u/Tedothy

Hey Reddit nation,

Article 1, Section 9 of the US Constitution says "The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight".

This refers to the importation of enslaved people, but this isn't clear from the actual language of the Constitution. Is there an explanation behind this unusually vague language? Is this a euphemism readers of the 1780s would have understood? A pronoun/antecedent error caused by a previous section being removed during the drafting process? A product of legalese?

Are there any good resources about the drafting of the Constitution at a grammatical level?