leave the convention.
So, a compromise was struck. To appease the Southern states, it was agreed that the federal government would not have the authority to tax the export of goods from any state, and that it would not attempt to ban the international slave trade for 20 years (although it could tax imported slaves like any other product). In exchange, the slave-holding delegates of the South agreed to remain in the convention. The Constitution was finalized, but the divisive issue of slavery was built into the fabric of the country, unresolved.
