The resulting Constitution granted the commerce power through ordinary national lawmaking but prohibited federal taxes or duties on articles exported from any state. The Export Clause did not prohibit taxes on imports, ordinary internal taxes, or commerce regulation itself. It addressed goods leaving a state. Distinguishing the grant from the restriction is essential: Congress gained meaningful commercial authority while export-dependent interests received a specific constitutional protection.

Slavery shaped the bargain directly. Article I prevented Congress from prohibiting the migration or importation of persons whom states chose to admit before 1808, although Congress could impose a limited tax on each imported person. This protected the international slave trade from a federal ban for a defined period. It did not require the trade to end automatically in 1808. Congress enacted a prohibition in 1807 that took effect January 1, 1808; illegal trafficking continued, the domestic trade remained lawful, and slavery persisted until the Thirteenth Amendment.

The Constitution also required the return of people who escaped from bondage through the Fugitive Slave Clause. Together with the Three-Fifths rule and temporary protection of the international trade, that provision helped secure slaveholding support for the new union. These clauses should be named precisely rather than blended into a vague "commerce compromise." Interstate trade barriers point to the Commerce Clause; federal duties on goods leaving a state point to the Export Clause; a pre-1808 federal ban on importation points to the Migration or Importation Clause; and escape across state lines points to the Fugitive Slave Clause.

Video lesson: Constitutional Compromises: Crash Course Government and Politics #5